possible eye issue

For the past few days Miles has one eye that isn't as open as the other sometimes and winking fairly often. There hasn't been discharge, no swelling, and nothing else wrong. How long before I should think about taking him to the vet ? Its very difficult to get him into the carrier, and I know he won't be remotely cooperative at the vet otherwise I might have already taken him.

Do you have another cat in the house that might have scratched him?

If not, he probably needs to see the vet. Should see him anyway, just to minimize the chance of permanent damage.

But our Ella has the same problem on a regular basis, and no amount of checking has found the cause yet.

My condolences. See my thread on "eye infection" for my tale of woe.

I had my kitty at the vet at the same time as another cat owner with exactly the same problem.

The vet puts eye drops in the eye (that's fun!) that show up under a black light, then looks at the eye with a black light while I hold the cat (that's fun!) to see if there are any scratches on the eye itself. There weren't in my case.

With no sniffling or sneezing, he ruled out the second probably cause: upper respiratory infection. He then chalked it up to just a plain old eye infection (conjunctivitis). Could be caused by a scratch from another kitty around the eye that then led to infection.

Anyway, the treatment is an antibiotic/bacitracin ointment in the eye three times a day. Now we are talking some serious fun!

Cost me $50 inc. the $15 for the eye ointment. The fun of trying to put ointment in a kitty's eye? Priceless.

I do have another cat, Zoe, a 7 month old kitten. They don't play a whole lot yet. But it could have happened in one of their brief play fights.

He looks fine for hours, and then he will wink for a while, and then its fine again.