Kitty's eyes get red and watery

My orange tabby's eyes seem to bother him sometimes - the area right around his eyes gets red and he'll get gook running from the corners. During these times, I can tell his eyes are bothering him because he blinks and squints a lot. It never lasts all day (or i would have called the vet), so I have assumed it's an allergy of some sort. It doesn't seem to be related to his food....and he doesn't sneeze or cough when his eyes are red (like a person would when they have allergies). can cats have allergies?? and if so, can they just affect their eyes?

PS>>>he's not around any other cats (or people, other than me and my boyfriend), he's up to date on all of his shots, he doesn't go outside, and he eats wet EVO food, and he's very healthy.

It could be airborne allergens or a reaction to dust in your home or from litter box dust. Both of my kitties get itchy eyes when the weather changes and this time of year, that's an almost daily thing here.

As an addendum to my original post, I wanted to mention that Kitty has developed dark eye gunk in the corners of his eyes recently. He is almost 2, and has never had eye gunk up until now. Is this just something that they don't have as kittens, but maybe develop as adults (kind of like stinky breath!)??? His eyes seem fine, other than occasionally being a little red which seems like allergies. He doesn't seem sick, in fact he is in very good health. I haven't changed his food or anything, so I can't think of why the sudden appearance of eye gunk. I have to clean it out a couple times a day...usually after he's been sleeping. THoughts?

If it's dried brown gunk, then that's normal. If the discharge is colored, green, or yellow, then off to the vet!

Stephanie

well, not sure if this will help or not but i have a long hair orange tabby also who has red watery eyes. but....he has also been diagnosed with an auto immune disease. he does sneeze when he has a flare up and he also gets acne on his lips and chin. also, his nose and lips will be a deep red, noticably different from his normal color. i have managed to keep it under control with hibiclense for the acne and a product called natural defense to boost his immune system. also, the biggest difference in his eyes have come from changing his litter to one that in almost dust free. you can get it at walmart, called special kitty, the kind thats scoopable. it may help to try the special kitty litter.

Not sure if this will help, but Belle and Delilah had watery eyes a month and a half back. Sometimes it would be just one eye, sometimes it would be both. It would go away and come back, sometimes within the same day. I thought maybe it was herpes, and got them some lysine and started wiping their eyes with saline solution.

Around the same time, we realized that we had a moisture/mold problem in our closet. Both cats spent a lot of time sleeping in our closet. Once we realized the problem, we shut the closet door and stopped allowing the cats in there. They haven't had a watery eye problem since.

I have no idea if the watery eyes and the mold were related, but I find it quite coincidental that both problems started and ended at the same time.