Cat with eye discharge and squint?

Skyy, one of our two (very spoiled) ladies sometimes has discharge from her eyes and gets crusty bits next to the eyes... We've been remodeling since we got her three years ago, and she is constantly in the middle of everything, sticking her head in places it doesn't belong. So, I figure some of the junk is from her being way too nosy.

BUT, she sometimes has a greenish mucus discharge from her eyes. Had her into the vet in March, who gave me Neomycin/Polymycin ointment to put in her eyes twice a day for 10 days. Seemed better, but she was having the discharge again in August so we went back in. Gave me the ointment again, and I used it for 10 days again.

As near as I can tell, the eyes are much better, still getting some discharge occasionally, but not like it was. The vet thinks it may be a little bit of allergies, but she seems pretty good......

BUT, it seems to me that sometimes she squints from one eye... I read in here somewhere that a cat should have both eyes wide open. In Skyy's case, she sometimes doesn't have one eye as wide open as the other. I don't know if it's because there's a problem or just because she's a goof... Then, other times I'll check her and both eyes slitted or both are wide open... The vet didn't think it was anything important. But, I figure I'd throw a note in here to see what folks think.......

A squint can indicate some irritation, or an infection pending. It may be viral, in which case antibiotics will do nothing, except when the virus goes into secondary bacterial infection, which is why you see improvement, and then it comes back.

I reccommend you put Skyy on daily l-lysine, it will help boost her immune system so she can fight any virus lingering in her body. She may have the herpes virus, and l-lysine is specific for that.

Talk it over with your vet first of course, but l-lysine is a supplement, no prescription needed, and it may help quite a lot.

I use a pure l-lysine powder, it dissolves right in the food, but can be put in water, or added to kibble, too. It has a salty taste, most cats love salt and do not object to having the powder added.

500 mg is the standard loading dose, with a maintenance dose of 500 mg every other day or 250 daily.

My cat had something similar when I got him from the shelter. He had a retinal ulcer, which can be caused by lots of different things. Something getting in the eye could have caused a scratch which turned into an ulcer. Look a your cat's eye and make sure there isn't a physical scratch, or a shadow or anything odd about the eye itself.

Wellington had constant eye infections and brown discharge for years, and the vet kept giving me ointments and cleansers. Finally a few months ago, he got bad conjunctivitis and red discharge that was obviously painful. This time the vet took him in to examine him under sedation, and found he had a retinal ulcer caused by build-up of discharge. It turned out he has no tear duct on one side so the normal fluids have nowhere to go and quickly become an infected blockage. It is very easy to test for this condition - just by putting coloured drops in his eyes the vet can see if the fluid is running out normally through the nose, and it is not that uncommon. Now I just wash his eyes every day and prevent any build-up - and he has had no recent problems. So it would be worth asking about his ducts - are they maybe blocked or even non-existent?

Both I and the vet have examined her eyes, and neither has seen anything on the surface... I don't know about anything internal.....

Sounds like another trip to the vet..... While I"m there I can have her ears looked at again, too..... She gets wax in her ears, and last time there was a big clump that the stuff we had been using wouldn't loosen. The vet sedated her and cleaned the ears and she's been doing a lot less scratching, but if I"m going in, it can't hurt to look.......

I have several cats with occasionally goopy, runny eye(s). My vet said it is a low grade viral infection... one of them must have brought it from the shelter and now they all have it to some degree. They get l-lysine in their food every day and the problem is much much better.

ETA: my vet did add that if it's chronically one eye its usually viral.. both eyes and allergies more likely to come into play. I think a couple of my kitties have both.