Red rimmed eyes/ Black crust/ Sore looking tip of nose

Hi there
I have a one and a half year old male cat(white with small amt of orange) who has always had kind of pink rimmed eyes which the vet said was typical. However for about 7 months or so, he has had red, sore looking eyes and seems to be sensitive to bright light off and on. He also has had a large amt of black discharge in his eyes that gets very hard. When his eyes are really bad, the tip of his nose gets really red and sore looking. While I was on my honeymoon my mom took him to her vet and she gave us BNPH ointment to put in his eyes for 5 days. She never really said what she "diagnosed" only that it is likely something we'll have to doctor him for for the rest of his life. We've given the ointment to him for about 4 days now and his eyes are no longer red and sore looking however he now has a clear fluid discharge coming from his eyes, almost like tears. Is this normal or something I should be concerned about? What is this ointment usually prescribed for? He also still seems to be quite sensitive to light - maybe this is just something he will always have, kind of like his mommy(me lol)?

It sounds like he might have some environmental allergies. Fall is a tough time for allergy sufferers. He might always need some meds to get him through the season. But it also sounds like he probably has chronic feline herpes (which is fairly common). Adding l-lysine powder (NOW brand from Amazon is what I use) to his food or water would probably help, and definitely won't hurt. It's a general immune booster, as well as suppressing the herpes virus (great for when humans have a cold sore, too).

I've heard of cats (and people) having chronic conjunctivitus. Have you ruled out that? I've heard bad allergies can cause too so it could be a combination. Like Willowly said, your cat may require long term medication to help with what ever he's suffering from.

Rereading your post, its sounding more and more like chronic allergies. I keep thinking, wow that sounds like me sometimes. Does your cat sneeze often or does it seem like he has a runny or stuffed nose sometimes? The nose soreness could be it just getting chapped due to allergies. I would advise using a Q-tip and gently applying a tiny bit of neosporin or any antibiotic ointment. Make sure you don't block his notrils though! My vet suggested that to my family when one of our cat got a nasty mostquito or tick bite while outside that got a little infected. It seemed to help it pretty quickly. You might want to ask your vet first but you may want to see about using the neosporin with the pain releiving formula if his nose seems to be too sore.

The first easy thing I'd try would be giving the cat about 250 mg of L-Lysine per day. Look around here for instructions, etc. It could be an ongoing herpes infection, and it wouldn't hurt, at any rate.