Is my cats incision infected?

Since my 7 month old kitty was spayed on Saturday I have been a nervous wreck. I haven't had any experience with this type of procedure since I was a kid. I have been having trouble monitoring the incision. Everything I read says to watch out for redness and swelling. There doesn't seem to be much swelling, just a little bump around the area. However it is red. It looks like a scab. How do I determine whether this is healing normally or it is begining to get infected? She has had a little discharge but that has been minimal and the wound does not appear to be open. Am I looking for redness around the incision or on the incision itself. It just looks like a scab to me. She is very active and hasn't been acting abnormally. There was one day where she wasn't eating much a few days after the procedure but her appetitie has returned. Seperately she has had some dark brown "gook" discharge from her eyes. Pardon my expression but it looks like little  brown boogers on the area between her eye and nose. I have just been wiping them away with a damp tissue.

In short does this sound like anything I should worry about? I want to take her for a check up but really cant afford it for a few days. I certainley don't want to take her to the vet if I am just being overly paranoid. Thanks for your help.

thanks for your help

Does the area feel warm?  Is she eating and drinking?

She is eating and drinking fine. I cant tell if that particular area is warmer thank the rest of her belly. She seems fine. Maybe a little sleepier than usual but it just may be that she is tired. She is definately eating. I will keep paying attention to these things. I will likely take her in for a check up some time this week. Thanks

It looks worse than I'd like to see after a week. But I don't think I'd call it infected yet. If at any point she seems off her feed, call the vet right away. But for now, just keep an eye on it. . .it should be nearly completely healed externally after 2 weeks, so if it doesn't look like it's headed that direction, a vet visit is in order sometime next week.

Most vets will do post-spay checkups for free or at least at a discount. I suppose under the idea that if one of their surgeries has a complication, they're at least partially responsible for it. So ask your vet about that. . .and if you're worried about any part of the healing process, just call to ask about it. Calls are free .

It is very difficult to see from a photo. but it does look a little more swollen than I would consider normal. Why not phone your vet for advice? The eye discahrage does not look too serious - wipe it with saline solution or diluted optrex. But ask the vet when you next talk to him.

I do not think that is infected . I have seen infected spay incisions and they are much worse than that. It looks like she might be licking the incision and causing a little bleeding and irritation. If she is constantly licking the incision, she might need an elizabethan collar to block her from being able to reach the incision. If it were infected, there would be much more swelling around the incision, redness spreading around the incision and would feel very, very warm to the touch. Hard not to worry but I think she will heal up just fine. The eye gook just looks like dried tears. If her eyes are extremely watery, she might be just coming down with a little cold from the stress of the surgery. Hope she is feeling better today

Thanks for all of your help. You guys made me feel much less anxious. It seems a little better now. I am planning to take her for a check up some time this week. It does seem a bit better though. Thanks again for all your help

It does not look infected to me either. When I adopted my Mimi from the shelter she had been spayed for a least 2-3 weeks, and her incision was raised for a while.  My vet assured me it would heal on its own, and it did.

it looks one hundred percent better. I started giving her lysine treats which the vet gave me a while back. They seemed to help. Its not swollen anymore and the incision has healed a lot. Thanks again for your help

Please post an update.

My baby will be 5mos on the nose as of tomorrow, Saturday 8/4/12. She was spayed Tuesday 7/31, and her incision looks a bit like this one. They called it "buried sutures". It's been kind of bulbous on the front end and tucked on the .. end end. Yours was the first photo I could find on Google of an incision that looked at all similar, and it was on page 8. I was getting worried. Deedee barely has any discharge, no bleeding that I've seen. She licks a little bit, but not excessively. I can tell she's tender, because she's being careful and mostly staying on the ground. She's the smaller, faster, catch the flying birdier between herself and her larger fuzzier brother, Dexter. They both eat and drink plenty. I plan to take her to a vet for followup on Tuesday, but I've never been through this before, and I could not sleep the first night. 

The cat in that picture turned out to be fine by the way. I got worried because she kept biting and licking it. As I recall by the second week she started to heal really well. My advice is for the first few days make her wear the collar. If it is more trouble than its worth let her go without it but if she staets biting at it put it back on. At one point I even put a clean brand new (that important) tube sock. Many will say this is a bad idea, but I found it helpful for the first week to keep her from ripping out the stitches. Most cats end up leaving it alone. Your kittie will be fine. I remember how nerve racking it was. Any problems just go to the vet