Kitten sniffling, breathing fast, warm, with goopey/pussy eye

I recently adopted my kitten off of a farm, and this isn't an uncommon thing to happen to the kittens there. Usually on the farm we give them a small dab of polysporin (one that doesn't have toxic ingredients, depending on the cat it'll just make their poo runny) in the infected eye(s) and let them get over it themselves, but I'm not really sure if those are the appropriate steps to take for my inside cat. When I phoned the emergency clinic they told me it wasn't serious and I could just go into my regular vet when I had the opportunity within the next week or so and that it's likely a respiratory infection. I'm worried it's more serious than the emergency clinic let on, though he's still running around and eating like normal. I put a small dab of polysporin in his eye already and it helped it clear up a decent bit - no goop for the past few hours, and I'll supplement with more wet food to make up for any runny poo. Any advice would be extremely helpful.

I am suprised the emergency clinic gave any sort of advice over the phone. But I am in California and people are sue happy here, someone would likely sue if the clinic gave that advice without an exam and was wrong.

That said, I always take kittens in right away even on minor things (my vet knows I panic first and act). They can just go downhill so quickly. It does sound like a cold of some sort so it might pass on its own, especially if you are saying its common in your area. So long as your kitten is eating, drinking, and using the litter box you can probably wait a few days. But if there is a lack of eating for 24 hours don't hesitate to go to the vet. Also, if the symptoms last longer than a few days (probably the time period the clinic gave) go to the vet. If you see any vomiting or diarrhea (worse than the runny poo you mentioned as a side effect of the medication) would say go to the vet sooner because your kitten can get dehydrated extremely quickly and depending on the age and prior health thag can become life-threatening very very fast.

I agree with Kieka about taking symptoms in kittens very seriously.  I am a human doctor, not a vet but fast breathing in a kitten could well be pneumonia.  This is not something that you could treat yourself and my advice is to take your kitten to the vet as soon as possible.  Better safe than sorry!

Geoffrey

@Kieka @Geoffrey

An update on this.  This morning his eye had cleared up a bit, but still wasn't without any goop, so I did another dab of polysporin and was going to bring him into the vet once I got back home if he looked the same.  Voila, I get home from classes and the little bugger has no sniffles, no fever, breathing at a normal rate, and his eye is clear as water.  Never, ever have had a cat react that fast to polysporin.  Unless it was just the tail end of a cold he had.

If it comes back at all, even just a smidge, I am definitely taking him to the vet ASAP.  The risk of pneumonia was something I was pretty concerned about too.  I can see it now, I'm also going to be taking my little munchkin's bouts of anything not being 100% right as something to panic about.  Better safe than sorry, and with the advice the two of you gave me I doubt it would be an overreaction to take him in for it at this point if it does come back.

@Kieka - I'm surprised the clinic gave me any info as well.  I phoned ahead in case more in case of them being too busy.  I live in Canada though, and for the most part I've found that vets, or at least the secretarial staff that I've run into, care a lot about pets more so than making a lot of money.  I'm very thankful for that.