Our Maine Coon Has Wound On Inner Eye Corner

[xvampire]

It appeared yesterday. Inside eye corner where they usally have eye crust he has like a swollen pink wound all around that corner and his eye is watering and hes blinking faster than normal on this eye. Should iodine solution help or be applied there or should we wait and go to vet when its open

How can we help him and does anyone know what this is? It may be they fought with other of our cat and she scratched him, but thats only idea we got

 

[Diana Faye]

Do you have a picture? Your description makes me think maybe the inner eye lid is inflamed. I don't have much experience but I would personally be wary about treating something without knowledge or direction, particularly around an eye. Saline may be the safest choice to try to flush it out. I would go to the vet since the eye is a very sensitive area, and there could be an infection or irritation to cause that eyelid to become inflamed (if that is indeed what is going on).

 

[jen]

Don't mess with putting things in the eyes. Get the cat to the vet to be properly treated with medication specific to what is going on. I have seen too many people try to self medicate eye issues and the cat ends up with far more serious issues or loses an eye.

 

[Leomc123]

If it is an eye related issue its best to not put any sort of medication on it until you get your cat to the vet asap, also if it is watering that is a good thing as the eye is flushing itself out with its own natural tear salts.

As you say it has inflamed its better to take your cat to the vet to check it as it may be an abscess forming if you think its from a cat scratch, if the abscess does not break open on its own to allow the infected puss to drain, the infection can stay inside and make your cats eyes swell more which will be painful and cause serious issues with the eyes and also infect his blood.

 

[xvampire]

Here are photos i uploaded how it looks.



It got more red around eye later in the day. It looked already better but its not.

Is this eye inflammed? Could it be from a scratch? We will take him to the vet, but it's night and I want opinions on what it could be and how to treat it. We are suspecting he fought with our other cat and got this, because it started on inner corner and he got now all red around eye and is blinking constantly. Is there anything we could apply what humans use, some medication ointment that is approved by vets? We are in Europe. Thanks a lot for help

 

[Diana Faye]

The inner eyelid looks ok (shadow in pic makes it hard to tell, but it does not look swollen). I'm assuming that is discharge in the inner eye??

As stated above, you really don't want to self medicate without a diagnosis. You can gently wipe discharge with a damp cloth, but you should otherwise leave it alone until you see a vet. There's 2 reasons for this- 1, you could potentially cause more harm than good and 2, the vet needs to see it as is to make a proper diagnosis. Even the amount and color of discharge is helpful for a vet to see the severity of the problem. I know it's hard to sit by and feel helpless when you want your baby to feel better, but the best thing you can do right now is just offer comfort and wait to see the vet.

 

[xvampire]

Thank you all for replying. We have been to the vet meanwhile.

She checked eye with fluorescein dye to check for conjunctivitis. It was negative as nothing shown up under light.

As she couldn't understand what it could be. We told her he could have scratch from our other cat and that maybe that's why all his eye got red, she guessed the best treatment would be Tobrex medicine which I understand is Tobramycin which is used to treat eye infections, it kills bacteria that forms in eye infections.

Now she said give him 5 drops in a day and wipe it twice daily with warm water. Already after first 4 drops he got better looking eye. Discharge stopped, its also looking less red. The inner corner stuff dried up, so basically he is fine now.

Now so far he's got 7 drops of this medicine total.
She said report on Thursday if he's better or he'll have to come back for a check up. So tomorrow i will report to them.

So now she said that after he is all fine we will still have to apply this medicine for two weeks more. I guess to prevent relapse and to prevent development of resistance, but here I am reading about this medicine being dangerous and can really harm kidneys and hearing ability.

So considering all dried up and he is not blinking his eye anymore and it looks overall healed, we are thinking to not give him the medicine anymore even though she said even when he is fine continue for 2 more weeks. Why? In the 1st place he didn't show any conjuctivitis, so whether this drops helped him or not is questionable and we don't wanna put him in danger.

I am saying all this, because he is a lovely boy but he doesn't usually curl up beside us on vouch to sleep and he did this twife since yesterday and later he came to my husbands legs being all lovely and rubbing himself. As i said he is normally very lovely, vocal and positive cat, but this behaviour suddenly seemed strange, so i dont know i may be just a bit paranoid with using drugs, but what do u think? We already lost 1 cat in the past, he had kidney failure either because vets were slow to find out whats wrong, or cause of meds they administered to us, so I am always a bit skeptical now.)

In worst case if he didn't get enough medication we would see eye going back to being bad if there was any serious infection (which didn't show, no?)

 

[Diana Faye]

So considering all dried up and he is not blinking his eye anymore and it looks overall healed, we are thinking to not give him the medicine anymore even though she said even when he is fine continue for 2 more weeks. Why? In the 1st place he didn't show any conjuctivitis, so whether this drops helped him or not is questionable and we don't wanna put him in danger.

I am saying all this, because he is a lovely boy but he doesn't usually curl up beside us on vouch to sleep and he did this twife since yesterday and later he came to my husbands legs being all lovely and rubbing himself. As i said he is normally very lovely, vocal and positive cat, but this behaviour suddenly seemed strange, so i dont know i may be just a bit paranoid with using drugs, but what do u think? We already lost 1 cat in the past, he had kidney failure either because vets were slow to find out whats wrong, or cause of meds they administered to us, so I am always a bit skeptical now.)

In worst case if he didn't get enough medication we would see eye going back to being bad if there was any serious infection (which didn't show, no?)

Sometimes, even the best doctors/ vets need to make an educated guess, or opt for a treatment that will cover a broad range of issues. The reason why we are instructed to complete medical treatment for infections is because if you stop the treatment before all the bacteria is killed, you will be left with a strain that becomes resistant to that medication, and require a more intense treatment should it make a comeback.

All medications have potential side effects- but you have to weigh the risks with the benefits. I would much rather finish a treatment than risk infection that would require more harmful drugs. Just because you look or feel better, does not mean that you are fully "cured." This goes for human doctors, too. I would continue treatment until you are able to discuss it with your vet, and if you have concerns voice it and ask if it is safe to discontinue, or if it is possible to reduce dosage.