Pink eye

[bluekat]

Hi,
I've got this litter of 8 kittens, 6 wks old. Three of them have developed pink eye. A couple are intermittantly sneezeing. All are eating, playing, etc. I've been treating the pink eye with terrimycin eye ointment for 3 days.
I'm assumeing the whole litter will get it, but so far it hasn't spread to the other kittens. How long does it take for pink eye to clear up? Do you think it will clear up with terrimycin? If I take them to the vet, it's going to cost approx. $20 per each kitten & mother, for an exam, plus a $4 office visit fee, then of course more eye medication.
I'm thinking I should work on it maybe 5 to 7 days, and see if it clears up, or starts getting better. I don't want to let it go too long, if other people have tried terrimycin & it doesn't work.
bluekat

 

[hissy]

There are several nasty reasons why pink eye appears in kittens. Two reasons are Feline Herpes Virus and Chlamydia, but there are other sources for this type of infection. It would be best for you to take the kittens in to be seen, so the vet can have a look.

Along with the prescribed medicine (it has been prescribed correct?) You should take a bowl of warm water and soak several cotton balls in the water, wring out the cotton ball, and gently place the damp ball on the eye- do not try and pry it open, just let the warmth and the water sit on the eye for a few moments then remove the compress. You may have to repeat this procedure to loosen up the gunk and allow the eye to open on it's own. Again, do not try and force the eyes open you could do great damage. Let the water and the heat do the work for you.

Your vet will probably also give you a saline solution to rinse the eyes with. Depending on the severity of the virus it will fluctuate as to how long these kittens will be infected. But you really need to see a vet, even if you just take one kitten in, but ideally you should take the whole family.


Good luck!

 

[bluekat]

It was good advice to just take one or 2 in, because at least I didn't have to pay a fortune to learn NOTHING. When the 3rd eye lid was glued shut the morning after your note, I called my vet to find she was on vacation. So I called another one. I took the 2 worst in. It cost $118.
So she told me they had a virus. Well, DAH honey, I knew they had a virus. She couldn't tell me what kind. Since the terrimycin I had used for 4 days didn't seem to be helpeing she sold me the triple anibiotic, along with amixocillin. The "prescribed" stuff is easy to mix of course but her dose for 2# kittens is 10 mg. once/day. I'm sorry, that just doesn't do the trick. All med charts say 5 to 10 mg. per pound twice or 3 times day. So the kittens laid in a heap the 2 days I used her "prescribed" worthless notion. As soon as I started giving them off label Amoxicillin at the "right" dose, they perked right up, playing like bandits even though one has both eyes glued shut most of the time.
To get the third eye-lid open at the vets office, she hauled it into a different room, so I couldn't watch. Then told me she vigerously had to rub it with cotton balls & water. It was swelled up something terrible after the vet got done with the poor thing.
Then the intelligent vet told me to try the one eye ointment for a few days, and if it didn't work, go back to what I was using. Somehow all reason escaped me, & I did not ask to have a culture done, which would have been the correct thing to do.
So I spent $118, for NOTHING. I'm cleaning eyes several times a day, just like the other poor person on the other thread. Only I've got a litter of 8 kittens !!!!!! Plus they were worth considerable money before this happened. As far as opening that third eye lid, I'm at a lose. I've soaked and soaked. Prying and scrubing. The vet is nuts. Vigorous my @## !!!!!. I'll wreck their lovely eye balls if I follow the vets recommendations.
I cut the sleeves off an old sweatshirt, and ware those sleeves when working on them. Saves a lot of scratches. My hands are covered with scratches. Amazeingly the vet didn't have any scratches on her hands. Can't imagine why not. Probably because she has never personally saved a kitten from what ever un-diagnosed virus they have.