Reply #4: I learned this the hard way

[TorchTheWitch]

One of my dogs I had years ago started with one eye getting a little drippy. I didn't think much of it since it didn't seem to bother him at all, there were no other symptoms, it was allergy season anyway, etc. I kept an eye on it for a few days, but it still struck me as odd that only one eye was doing it. I called the vet when after those few days of keeping an eye on it I noticed that when he was looking at me while standing in the darkened hallway that one eye was glowing a weird electric blue color I'd never seen before and it freaked me out. I called the vet in the morning, took him in that day and it was discovered he had an beastly type of eye infection and was already blind in that eye. I had to squirt this gooey antibiotic from a little tube in that eye for a couple of weeks every day to clear up the infection. Even then it was dicey as to whether or not he might end up losing the eye. We did one more round of the tube of gooey stuff in that eye and the eye cleared up fine, but the vision in it was permanently lost. For the rest of his life I had to keep a close watch on that eyeball to make sure nothing was going wrong with it, and luckily nothing more ever happened, so other than the fact he couldn't see out of it and it glowed that weird blue color in dark areas, it looked normal. You'd never know he couldn't see out of that eye. The only thing I ever noticed is that he was a little more hesitant when taking a step down because with only the one eye working he couldn't judge distance very well or very quickly all the time anymore. He was fine on a flight of stairs... it was just the first step that there was a wee bit of hesitation.

I learned a lot about eyeballs going through that, and they aren't all that different from animal to animal including humans. Though eyeballs have an amazing capacity to heal themselves generally speaking, seemingly small things can really screw them up badly with no real symptoms that would be likely to raise any alarms. I'm still a bit horrified that such a little thing that didn't seem like much of a symptom of a problem turned out to be something that made him blind in that eye in a few days and may have been cause to have lost the eye all together.

My last dog that I recently lost to cancer had drippy eyes all his life in the spring that was just allergies, but after the experience with the other dog years before it always worried me, and I was always keeping a close watch on them.

I think it's always best to err on the side of caution. I've probably made more seemingly silly phone calls to the vet for this and that than I can count, but there have been times when something seemingly silly turned out not to be so, and catching something in the beginning is the best way to fix a problem or keep it from becoming a problem. Better to be safe than sorry.

As for the fur discoloration... I do remember seeing something for just this purpose at the PetsMart the last time I was there before my doggie passed away recently. They went and rearranged the whole store, so I was trucking up and down nearly every aisle in the place searching for whatever the heck it was I was there for and noticed this stuff that was for dogs with white fur to take away that discoloration from normal eye moisture (I have noticed that on some white faced dogs or cats and it looks like certain breeds are more susceptible to these dark patches from normal eye moisture). I don't know if there was a different stuff for cats or if the stuff could be used on both or what, but I would think if such a thing exists for dogs there would be for cats as well. I only noticed it because the bottle had a picture of a really pretty fluffy white dog on it, and I'm sure I took a look at it just to look at the pretty dog. Other than that, all I really remember about it was that it was a rather smallish brown glass bottle, so I'd guess that maybe it's drops or you put a little on a cloth to wipe on the darkened fur or something like that though I suppose it could be something you mixed with water... I didn't really look at it enough to see how it worked since I picked it up to look at it for a silly reason anyway.

In any case, there is some kind of product that is made for this purpose, but I wouldn't try using it until you find out from the vet what's wrong with the eye and get that taken care of first. You might want to mention to the vet that you're interested in trying this stuff and ask when it would be ok to do that. They might even be able to recommend a particular product or tips in how to use it best or whether or not it's a good idea to use it at all.

Good luck with the kitty, and hope the eye problem isn't something serious.