Took Richie to the ophthalmologist today

For the past 3 months he has been doing really well. A little bit of teariness but nothing that was'nt managable but then last week he had a bad flare up and had reddish brown discharge leaking from his eye. I was wiping it with a cotton ball and almost the entire cotton ball was red/pink when I finished. He even had black discharge running from his nose.
I called on Monday to make the appointment....by Tues. his eye started looking better and by today it looked pretty good. (Go figure, the day of the appointment).
She recommended against unblocking his tear duct and said it is permanent probably due to scarring from herpes virus conjunctivitis...I guess it will just keep reblocking anyway. She did'nt seem to think his eye looked too bad and has a few cats at home as well as in the office with herpes that have one or both runny eyes. She said some runniness is okay and is managable and that I should'nt be too concerned unless it gets swollen, he begins squintng or has pus discharge. She gave me a new med to try (Interferon), increased his daily l-lysine to 1000mg and gave me more Idox drops that I have to give a minimum of 4x daily. This is supposed to hopefully put it into remission for a longer period of time and should be effective within a week of use.

Richie is still very upset with me. He hid behind the litter boxes for a couple hours and then finally came out but would'nt let me near him. He's probably thinking "I'm not trusting her again!". Hope he gets over it quickly. Poor little guy.

 

arrrrwww...he's just upset and out of sorts. He'll be fine in a little while. The poor baby. all my hugs to him from me and Booger (his look-a-like)

 

I hope this new med works for poor Richie, and that he will forgive you soon :wink:

 

Poor Richie and Nern. HUGs to both of him. Don't worry. I'm sure Richie knows you are looking out for him and will be back to his normal loving self very shortly. Does Interferon have side effects? At least it's better than not giving him something to help him. Since it's viral, he'll get better than worse, and he may have just gotten allergies. Sometimes Rene and Pumpkin have black discharges too.

 

Thanks. Its good to have an idea of what to expect in the future and to know that I don't have to rush him to the vet every time he has flare-ups. It really stresses him out anyway. Geez, he remained untrusting of me up until late evening yesterday. He's back to normal today thankfully.

vene: I'm not sure about the side effects, the vet did'nt say and I did'nt think to ask but when I searched online it seems that side effects are low and/or could involve fatigue, diarrhea, loss of appetite, ect.
Like you mentioned, I thought he might have some allergies as well. My dog has been tearing alot...she has seasonal allergies. It seems to have increased in Richie and Natalie since I've been having the windows open alot. The (regular)vet said black or dark brown discharge was okay/normal but red, green, yellow (if I remember correctly) was a bad sign which is why I got so worried. The ophthalmologist thought it was more like dark brown when I brought him in but it seemed blood red a couple days before his appointment.

 

oh nern...i hope he gets better. he loves you!! hes just being a kitty. :roll: