Urgentish advice needed on eye meds, please

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mogwaibond

mogwaibond

Member Since 2014
Hi everyone! I'm not new here ever since my darling Angel (who had diabetes for years) left us, but have returned to this page because of how awesome and knowledgeable and helpful so many of you are, this time with Afi, a stray we were feeding and are not adopting since he showed up one night with his eye in a really bad way, and has likely lost the vision in one eye and so probably has depth issues with his sight.

Afi's eye (diagnosed with herpes manifesting in the eye) got a lot better over time and things seemed to be progressing well, but suddenly last evening the eye took a turn for the worse, with him holding the eye closed a lot, some swelling below the eye, eye watering -- and behavior changes such as him hiding a bit and being short-tempered, which is extremely unusual for him. We JUST finished a rigorous med schedule we had him on which took the eye from being really bad (see pics of progress, note that we do not have pics of the worst point at the beginning three weeks ago when eye was closed, or of today, as he is hiding
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) to at least ok, even tho status of sight in that eye is unknown.

Meds he has been on:
As per expert advice, Afi was on Antibiotics 2 weeks (convenia shot + oflaxin drops eight times a day), Antivirals for 2 weeks (Famciclovir tablets and Cidofa eye drops), Anti-pressure for about a week (Dorzolamide and Timolol), gabapentin for pain, and lubricating drops for a while.

My questions are:
(1) is it ok for us to continue with the oflaxin and famciclovir beyond two weeks, or is that dangerous? It looks like the problems reoccurred within a day of moving the oflaxin to twice a day.

(2) Any other advice as to what we could do to help with swelling etc. until the earliest opthalmologist appt in (sigh) almost 3 weeks, please? Upto now he has only been to a generalist as we could not get an opthal appt. over the christmas/NY season, and cat opthalmologists seemed to be all booked up :(.

Thank you all so much!
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I would think it's ok to continue the drops a few extra days to make sure the infection is really out of there. I had to do an extra week with my cat stormy when she was a kitten. She was born outside... her 3 littermates quickly grew bigger then her... and we realized she was sick. We took her to a vet, and then another vet. We really thought she wasn't going to make it. Pneumonia and double eye infections. I cannot for the life of me remember what the antibiotic cream was that we put in her eye, but to this day her eyes tear and need to be wiped all the time. The vet said it's just from the infection as a kitten and she will likely always have the runny eyes. Doesn't seem to bother her (except when I wipe them). You did an amazing job clearing up that infection! That looked scary! I know with my cat Allie she had a slight eye infection and we used Terramycin which is an antibiotic ointment... You can get it on Chewy without a prescription. I also recently used the Terramycin on my cat Lita when she was holding her eye closed for several days (I think she may have scratched it...) It cleared up after a couple days on it. I think I'd just call the vet and confirm you could continue the drops another week.
 
I'm not sure if it's safe to continue famciclovir for longer than 2 weeks, but I think it's probably fine for all the eye meds.

Terramycin can sting, so I wouldn't suggest it for your cat since his eye is probably painful already.

Lysine powder can be helpful for herpes eye issues, but sometimes you have to do a high dose. I've done 1000mg twice daily for cats with eye issues.
 
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Much appreciated, Janet NJ and Critter Mom. I'm continuing the meds. For complicated reasons, contacting the vet for that info is a bit difficult at this point...hence my showing up here with this post.
 
How good is the eye pressure being controlled with the Dorzolamide and Timolol?
Is he permanently blind in that eye? The two upper left images look terrible for the eye.
Here is my Badger's eyes right before the left one was removed in September.
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