Cat Eye Infection, wearing a big collar thing

[Athravan]

As some might remember I got some kittens dumped on us recently. I managed to find a home for the bengal-looking boy straight away, but the black tabby-ish girl had a bad eye infection and we decided to keep her hear with us. She was on the eye drops which was "Fucithalmic" for 10 days, and it did not improve at all - no worsening, but absolutely no improvement.

The vet today said it was a chlamydia infection instead of the conjunctivitis she first said, she gave her an injection, she is on metacam oral suspension and now I have to use a new eye ointment which is Aureomycin instead for another 10 days.

The problem is she is constantly licking her paw and then rubbing her eyes. She is obviously in some irritation/discomfort. The vet said that her rubbing her eyes like this is stopping it from healing and only worsening the problem. She has therefore been given one of the cone plastic collars that dogs get after operations to stop them licking themselves.

This is a very rambunctious / playful kitten and the collar is quite large. She is going mental with it, getting stuck, she can't even climb into my lap, or sleep behind the monitor like she likes too. It is obviously stressing her out a lot. I've been trying to keep it off whilst i'm with her in the day but she is licking it all night I think and I can't watch her whilst I sleep.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to keep the collar on without it irritating her or how to stop her from licking her paws then rubbing her eye so the ointment actually has time to work?

[smart1]

i think its best just to be cruel to be kind and leave it on! poor thing. how long does she need it on?

[fenwoman]

If she was mine I would confine her to a dog cage with food/water/litter with the collar on, just for a week. She won't be happy in the short term, but it's for her long term benefit after all.

[feorag]

Did she do an eye scraping to come up with the chlamydia diagnosis?

Just curious because it's always been my understanding that the way to get a positive diagnosis for chlamydia was to take a scraping from the conjunctiva and have it lab tested to be certain.

I too would persevere with the collar and eventually she will (hopefully) just accept it.

[Athravan]

She took a swab and then sprayed something onto the swab and said it was chlamydia but no didn't send anything off anywhere for tests.... why it wasn't done the first time I'm really not sure, as I've already spent 10 days on a treatment that obviously wasn't going to be effective if it was for the wrong thing.

Should I be getting a second opinion? Because this is apparently a 3 week treatment and I really don't want to find out after 3 weeks that no maybe its something else.

[vetdebbie]

Chlamydia's usually pretty obvious clinically. Aureomycin kills most nasties and is generally a better antiboitic than the fuci so even if it's not chlamydia it should work!

I'd be interested to know what the spray was though - never heard of that.

By the way just one of those picky little things that annoys me and I'm a bit anal about it, so apologies if annoys anyone me saying this!
The cat still has conjunctivitis. The term conjunctivitis means 'inflammation of the the conjunctiva' (which are the membranes round the eyeball and inside the eyelid). The causative agent may or may not be chlamydia, but the chlamydia causes conjunctivitis. Conjuncitivitis can be caused by any number of things - bacteria, viruses, sometimes other parasites, sometimes allergies, but it's all conjunctivitis! The initial treatment was a broad spectrum antiobiotic that is a good first line against many of the minor bugs. Unfortunately it is not effective against chlamydia. Sorry rant over!

[feorag]

Well medicine is breaking new ground all the time - with cats too, so maybe some new developments have been made in testing for chlamydia in cats!

My only chlamydia scare was many years ago and my vet then said that the only way to get a true diagnosis was to take a scraping from the conjuntiva and send it away for culture. Fortunately mine came back negative, but maybe with science developing all the time this isn't necessary now??

I must say I'm surprised your vet didn't check for it at the first consultation because it is so prevalent and the eye was obviously quite inflamed, but I'm no expert - just talking from personal experience.

[Athravan]

Had a few PMs asking me how she's going, she's doing a bit better now, she is still on the treatment but isn't wearing the collar any more and the eye does look like it's improving so fingers crossed. Hopefully another 7-10 days of treatment and then we're booking her in to be spayed.

[feorag]

Good to know the treatment seems to be working!