Quote:
Originally Posted by Rene S
IME, regular vets know little about a cats' eyes beyond basic things like herpes or infections. If you can, try taking him to an animal opthalmologist (sp) instead. We had a cat, Benny, who had several eye issues during his long life (20) and was a regular patient at a clinic. They were able to manage his issues and he never needed his eye removed.
We were fortunate to have a clinic about 20 minutes away from our house. I realize some people have to drive quite a distance. Still, you could ask your vet if there's a specialist nearby and see how far away it is.
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I have to agree with your comment on vets and kitty eyes. Our Molly had a chronic weepy eye, that's why nobody would adopt her according to the shelter. We adopted her and loved her for years.
Her eye eventually got red and redder, big and ugly, our former regular vet prescribed eye drops. So did two other vets.
One substitute vet suggested removing BOTH her eyes. Molly was about 20 at the time, yeah that will work our really well. Remove the good eye. She didn't give me a reason for dual removals.
Only one vet suggested a biopsy. The eye was nonfunctional at that point, so they put her under for a biopsy and surprise it was cancerous. Since then I've seen a couple of episodes of Dr Pol, who calls an ugly red eye in an animal "cancer eye."
They put her under to remove the eye, she started to struggle with the anesthesia and they woke her up. In retrospect, it's a no-brainer to remove a diseased nonfunctioning eye, THEN biopsy it. It ain't going to get any better.
To me this was junior vet school stuff, but four out of four vets flunked the class. Several of them had decades of experience, I find it hard to believe that a typical vet never sees a pet with cancer eye.
So yeah, specialist by all means. From my experience, a good vet is as hard to find as a good people doctor.