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This guide helps you triage; it does not replace your veterinarian's exam. A healthy eye is not painful. When in doubt, call us at 514 223-1197.
Go now: the signs that cannot wait
Any single one of these is enough. You do not have to tick several, and you do not have to decide which is worst. Do not wait to see if it passes, do not wait for morning: go to the clinic or to the nearest emergency centre, and call on the way so we can expect you. In the eye, what is lost in a few hours does not always come back.
- The eye is out of its socket. It is pushed forward and the lids have closed behind it. NEVER push it back in, and do not let your pet rub at it. Cover the eye without pressing, using a clean facecloth dampened with lukewarm water or sterile saline, keep it damp, and leave. This happens after a fall, a fight, or a sudden grab by the collar, and flat-faced dogs are far more exposed because their eye sockets are shallow.
- Something is stuck in the eye or sticking out of it. A thorn, a twig, a piece of claw, a fish hook. NEVER PULL, not gently, not even if it seems to come away freely, and do not cut anything. Put the Elizabethan collar on if there is one in the house, stop your pet rubbing, and leave as is.
- A product has splashed into the eye. Bleach, drain cleaner, oven cleaner, antifreeze, shampoo, glue, de-icing salt. Here the rinse IS the treatment and it cannot wait: gently flush with lukewarm water or saline for at least 15 minutes, 20 if you can manage it, then have the eye checked even if it looks normal, because a chemical burn can worsen. Bring the container with you, and tell us if the product could have been licked or swallowed.
- The eye has changed and light no longer makes it react. Any single one of these is enough: the surface is hazy, bluish or dull; the pupil stays wide and no longer tightens when you bring a light close; the eye looks bigger or more prominent than the other one; the white of the eye is red and your pet is clearly in pain. That is the picture of high pressure inside the eye, glaucoma. An enlarged eye is a late sign: do not wait to see it before you leave. A red, painful, or suddenly enlarged eye must be seen without delay, and the longer the pressure lasts, the more of the lost sight is lost for good.
- Blood in the eye. A red pool behind the clear front of the eye, or an eye filling up with red. Also tell us if your pet could have swallowed rat poison, has bruises elsewhere, or has had a nosebleed.
- Your pet cannot see. Bumping into things, hesitating in the dark, no longer following your hand, or both pupils staying wide in a lit room. Sudden loss of sight is an emergency, and some causes are recoverable if you act fast.
- The eye is being held shut after an impact. A fight, a cat's claw, a branch, a fall, a scrape on a walk. A claw injury to the eye is one of the commonest eye injuries there is, in cats and dogs alike.
- It is a kitten whose eyelids have not opened yet. And they are swollen, bulging, with pus beading between the edges. Never try to open them yourself. There is an infection shut in behind them, it is damaging the eye while it is trapped, and opening them is a clinic procedure.
- The eye AND the whole animal. Your pet is flat, off food, vomiting, unsteady, breathing badly, with a runny nose and a fever. While you are looking, check the whites of the eyes too: yellow appearing on the gums, on the whites of the eyes, or inside the ears is a sign to leave on, and it has nothing to do with the eye itself. In all of these, the eye is the visible part of something more general, and it is that something that sets the timing.
- It changed within hours. This morning's eye is not the one you are looking at now. In the eye, speed is information in its own right: what moves fast gets treated fast.
One is enough
You do not have to work out which of these matters most. If one of them speaks to you, go. If you are unsure, call anyway: triage is our job, not yours. Outside our hours a 24/7 emergency centre answers, and describing the situation on the phone commits you to nothing.
Splashes and poisons
For splashes and poisons, the first steps by product are in our guide to toxic foods and plants. If we are closed, the emergency page and the 24/7 centre directory take over.
None of those describe your pet?
Good. Read the next section anyway, before you do anything at all. It is the one that prevents the most damage.
Not a leftover, not a borrowed one, not a human eye drop
This is the most important instruction on the page, and it comes before the explanations because it is probably happening right now while you read: the old bottle is on the counter, or in the bathroom cabinet, and it looks exactly like what your pet needs. It is not.
Never leftover treatment. Never another animal's medication. Never something from the family medicine cabinet.
Some drops, corticosteroids in particular, can very quickly worsen an unexamined eye injury, even cause it to perforate. A red or painful eye deserves a diagnosis before any treatment. When in doubt, call us rather than opening an old bottle.
That is exactly what our guide on eye medication already publishes, and nothing here softens it. Giving eye medication.
Why a steroid drop is the worst case
Steroids calm inflammation. On an eye whose surface is intact, that is sometimes precisely the right medication. On an eye whose surface is scratched, it does the opposite: it slows healing and clears the way for the bacteria and fungi that were already there. A shallow scratch that would have healed in days can deepen until it goes all the way through the cornea. And here is the knot: from the outside, a scratched eye and a merely irritated eye look the same. The difference does not show up under a phone flashlight. It shows up with a dye and a blue light, in about a minute, at the clinic. That is the whole distance between the right call and the wrong one, and it cannot be guessed.
What about human eye drops?
- Drugstore redness-relief drops. They work by tightening blood vessels. They erase the sign without touching the cause, and they erase the very thing we would have looked at. We end up facing a less red eye and an untouched problem.
- Drops prescribed to a person. The ones given for conjunctivitis very often contain a steroid, on its own or combined with an antibiotic. That is the scenario in the block above.
- Artificial tears. They are the most harmless product on this list, but they are not harmless in every situation, and above all they will skew the tear test we were about to run. Wait until we say so.
- Contact lens solution is not saline. Multipurpose solutions contain disinfectants that have no business on a damaged cornea.
- Nothing that was not made for an eye. No skin cream, no ear drops, no first-aid antibiotic ointment.
The home remedies that go around
Chamomile, cooled tea, breast milk, salt water, honey, colloidal silver, boric acid: none of them treat whatever is making that eye red, several are irritating, and all of them do the same harmful thing, they add time. During that time, what could have been settled in a few days becomes what leaves a scar.
Already did it? Read this
No blame: that is the reflex of someone trying to help, and plenty of people do it. Do not do it again, and above all, tell us exactly what you put in and when, bottle in hand if you still have it. It does not shock us in the slightest: it changes what we look for, it changes how we read the tests, and in some cases it changes the treatment. An owner who tells us saves us time. An owner who does not dare tell us costs us time.
What is still allowed, and it is short
Gently wiping discharge from around the eye with a clean facecloth dampened with lukewarm water, from the inner corner outward, one cloth per eye. Nothing else. The only rinse that goes ahead without our say-so is a chemical splash, and it is in section 1.
Our guide to giving eye medication covers technique once you have a prescription: preparing, which eye, in what order, and what to watch for. It opens with the same rule as this section. Giving eye medication.
A healthy eye is not painful
That sentence is already on our eye medication guide, and it is the best triage tool you have tonight. You do not need to know what your pet has. You need to know whether it hurts. Eye pain does not wait until tomorrow.
What that actually looks like
- Holds the eye shut, or half shut, while the other one opens normally.
- Blinks far more on that side, or squints.
- Rubs: with a paw, on the rug, on the corner of the couch, against your leg.
- A pale membrane creeps across the eye from the inner corner: that is the third eyelid, and it comes up when an eye is sore or irritated.
- Avoids light: turns to the wall, heads for the dark room, refuses the window.
- Weeps constantly, with wet fur underneath.
- Stops wanting its head touched on that side, or pulls back from your hand.
- Is simply not itself: quieter, less demanding, not coming over for attention. In cats especially, that is sometimes the only outward sign of an eye that hurts a great deal.
An eye held shut is today
Not tomorrow morning, not Monday, not let us see how it looks. Three reasons, all checkable:
- What hurts most in an eye is a damaged surface. And a damaged surface is exactly what deepens. A surface scratch often heals in a few days. The same scratch, once infected, can dig in overnight.
- The second source of pain is pressure. And it damages the nerve for as long as it lasts. Time translates directly into how much sight your pet keeps.
- Your pet cannot stop rubbing. One good paw rub turns a scratch into a hole. It makes the injury worse itself every time it goes back to that eye, and it will keep going back until somebody stops it.
And until then, no human painkillers. Acetaminophen kills a cat, even a single tablet, and ibuprofen and aspirin are both dangerous in dogs and cats alike. Eye pain is settled with a diagnosis, not with the bathroom cabinet. The next section says exactly why.
The reverse is not true
Careful with backwards reasoning: an animal showing no pain does not necessarily have a comfortable eye. Cats mask it, stoic dogs mask it, and flat-faced dogs have a less sensitive cornea than other dogs, so they squint less while the eye is already badly damaged. Visible pain raises the urgency; its absence does not lower it.
The other eye counts too
Look at both, always, and tell us what you see on each side. One eye affected points more towards something that happened to that eye: an injury, a foreign body, a scratch. Both eyes at once points more towards something general: an infection, an allergy, a disease affecting the whole animal. It is not an absolute rule, and it does not change when to call. It changes what we look for first.
Holding the eye shut, rubbing, avoiding light?
Call us today. If we are closed, a 24/7 emergency centre answers: describing the situation on the phone commits you to nothing.
Between Friday evening and Monday morning
More than sixty hours go by. A painful eye has no reason to wait for the week to start again, and that is exactly the window in which a scratch deepens. If we are closed, call a 24/7 centre: they will tell you whether it is now, today, or an appointment. You do not have to decide alone.
Give no home medications
You have just read that an eye held shut means pain. That is precisely the moment a hand reaches for the medicine cabinet, which is why this section sits here rather than at the end of the page. What follows applies to dogs and cats alike.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
Fatal to cats, even a single tablet. There is no safe dose. In dogs it attacks the liver. And here is the trap that matters here: it is not an anti-inflammatory, it is a painkiller, so someone following the instruction no anti-inflammatories to the letter can give it believing they are obeying. If your pet swallowed any, it is an immediate emergency.
Ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve), aspirin
Digestive ulcers, kidney damage. Never a human anti-inflammatory, for any reason, in dogs any more than in cats. Cats are even more sensitive to them than dogs, and there is no just-for-one-night version.
Gravol, Benadryl, antihistamines, antacids
Never without direction. An antihistamine does not repair a damaged surface and does not bring down high pressure inside an eye. An animal settled blindly is a cause still advancing while everyone relaxes.
Leftover prescriptions, and another animal's medication
The tablet left over from surgery last year, the other dog's painkiller: same apparent problem, same weight, same household, none of that is ever enough. A dose calculated for another patient is not a dose, and what relieves a dog can kill a cat.
And anything that would go into the eye
That is section 2 of this page, and it is the strictest rule of the lot: not a leftover, not a borrowed one, not a human drop, not a home remedy. It has exactly two exceptions, a chemical splash and a treatment we have already prescribed for this eye.
Why easing the pain blindly costs so much in an eye
It is not that everything is poison, it is that the time and the place are wrong. An animal whose pain is eased stops squinting and stops rubbing, and the eye looks better while the cause moves on. In an eye, what moves on is what deepens. Eye pain is treatable, and treated well: it is treated once somebody has looked at the surface, not before. Tonight your job is not to ease it, it is to bring your pet to us.
From here on, cats and dogs part ways
Everything above applies to both: the signs that mean go now, the rule about drops, the eye held shut, the medicine cabinet. What follows no longer applies to both. In cats, a red eye is usually an infection story. In dogs, it is almost always the consequence of something else. Both panels are complete: go straight to yours.
Four pictures that all start as a red eye
Here is the real reason this page exists. Conjunctivitis means one thing: the pink membrane around the eye is inflamed. It is a description, not a diagnosis, and all four situations below start as exactly that. Ruling them out is the entire job of the exam. You are not expected to tell them apart yourself, and this section is not here so you can try: it is here so you understand why we want to look at that eye instead of selling you a bottle over the phone.
A scratch on the cornea, a corneal ulcer
The cornea is the clear window at the front of the eye. A cat's claw, a branch, a grain of sand, a hair rubbing, a splash of shampoo: it takes very little. It is the most painful of the four, and the most deceptive, because a scratch is invisible to the naked eye. Some ulcers stay shallow and heal quickly; others deepen within hours when bacteria settle in and start digesting the cornea. This is the picture that makes steroids so dangerous, and it is the first one we rule out, in a minute, with a dye.
High pressure inside the eye, glaucoma
The eye makes fluid constantly and drains it constantly. When the drain blocks, pressure rises, and it is the nerve of sight that pays. A red, painful, or suddenly enlarged eye can signal that high pressure, which must be lowered without delay to try to preserve sight. Watch the trap: an enlarged eye is a late sign, so do not wait to see it. And glaucoma pain does not always look like pain: many dogs do not squint at all, they just go quieter and sleep more. In dogs, some breeds are predisposed and the second eye is at risk, so we watch that one too, even when it looks perfect. In cats, glaucoma is almost always the consequence of something else inside the eye.
Inflammation inside the eye, uveitis
Here the trouble is not on the window, it is behind it. The eye is red, the pupil is often smaller than the other side, light is unbearable, and the clarity of the eye turns murky, like water that has been stirred. What matters for you: in cats, uveitis is often the eye telling you about the rest of the body. So we look further than the eye, with viral screening, bloodwork, sometimes a blood pressure reading. In dogs, it follows an injury, a diabetic cataract, or a general illness.
A foreign body
A grass seed, a fleck of bark, a hair, a chip of claw, sand, a scrap of plant lodged under the lid or hidden behind the third eyelid, where you cannot see. The trap is this: the eye can look just a bit watery while the thing is still in there, scraping with every blink. We put in a drop of surface anesthetic and turn the lids over to look behind them. That is precisely the step that cannot happen at home.
What about the ordinary causes?
They exist, they are in fact the commonest, and they are good news: an infectious conjunctivitis in a cat, an allergy in a dog, a dry eye, a lash rubbing, a lid rolling inward, irritation from dust or smoke. Most red eyes we see end up there. But you do not get there by guessing: you get there by ruling out the four above first. That is the order it is done in, and it is the only safe order.
What the color of the discharge tells you, and what it does not
This is the question we get most on the phone after is it serious. The honest answer: color barely orients us, and it triages nothing.
- Clear and watery. The eye is weeping. That goes with a speck of dust as readily as with a very painful ulcer.
- Thick, yellow or green. There is pus. That means an established infection or inflammation, not necessarily serious, not necessarily harmless.
- Sticky and grey, on an eye that has lost its shine. Think instead of a shortage of tears, especially in dogs. That is treatable, and it is often what has been treated in circles with drops that could never have worked.
- Dry reddish-brown staining below the eye. With no redness and no pain, those are tears overflowing and staining the fur. It is a tear-drainage problem, not an urgent one.
What actually triages is not the color: it is pain, speed, the look of the surface, and how the animal is in itself.
In cats, a red eye is usually an infection story
This is the big difference between the two species, and it changes what we go looking for. In cats, a weeping, reddened eye is most often infectious, and most often viral. That is not a reason to wait: it is a reason to name the culprit, because three very different bugs produce the same red eye and are not treated the same way.
Herpesvirus, behind most cases
This is the rhinotracheitis you have seen on the vaccination record, in the FVRCP vaccine. The great majority of cats meet it young, often before they are adopted. And here is the part that explains everything else: once caught, it stays for life, dormant in the nerves, and it wakes up when the cat is stressed. A move, a new cat, a boarding stay, surgery, a nursing queen, a change in the household: the nose starts running and the eye goes red again.
What it looks like: one eye or both, red and weeping, sneezing, sometimes a fever and a cat eating less. And above all, something owners almost never know: this virus can damage the cornea itself. So it is not just a cold conjunctivitis, and that is one more reason not to put anything in that eye before somebody has looked at the surface with a dye.
An antibiotic does nothing against a virus. We do sometimes prescribe one anyway, but for a second infection that has settled on top, never for the virus itself.
About lysine: this is the supplement that has long been recommended for this virus, and you have almost certainly heard of it. The studies that assessed it properly do not show a benefit, and a systematic review concludes that it is effective neither at preventing nor at treating the infection. So we will not tell you to go buy it. What genuinely helps a herpes cat is lowering stress, keeping the eye clean, treating complications when they come, and calling us early rather than late.
Calicivirus
The other virus in the FVRCP vaccine. It leans towards ulcers in the mouth, a drooling cat that no longer dares to eat, sometimes a lameness that comes and goes. Conjunctivitis often comes with it, but the eye is not the headline.
If your cat has a red eye AND a sore mouth AND has stopped eating, it is the whole picture we want to see, not the eye on its own: a cat that stops eating, with us, is counted in hours.
Feline chlamydiosis
This one is the eye specialist. It is a cat bacterium, Chlamydia felis, and it is not the one people talk about in humans. It produces the most swollen, most fleshy conjunctiva, sometimes to the point where the pink swells over part of the eye. It often starts on one side and reaches the other a few days later. It is typical of kittens, shelters and multi-cat households.
It responds to one particular antibiotic, not one you would pick at random, and not for three days: that is exactly why naming it changes something, while conjunctivitis changes nothing. Wash your hands after touching the eye and before touching another cat.
How we name the culprit
By eye, the three look too alike to call. When it matters, we can take a swab from the corner of the eye and find out which of the three is there. We do not do it routinely; we do it when the answer will change something: a multi-cat household, a case that keeps coming back, a kitten, an eye that is not responding to treatment. That sample is taken before the examination drops, which is one more reason for nothing to have gone into that eye before you arrive.
And the treatment does not wait for the answer: your veterinarian starts on what they can see, and the name of the bug is there to adjust afterwards if it changes anything.
Uveitis in cats: when the eye speaks for the body
In cats, inflammation inside the eye is often the visible sign of something general. It can be a viral infection, a parasite picked up from hunting or from raw meat, blood pressure running too high in an older cat, more rarely a tumor. That is why, faced with a red and painful eye in a cat, we do not simply treat the eye: we often suggest viral screening and bloodwork, and in an aging cat, a blood pressure reading. High blood pressure is silent in cats and sometimes shows itself as sudden blindness; it often comes with kidney or thyroid disease, and it is treatable.
We check blood pressure here, in dogs as well as cats, on an awake animal, with no needle and no anesthesia: a cuff, a quiet room, several readings averaged together. It is not automatic at every visit; we do it when the picture calls for it.
The kitten with sealed eyes
Two different situations go by the same name in owners' mouths, and they are not handled the same way.
- The newborn whose eyelids have not opened yet. A kitten's eyes open in the first two weeks of life. If, before they open, a lid becomes swollen and bulging, with pus beading between the edges, there is an infection shut in behind a closed door. It damages the cornea while it is trapped, and a kitten can lose the eye. Never try to open the lids yourself: we open them carefully at the clinic, flush, look at what is underneath, and treat. That is today, not next week.
- The few-week-old kitten whose lids are glued shut by crusts. Almost always herpes or chlamydiosis. The crusts weld the lid margins together, the eye keeps deteriorating underneath, and in neglected cases the lid ends up fusing to the eye itself, which leaves permanent damage. Soften the crusts with a clean facecloth and lukewarm water, never forcing, never pulling, and call us the same day. A kitten that arrives early keeps its eye; a kitten that arrives in three weeks often does not.
More than one cat at home
These infections travel. Separate them if you can, each with their own bowls, wash your hands in between, and tell us how many cats live there and which ones have signs. Above all, do not treat the other cats just in case with what we prescribed for this one: the same red eye does not necessarily have the same cause in the second cat, and a shared bottle carries infection from one eye to another.
In dogs, a red eye is rarely an infection that arrived on its own
Here is the reversal worth knowing. In dogs, a true infectious conjunctivitis appearing with nothing behind it is uncommon. When a dog's eye is red, there is almost always something else: an allergy, a shortage of tears, a lash or a lid rubbing, a foreign body, or an injury. That is why antibiotic drops in a dog with recurring conjunctivitis never fix anything: they treat the consequence.
Allergic skin disease
The dog that scratches, licks its paws and has hot ears very often also has red skin around the eyes and a muzzle it rubs on everything. In that dog, the eye is part of the skin, and it is the allergy that needs managing, not the eye in isolation. Our allergy page already lists an affected eye as a reason to be seen without waiting, and this page says nothing different.
Dry eye, a shortage of tears
This one deserves your attention, because it is the great overlooked diagnosis. Some dogs stop making enough tears. The result: thick, sticky, grey or greenish discharge that always comes back, an eye that loses its shine and looks dull, and a dog that blinks a lot. These dogs have often been treated three or four times for conjunctivitis with drops that could not possibly have worked, because the problem was not a microbe, it was dryness.
A tear test settles it in a minute: a small paper strip in the corner of the eye for a moment, and we read how much tear film arrives. Flat-faced breeds and several small round-eyed breeds are predisposed. Untreated, a dry eye eventually scars, pigments over and sees less and less. Treated, it becomes comfortable again. This is exactly the kind of diagnosis that makes the visit worth it.
Flat faces, a category of their own
English and French Bulldogs, Pugs, Shih Tzus, Bostons, Pekingese, Boxers, and among cats the Persian. Three things stack up in them: their eyes are large, round and very exposed, in a shallow socket; their lids do not always close completely, sleep included, so the centre of the cornea dries out; and their cornea is less sensitive than other dogs', which means they show less pain for a worse injury.
For them, an eye that squints, weeps or has lost its shine is an eye to be seen today, no discussion, and an eye that has changed since this morning is an immediate call. An ulcer that would have taken a week to worsen in another dog can deepen overnight in them.
Lashes and lids that rub
A lid rolling inward, a lash growing in the wrong place, a nose fold whose hairs sweep the cornea with every blink. These are mechanical problems: they do not settle with a product, they get corrected. It is often the real diagnosis behind a young dog that has always had a weepy eye, and correcting it ends years of useless drops.
The little pink lump in the corner
In a young dog, a rounded pink mass appearing suddenly in the inner corner is usually the third eyelid's tear gland slipping out of place. It is commonly called cherry eye. It is not a middle-of-the-night emergency, it is an appointment. The important part: that gland is not removed, it is put back. It makes a large share of the tears, and taking it out leaves the eye at risk of permanent dryness. If removing it is suggested to you, ask the question.
The diabetic dog, and the aging dog
In a diabetic dog, cataract is the commonest complication, and a cataract that swells can leave the eye red and painful. So a diabetic dog whose eye turns red is not an ordinary case: tell us he is diabetic when you call.
In an older dog, two very different things look alike. An eye that turns slightly bluish with age, with no redness and no pain, is usually lenticular sclerosis: benign, and it barely affects vision. A cloudy eye that is ALSO red, painful or bigger is not that at all. And a sudden loss of sight, a dog bumping into things or hesitating in the dark, is an emergency in its own right.
What gets into a dog's eye
In summer, grass seeds: an awn can slip under a lid in seconds in a field. In winter, road salt and street spray. All year round: the head out of the car window, sending grit at highway speed into a wide-open eye. And fights, including the claw of a cat living in the same house. If your dog comes back from a walk in tall grass with an eye shut, assume there is something in it until proven otherwise.
What we do, in what order, and why the order matters
Many people put off the appointment because they picture something complicated or painful. It is the opposite: examining an eye is quick, it does not hurt, and it happens on an awake animal, on the table, with you standing there. Here is exactly what happens.
- We look first, with nothing added. Where the lids sit, how your pet blinks, the size of both pupils, the response to light, the shine of the surface. A lot of answers are already there.
- The sample, if there is one. In a cat whose bug we want to name, the swab from the corner of the eye is taken BEFORE any drop: surface anesthetic and dye both reduce how reliable the test is, and can make it come back falsely negative. It is the same logic as the tear test that follows, and one more reason for nothing to have gone into that eye before you come.
- The tear test. A paper strip resting in the corner of the eye for a short moment. It has to come early, because a single drop of anything skews it. That is the practical reason we ask you not to put anything in that eye before you come, not even water.
- The pressure reading. A small instrument brushes the surface for a fraction of a second, after a drop of surface anesthetic, and displays the pressure inside the eye. It does not hurt and it needs no sedation. High pressure is glaucoma; low pressure points to inflammation inside. Both are treatable, and not remotely in the same way: this is one of the moments where the exam genuinely changes the plan.
- Fluorescein. A drop of orange dye that only clings where the surface is broken, then a blue light. What glows green is the scratch. This is the test that decides whether a steroid drop is a good medication or a disaster.
- We turn the lids over. Including the third eyelid, to look behind it, where foreign bodies hide. Always with a surface anesthetic, so painlessly.
- We look at the back of the eye. The retina and the head of the nerve. To see the back of the eye properly, the pupil sometimes has to be dilated with a drop. It does not hurt. It simply leaves your pet sensitive to light for a while until it wears off: plan a quiet trip home, and no bright sunshine.
- And depending on the picture. A blood pressure reading in an aging cat, bloodwork, viral screening, a search for a general cause. Because sometimes the eye is the window, not the house.
Tell us it is for an eye
When you call or fill in the form, say that it is an eye and since when. It changes what we get ready and what we look for first, and it lets us ask you the right questions straight away.
What we do here, and what goes elsewhere
Eye exams happen here: the tear test, the dye and the blue light, the eye pressure test, a drop that widens the pupil so we can look at the back of the eye, and a look under the lids, third eyelid included.
So does eye surgery, during our opening hours: cleaning out an ulcer, stitching a torn cornea, covering a cornea in danger so it stays protected while it heals, correcting a lid that rolls inward, setting a prolapsed third eyelid gland back in place, taking off a lump on the edge of a lid, and removing an eye that can no longer be saved.
When an eye needs an ultrasound, a mobile team comes to us; your animal does not travel.
An eye that is injured or painful in the evening, overnight or on a day we are closed will not wait for us to open: go to a centre open 24/7, then tell us so we can take it from there.
What goes to a veterinary ophthalmologist we tell you plainly and point you toward: cataract surgery, glaucoma surgery, retinal disease, which we can look at here without treating it here.
The treatment leaves with you
When treatment is needed, it is dispensed on site at our pharmacy, with the instructions explained before you leave: which eye, how many times, in what order if there are two products, and what to watch for. And it is handed to you for THAT eye, on THAT day, which is the best possible answer to the temptation of the old bottle.
Once you have the prescription in hand, our guide to giving eye medication takes over: preparation, technique, the order of products, and what means calling us back. Giving eye medication.
An eye that worries you?
Book an appointment, saying it is for an eye. If it is painful or if it started today, call rather than write.
The next few hours: what helps, what hurts
These steps are for getting through the next few hours without the eye getting worse. None of them is a treatment, and none of them is a test: if they bring relief, good, we will know tomorrow; if they bring none, nothing changes, the appointment stands.
What helps
- The Elizabethan collar, now. This is by far the most useful thing on the list. One good paw rub can turn a scratch into a hole, and your pet rubs because it hurts, so it will do it again. If you have one in the house, put it on right away. If you do not, stay with your pet and keep those paws busy.
- Wiping the discharge. Gently, with a clean facecloth dampened with lukewarm water, from the inner corner outward. One cloth per eye, so you do not carry infection from one side to the other. You clean around the eye; you do not scrub the eye.
- Lower the light. A painful eye hates light. A quiet, dark room, curtains drawn, no walks in full sun.
- Avoid what irritates. No tall grass, no wind, no dust, no open car window, no shampoo, no smoke in the house.
- Take a photo, now. Front on and from the side, in daylight, no flash. The side view shows the contour of the surface, and it is often the one that says the most. Film a few seconds of blinking too. That picture of the eye before any treatment is extremely useful to us, and it disappears the moment you put something in.
- Note the exact time you noticed it. And what happened just before: a fight, a walk, a bath, a new cleaning product, a new cat in the house.
What hurts
- No drops, no ointment, no rinsing. That is section 2, and it has exactly two exceptions: the chemical splash described in section 1, and a treatment we prescribed for THIS eye that is already under way. In that case do not stop anything and do not add anything on your own: when you call, tell us what your pet is getting, since when, and how many times a day, and we will tell you what to do until the appointment.
- Do not remove anything. Nothing stuck in the eye, and do not cut anything.
- Do not force a kitten's lids open. And do not pull dry crusts off.
- Do not put a dressing, compress or bandage over the eye. A covered eye cannot be watched, and pressure improves nothing. One exception only, the first picture in section 1: an eye out of its socket is covered, without pressing, with a damp cloth kept damp for the drive.
- No human painkillers. Acetaminophen is deadly to cats, even a single tablet, and human anti-inflammatories are toxic to both species. An animal eased blindly is a cause that keeps advancing while you reassure yourself. Section 4 lists them.
- Do not wait to see whether the second eye joins in. That is not a test, it is a delay.
- Do not let the night pass. Telling yourself you will look in the morning. That is precisely how long it takes an ulcer to deepen.
Get ready for the call (2 minutes)
- Which eye, since exactly when, and has it changed since this morning?
- Is your pet holding it shut? Rubbing? Avoiding light?
- The discharge: clear, yellow, green, thick, sticky? A lot or a little?
- Is the surface still shiny, or has it gone hazy?
- Is your pet bumping into things, hesitating in the dark?
- Did anything happen: a fight, a walk in long grass, a cleaning product, a bath, a fall?
- Known conditions, current medications, and above all everything that has already gone into that eye, including yesterday, including water.
- Are there other animals at home, and does any of them have runny eyes or a runny nose?
Frequently asked questions
The questions we get most on the phone, and the one nobody dares to ask.
I have drops left over from last time. Can I use them?
What about human eye drops? Saline, artificial tears?
He is holding the eye shut but he is eating, playing and seems fine. Can it wait until tomorrow?
Does he really need the cone? He hates it.
My old dog's eye is turning bluish. Is that a cataract? Is he going blind?
My cat is sneezing and both eyes are running. Is it contagious to my other cats? To me?
My kitten's eyes are gummed shut. Can I open them with warm water?
Lysine, chamomile, saline: could any of that help while I wait?
Is he going to lose the eye? Is he going to go blind?
Also worth reading
Honest triage, in one sentence
Eye out of the socket, object stuck in it, chemical splash, a frozen pupil on a hazy eye, blood in the eye, loss of sight, an impact, a kitten with bulging lids: go now. An eye held shut, squinting, rubbed, or hiding from light: that is today. And whatever the picture, between now and the appointment nothing goes into that eye, because the only thing left that can still be ruined is treating an eye nobody has looked at.
An eye that worries you, and you are hesitating to bother us?
Stop hesitating: hesitating to call is already a reason to call. We triage together, and if an appointment is enough, we will tell you straight away. Mention it is for an eye.