Is this conjunctivitis?

[MrsBertMacklin]

I've noticed a lot more 'sleep' in her eye over the past 4 days. Came home this afternoon and she has what looks like a pink pimple, on her tear duct.

Her actual eye is clear, no discharge.

It doesn't sounds like it to me, MrsBert, but I'm always edgy about any eye issues in cats. How big is it?

Evening, Cozie.

It's pimple-sized.

To explain a bit more:

Cat gets a build up of sleep crust in the corner of her eye if I don't wipe it away for her every other day. Over the last 3 days, the amount of crust has increased and on taking it away this morning, the pink thing was exposed.

Having been with the cat this afternoon, it's gone from pink and wet looking to dry and red.

I'm guessing either an infection, or I've accidentally scratched the duct while cleaning her eye?

Hopefully, one of the vets who posts will see this but for myself (given my edginess about cat eyes), I'd bathe/wipe it with some lint free fabric and some lukewarm water (or cold tea - I seem to recall that Lone mentioned that because of the anti-inflammatory properties of tannin) and then see how she does overnight.

If you've irritated her eye/tear duct by unduly hard cleaning, a soothing wipe and a night's sleep should sort it out with any luck. If it's still nasty looking in the morning, I'd be thinking about a possible vet visit.

Thanks, have given her a tea wipe, hopefully that will ease matters...

When is she due her next routine vet visit?

We're due in this Saturday as it happens. Pimple thing has now gone dark brown and more sleep crust stuff (what's the proper name for that gunk in the corner of your eyes?) has already started to form.

Definitely something not right. Going to phone the vet in the morning and ask if I should move Saturday's visit forward.

That's timely. It's probably what I'd do if she hadn't improved by tomorrow morning - although I'm known for having my cats down to the vet if they so much as look at me cross-eyed so you have to bear that in mind. (The going brown might well be a healing over of an irritation mind you.)

Exact same thing happened to the lamb this week, and because she never causes trouble I had her vetted just to be safe. They said it was probably dust or a wee scratch, and she's had drops (which have been hated more than I expected) for a few days and is fine now - vet said likely it would've come right anyway but better safe than sorry, with eyes. Is she squinting with that eye, or washing it more than usual?

Sounds like moving the vet forward might be helpful, if you're going in anyway then you might as well kill two birds with one stone.

How old is she? I'm asking that out of interest because I've seen that one of the signs that Seniorboy is heading to a new attack of residual cat flu (I'll call it that for the time being) is that he develops very heavy sleep in one eye.

(I'm assuming that she's vaccinated to schedule?)

Just back from the vets - it's conjunctivitis. Cat's eyes and nose are bright orange from optic exam dye, so the hilarity of that almost makes the £62 bill worth it.

Well I'm glad you had a firm diagnosis.

How long has she likely had it?