How do I Treat a Kitten Eye Infection?

If you need to treat a kitten eye infection, you should probably take your kitten to a veterinarian at some point. A vet can usually determine the cause of the infection and prescribe the appropriate treatment for eliminating it. While your kitten is taking the prescribed medicines, you can do some things at home to help with the symptoms. Most vets recommend using cloths or cotton balls soaked in warm water on and around the eyes. You can also use apple cider vinegar in much the same way as you would use warm water to wipe around the eyes, but you should be extremely careful not to get the vinegar directly in your kitten's eyes.

You can usually tell if a kitten has an eye infection because its eyes might start to ooze discharge that dries into crusty layers, which may cause the kitten to have difficulty opening and closing its eyes. Treating an eye infection by wiping away the discharge with warm water is typically just a temporary fix, but it might help to ease the kitten's discomfort. Apple cider vinegar might be slightly more effective than warm water because it contains acid that can effectively kill many types of bacteria, but you need to be extremely careful not to get it directly in your kitten's eyes because it might burn them.

Your best bet for treating a kitten eye infection is usually to take your kitten to the vet for prescription medicine. If the infection is bacterial, the vet will probably prescribe antibiotics. Viral eye infections cannot be treated with antibiotics, but the vet can probably give you some antiviral medicine to help your kitten get over the infection faster. Medicine is usually given in the form of eye drops, and this might make it difficult to administer. You should make sure that your kitten finishes all of its medicine, particularly if the infection is bacterial, so that it doesn't return.

If you treat the eye infection using the methods recommended by your vet but it persists after a few weeks, you should take your kitten back to the vet. There is a chance that the infection occurred because of some underlying disease or health problem your kitten might have. When kittens have serious health problems, they occasionally continue to get infections that they cannot fight off due to weakened immune systems. Your vet can perform several tests to determine whether anything serious is wrong with your pet.