Last night when we came home, I went to check on Monkey and his pupils were unevenly dilated. That is to say that one was completely dilated and the other was just normal. The dilated one (left eye) was not responsive to light and I started to panic. My first thoughts were stroke or brain tumor and I instantly upset myself too much to sleep. I debated running him to the emergency vet, but then looked online and found out that it's not anything life-threatening (unless he was having a stroke, which he didn't seem to be) so I waited until morning.
He hasn't been eating much lately (especially since the earthquake) and he's been sleeping under the bed and in the closet a lot - dark places - so I kind of thought he might be having headaches. The medicines that he takes can cause that for sure, so I have just left him alone and tried to ambush him with food from time to time.
This morning I rushed him to the vet who says that he's pretty sure it's a blood pressure issue and that causes pressure in the eye, which causes the pupils to react slower and if this is what is happening, he probably does have some bad headaches. Poor baby! But he said there is also a chance that it could be something simpler, like an eye infection. That in animals sometimes even a corneal infection can cause the pupils to be all wonky. So he's sending me to a Feline Opthamalogist (!!) to have that checked out first and rule out eyeball problems. He also presented this as the least expensive place to start, but I am skeptical. I mean, if a regular vet visit is $50 just to get in the door, what does a cat eyeball specialist charge? Yipes.
The good news is that his eye is slightly better this afternoon (I think the adrenaline and fear from the vet's office got it working again - he even ate a little bit when we came home) and he's been out and about more than usual (so maybe the headaches are backing off). AND he's lost 3 pounds in 3 weeks. Which isn't really "bad" since he's lost a lot of water weight from the dieuretics and been switched to diet cat food, plus he's a BIG guy. He's still clocking 16.5 lbs, so he's not wasting away, but the vet doesn't really want him to lose more weight than that, at least for now.
Next up: cat opthamologist!
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3 comments:
Poor Monkey
poor little guy, and poor you. i would've worked myself into the same kind of frenzy and been up all night worrying. it's so hard with pets - you just wish so badly they could figure out some way to tell you what hurts.
good luck at the eye doctor!
Oh Monkeymoo...hope he's alright.
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