Photographs are copyright Elisa Black-Taylor.
A “picture of cat with conjunctivitis” tells us a lot about the disease. The above picture is a slight oversimplification in respect of the treatment but the pictures of “Pinky” are real and the treatment is basically what cured him. It looks awful and very uncomfortable. And it is. You can see it in this young cat’s facial expression. Yes, his name is Pinky because of his conjunctivitis.
When I see the lower image I almost sigh with relief because some of the irritation would have gone. The pictures are by Elisa Black-Taylor, who cared for him. He is (was?) a rescue cat. Elisa did a fantastic job of bringing him back to health. She is good at that sort of thing.
You can read about Pinky on this page. I’ll briefly discuss the major points of feline conjunctivitis on this page.
“Conjunctivitis” is a medical term meaning an inflammation of the membrane that covers the back of the eyelids and surface of the eyeball to the cornea. The membranes are called the “conjunctiva”. The “itis” element of the word means inflammation. It is a common cat illness and is often secondary to an underlying illness. You’ll see lots of pictures of cats with conjunctivitis on the internet.
The causes of conjunctivitis can be due to an infection – viral progressing to a secondary bacterial infection – or due to an non-infectious agent such as a foreign object in the eye.
Pinky had a bacterial infection and antibiotics are the classic route to curing the disease. The antibiotics used in this case were Clavamox and Gentamic delivered in eye drops.
Viral infections such as feline herpesvirus can progress to secondary infections. The most common underlying viral cause is feline herpesvirus, which causes and upper respiratory infection (URI) – cat flu in layman’s terms. This is a major problem in catteries. The bacterial infection is usual caused by chlamydia and mycoplasma.
