Clarissa is a pedigree, British short-haired kitten with lovely silver fur with dark tips. At first her sore eye did not seem very much to worry about but after two days it seemed to be getting worse rather than better so her owner brought her along to see me.

It was soon clear that the problem was serious enough. She was not ill in herself, but her eye was weepy and red and she flinched when I shone a light into it. I put a drop of local anaesthetic into her sore eye to stop the pain and took a closer look.

Part of the surface of her eye had a dull look to it so I put in a drop of a special dye and then gently rinsed the surplus away with warm saline. Now the damaged area showed as a green patch on the glassy surface of the eye.

I explained that the green area was an ulcer. The surface of the eye had been damaged by an infection. If the infection could be stopped, the ulcer would heal, but for antibiotic eye drops to work they needed to be put in every few hours. I showed her owner how to clean very gently around the eye with cotton wool and boiled water to remove any discharge before the drops were put in and how to hold the bottle of drops above the eye so that Clarissa would not see the drop coming.

Two days later I had another look at her eye. Although the pain was less as the infection subsided, the ulcer was actually deeper. There was a real danger that the ulcer might become deep enough for the eye to rupture before it had a chance to heal.

I explained that the ulcer would need a piece of the conjunctiva from the healthy part of the eye grafting over it to protect it while it healed. This would have to be fixed in place with tiny stitches in a delicate operation. At the end of the operation the eyelids would need to be stitched together temporarily so that she could not rub the delicate graft.

The operation went well and for three weeks her owners cleaned her damaged eye and put eye drops along the line of the eyelids several times a day. Only then was I able to take the stitches out and find out whether the operation had saved her eye.

To everyone's relief her eye had healed really well although she will always have a little scar to show for the ordeal.

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