That's a tricky question. The technical answer is yes, because most of the drops that we use are human-derived, although some are made specifically for cats. Should you look in your cabinet and pick something out from CVS? No, definitely not. There are more specific reasons for different things we use for cats in particular, and you can make the wrong choice. If you need to flush an eye, sterile saline would be fine. But get your cat in so we can make sure there's nothing else we need to do.

It depends on your cat and how tolerable it is. Some cats you can put in your lap, ball them up, lift their head, pull an eyelid back, and gently drop an eye drop in there.

There are some cats where having a cat burrito can be helpful. Get a towel you can wrap around your cat to keep all the legs and the rear end in, and keep the cat from going in different directions. Have an extra person or friend that can support the cat and hold the head still so you can concentrate on the eyelid and put the drop in. Gravity is your friend. Don't try to put a cat's eye drop in sideways. You want to have the head tilted back to have the eyedrops dropping down. Never let the tip of the eyedrop touch anything either because it should be kept sterile.

That's a tricky question because I'd usually say that you shouldn't depend on that, don't wait, hoping that will happen. But cats are trickier than dogs because they can commonly have recurrent issues from a chronic herpes viral infection from when they were snotty-nosed, crusty-eyed little kittens. Herpes is forever, so it's still going to be around. Some cats can have flare-ups related to stress or changes in the household. I have seen situations where a cat may have a flare-up, and in some cases, its body deals with it, and it goes away. But you don't want to be wrong when it could have gotten a scratch on the eye or the herpes flare-up led to something more that led to an ulcer or a scratch on the eye. So, don't wait for that to happen, have it checked out. You can't always see a scratch on their eye. It's not an obvious gash going across it. Sometimes it's a small area on the part of the eye that you can't see, and it takes special stains to show up.

If you suspect there's an eye issue, have it seen. Make sure of what you're dealing with. If it ends up being something minor, then that's great; you're lucky. But if it's not, it's better to address it sooner rather than later before something worsens or something irreparable happens with that eye. Give us a call and explain your situation ASAP. We'll help you decide whether you need to come in for an emergency, if you need to go to an emergency clinic, or if we can set an appointment for the next day, and we can go from there.

You have to be careful with that. You don't want to grab things out of your cabinet, even if the issue is similar to an old problem. Don't be like, "Oh, my cat had this before, let me get these meds from before," because it may not be the same issue, or there may be something else going on that we need to address. If your cat will even let you, the only thing that you can do is to use sterile saline eyewash to flush an eye out. But the answer will always be to see a veterinarian. We can make sure that it's not something we need to treat specifically, and we'll treat it correctly.