Cats don't always read books; they are good at adjusting to things and hiding things. For you to realize that your cat is blind or losing its vision is impressive because cats don't show you that, so it's not going to be that easy. If a cat slowly loses its vision, or if it is good at adjusting to things, you're not going to realize what's going on. Otherwise, if a cat suddenly loses its vision, it might bump into things, act a little weird, or its pupils might seem large. You should bring them in because a common cause of a cat losing its vision is high blood pressure and a blown-out retina. That could be related to hypertension from hyperthyroidism or kidney disease. We're going to look for diseases other than an eye problem.

Typically, vision testing in cats involves watching them manipulate and move about, holding their heads still and gently bringing a hand up to their face to see if they blink appropriately. We move a cotton ball, drop a cotton ball, and see if they will track something. Cats can sometimes just stand there and stare, being scared or mad, or they don't know what to do. You can be sure they can see you, but they're not responding to anything, they turn their head, or they don't want to participate in what you're doing. We can shine the lights in their eyes and see if their pupils move correctly, which may have some suggestion of vision, but it's not always an easy test in cats.

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.