"Poe" wrote in message
...


Just a quick update on my one year old cat, Peanut, who I posted about
last week asking for information on cataracts. Forgive my use of layman's
terms, but I'm not yet up on the technical terms wrt cat eyes!

Anyway, I took Peanut to a specialist today. Glad I did. Now we have a
good data to start with to use for measuring growth rate of the cataracts
going forward.

He has two - one in each eye. His left eye looks, for now, like a kind
that might remain fairly static, not a lot of growth.

His right eye has a larger cataract, and it appears to be the kind that
will grow over time. I have a follow-up schedule in 6 months to monitor
how quickly that will happen.

He is not yet blind, and the vet doesn't think he will be any time soon.
When the time comes, surgery is highly successful on cats, even more so
than in dogs.

Glaucoma is not a concern - eye pressure and a few other tests were done,
and we're good there (for now).

His retinas look healthy and attached, which is a good thing. No
disconnects there :-)

Trauma is not the suspected cause, because that would typically be some
kind of blunt force, and not usually in both eyes for that kind of trauma.

Here's the interesting think I learned today - they're seeing cat
cataracts, a relatively rare condition apparently, in higher rates with
cats that were raised primarily on cat milk replacement (how these guys
were raised). Mama lactated some, more as time went on, but their diet was
mostly milk replacement, especially in the beginning before mama
eventually seemed to catch up over a period of a few weeks, though she
never completely caught up.

So - thought I'd share. Things are good for now, glad I took the advice to
get him in so I have a good starting point from which to monitor progress.

Oh - he mentions drops that are being marketed as a solution, said he
hasn't seen them really make a difference, but gave me the info to google
and if I want, try out.

Thanks, all!

Excellent! Thanks very much for taking such good care of your cat and for
giving us an informative update.

MaryL