Help! Recurring conjunctivitis – pink eye in my cats & kittens

Hey and welcome to TDK 🙂 as PG has said conjunctivitis is contagious just like when us humans develop it … The most common cause of troublesome reoccurring eye infections in kittens and young cats is the feline herpes virus. And like the human herpes virus once feline herpes is in a cats system it never leaves. It generally only cause eye issues (and upper respiratory issues) in kittens , young cats and sick/stressed cats.. Yes there are test that a vet can administer to determine if the herpes virus is present but in all honest there is a cheaper and more beneficial way to determine if the reoccurring infection is because of the herpes virus. Simply get yourself some
L-lysine in your local health food shop. It comes in tablets or capsules 500mg twice daily (crush tablet or sprinkle capsule contents in food preferable wet food) ..
L-Lysine is a naturally occurring amino acid that helps to suppress the virus and also it’s very good for a cats coat and helps with weigh gain in young kittens. It can be used in kittens as young as 3-4 weeks and it’s impossible for a cat to Overdose on it as it’s a natural amino acid and the cats system will only take what it needs and excretes the rest. After about 2-3 days of giving 500mg twice daily you should notice a massive improvement and if the eyes aren’t any better after that time then there might be some other underlying issues.

But even if herpes virus isn’t an issues I always recommend giving a young kitten some L-lysine as it really does help develop a very health cat.

The feline herpes virus is only transferable to other cats and once one cat/kitten is shedding the virus ( upper respiratory issues and eye issues is a sign of the shedding of the virus) the other cats in the home will be exposed to it .. Most kittens get the virus from their mother but the good news is that generally when a kitten get older and after about a year they generally don’t ever have any other issues because of the virus the only time it could rear it’s head again is in times of stress or illness (just like people get stressed And develop cold sores)

Many here use L-lysine for their cats I myself have been rescuing for years now and I wouldn’t be able to live without having a health supply of L-lysine at home.

The L-lysine will help with the eye swelling too.. But once the eye gets to the point where there is yellow discharge then antibiotic drops will be needed but used correctly L-lysine will help stop the eye irritation before it gets to the bacterial infected stage. It’s all about timing and watching for those tell tale signs that a flare up is on the way. Ie… Watery teary eyes or slight swelling …

I know some people that will give their cat the 500mg twice daily even though their not symptomatic because they know they have a vet visit coming up and the cat gets stressed so they knock the virus on the head as a preventative measure . If a cat is improving or is non symptomatic I generally then give 500mg once daily while they are still a young cat