What are these bumps?
July 10, 2011 6:17 PM Subscribe
This much beloved male cat in his late middle age has developed small bumps growing near his eyes. The cat is otherwise very healthy. You are not my vet, and the vet who saw the bumps said they weren't too worried about them, but your data and anecdata are solicited.
I know that people can get small bumps around their eyes from allergies: "acute vernal conjunctivitis". Usually the bumps are inside the eyelids, but I've been told they can sometimes exist on the outside too.
posted by amtho at 6:48 PM on July 10, 2011
posted by amtho at 6:48 PM on July 10, 2011
OK, I've never seen that near a cat's eyes -- although I have seen similar things on a cats chin.
That said, they look like clogged hair follicles to me, and the location made me think of when my mom came home saying the eye doc and criticized her for having blepharitis (which she described as "eyelash dandruff") -- which for some reason we all found quite funny and spent the rest of the evening talking about "the heartbreak of blepharitis".
Anyway, the treatment was for her to scrub her eyelashes with baby shampoo while in the shower. Which is easy enough. (And if you try to treat your lovely guy this way, please take pictures!)
posted by MeiraV at 6:48 PM on July 10, 2011
That said, they look like clogged hair follicles to me, and the location made me think of when my mom came home saying the eye doc and criticized her for having blepharitis (which she described as "eyelash dandruff") -- which for some reason we all found quite funny and spent the rest of the evening talking about "the heartbreak of blepharitis".
Anyway, the treatment was for her to scrub her eyelashes with baby shampoo while in the shower. Which is easy enough. (And if you try to treat your lovely guy this way, please take pictures!)
posted by MeiraV at 6:48 PM on July 10, 2011
Looks an awful lot like the allergy symptoms I have seen in several of my boys. I have yet to determine with my current problem baby Kittle (he's on the right) if it is food or flea allergy, or both. It seems intractable, and looks horrible, but seems to bother him not at all. (Silly little sucker is AWOL at the moment, so I can't show you a picture for comparison.)
I have changed foods and they are all now eating food with duck as the first ingredient. No real progress. I keep his flea meds current, and still the problem persists. In the past, I have had one fellow who we ended up getting steroid shots, and that definitely helped, but then you have long-term consequences of that to consider.
How about just keeping an eye on it and revisiting the issue if it gets worse?
posted by thebrokedown at 8:01 PM on July 10, 2011
I have changed foods and they are all now eating food with duck as the first ingredient. No real progress. I keep his flea meds current, and still the problem persists. In the past, I have had one fellow who we ended up getting steroid shots, and that definitely helped, but then you have long-term consequences of that to consider.
How about just keeping an eye on it and revisiting the issue if it gets worse?
posted by thebrokedown at 8:01 PM on July 10, 2011
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In case the question wasn't quite clear: I'm looking for educated guesses and anecdotes about what might be responsible. Particularly welcome would be stories of your cat who lived to a ripe old age with similar bumps.
posted by pseudonick at 6:33 PM on July 10, 2011