Expert: Jessica - 8/24/2009

Question
Our cat just had the same thing happen while we were all outside.  He is just under a year old and he always tags along with us out to our barn.  He wandered off (on our property) and our neighbors cat was in the bushes and attacked him.  Later on that day we noticed his left eye was rolled to the side.  Is this a detached retina?  And can our local vet correct this?  And approx. how much do you think this would cost?  

I suggested to my daughter that she should call Cornell to see if maybe they could do a surgery.  I know we take our horses there and it is more affordable than our local large animal vet.  Thank you for your time.

Answer
Hi Carol.  This might be a condition called strabismus, commonly just called a "turned eye".  Most cats who have strabismus are born with it or are suffering some sort of infection or cancer, but in rare cases as it may be with yours, it can be caused by a deep eye trauma.  Usually, the muscles that control eye movements would need to be injured, but this could be a possibility if your kitty was in a serious fight and took a bad scratch to the eye.  Retinal detachment is indeed a possibility with eye traumas as well, but this isn't visible when looking at the cat with the naked eye.  The use of a light is needed to view the back of the cat's eye to determine if the retina has been detached or is still in tact for sure.

Strabismus doesn’t necessarily need to be treated, as it doesn’t generally seem to interfere with vision, and most cats compensate for the altered position of their center of vision very well.  Detached retinas most often can’t be treated.  The cat has lost vision in the affected eye.  But certainly, it may be worth discussing your options with a veterinary ophthalmologist.  Cornell would definitely be a great place to start!  Your kitty will certainly need some sort of antibiotic eye ointment to help it heal from the trauma and prevent infection anyway.

Unfortunately, ocular surgeries are very intricate, and most veterinarians are not equipped to handle a lot of reparative eye surgeries if you’re hoping to completely correct your kitty’s eye.  If necessary, most any vet can perform enucleations, the removal of the eye, in their office for significantly less than an ophthalmologist might charge.  I know when one of my cats had to have her eye removed, my vet did it for $750 when the ophthalmologist would have had to charge $1200.