Cat won't stop irritating her eye

Figgy

My cat has had a small sore above her eye for a few weeks now. It will go away to a tiny little scab, and then I'll notice her "cleaning" her eye and it will be red and swollen looking again. Inspecting closely, it's not anything to do with her actual eyeball, it looks like a small pimple just above, on the skin. I don't want to take her to the vet just so he can tell me it's a pimple and she keeps irritating it herself.

Here is a picture I took today. Her eye is slightly closed mainly from the flash, but sometimes she does squint it a bit after she's been pawing at it.



And just because, here are a couple more shots:

FF

Easiest would probably be one of those cones. Gives it a chance to heal all the way.

i.e.

Figgy

That occurred to me, but isn't that a tad extreme?

Is there something I can buy to aid in the healing of it? Like a cream from the pet store or something? Someone at work told me to put polysporin drops on it, but I don't necessarily want to use human medicine on my cat.

Deusfaux

they have soft flexible cotton or something discs instead of cones now too. looks like the cat is coming out of a tea kettle coaster

Terra

If it's been going on for a couple weeks, you might want to take her to the vet. Other than that, I second the Cone of Shame. Something's making her want to scratch and an ointment might just annoy her even more, leading to more scratching.

SwashbucklerXX

Cone of Shame is the way to go, that's most likely what the vet would give you anyway. And yeah, it's not a good idea to use human medicine on a cat without asking a vet first, especially since without a cone, the cat is likely to continue cleaning the wound, thus ingesting any ointment you put on the eye.

Chanus

One of our cats gets that occasionally (like twice in a year and a half). It always clears up after a week or two... I was assuming it was just a bug bite or something.

Figgy

She had something similar a couple years ago when we first moved into our house, but it was closer to the top of her head. I did some snooping and there was a 6" gap in the crawlspace (where her litter is) and I thought maybe she was getting back there to explore and scratching herself. So, I drywalled the gap. The wound went away a week later.

Maybe it was just something she gets? Is there some sort of recurring skin problem cats can have? Come to think of it, she had a little sore on her chin shortly after we adopted her, but I attributed it to her plastic food dish her previous owner gave us. I switched to porcelain and it went away.

The plot thickens!

So, where do I find these cones?

SwashbucklerXX

Any reasonably-sized pet supply store.

Here's an example of one of the soft cones from Petco.

Chanus

Yeah, our other cat has the plastic allergy and gets the little pimples on his chin if he has a plastic food dish.

It's possible it's an allergic reaction to something, though pinpointing what may be difficult... if it were the litter, she would more likely have signs on her paws and legs.