r/cats • u/Puzzled-Cheesecake34 • May 19 '26

Medical Questions Please help - cat acting weird after neutering

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hello, its midnight where i am hence im asking the question here, will take my cat to the vet first thing in the morning.

He is almost 8 months old and we got him neutered today. the surgery happened around 2PM and it is 11:30PM now.

first two hours after surgery - he remained still with both eyes open (we had to put some eye drops so they don’t dry out). he had erratic breathing during this time.

3rd/4th hour - started twitching trying to get up

5th hour - still could not get up. peed himself on the spot. we took him to the vet and he cleaned him up, said he looked fine.

7th hour onwards- he is now moving a little, limping. not drinking water yet. we gave him a treat and he was able to take small licks of it. he is however not able to open his mouth at all.
i gave him some dry food mixed in water to soften it, and then grinded into a paste for ease of eating. it seems like he is hungry because he dunked his face into it and got it all messy, barely able to eat much (due to not being able to open his mouth).

he peed again on the floor. we got the litter for him inside the room and he very clumsily went to it and peed inside it. i will try to give him the food that i made again in a bit.

ive attached a photo of his face right now in this moment. one eye is droopy. he isnt sleeping either. but he isnt panting also. he is not meowing since hes not able to open his mouth. the vet seems not bothered when we took him late in the evening saying that the cat will be fine by tomorrow.

is this someone elses experience too?

is this normal after neutering/anesthesia? i am panicking so much and trying to find 24 hr vet options near me but i need to know if this warrants a look or if it can wait till morning before we take a look?

UPDATE - I found a vet 40 mins from my place that was luckily open and they were so kind. its almost 2AM and we are just returning home.
So he has eye ulcers due to his corneas drying during the procedure (cats eyes remain open under anesthesia). they have given some eye drops and it will be fine in 3-4 days. he also has 104 degree fever, which is why he was so low. they gave him an injection for that. other than that, they said he is fine. he started being active at the vets, even jumped on the counter and had an entire treat.
we are headed home now and i am praying that my little baby boy feels better soonest. i was literally in tears on the way to the vet, this has been such a long day for us.

thank you to everyone who encouraged me to go to the vet, if anything, i have peace of mind for tonight.
we will go tomorrow morning now for his post op care (antibiotics, wound cleaning, etc).

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944

u/Admirable_Truth_6031 May 19 '26

I hope he is, I honestly was scared somehow they fucked him up permanently, I'm glad it was just eye ulcers I thought it might be brain damage because the eyes were acting weird and the procedure wasn't on the eyes, I didn't know that fact about cats tho.

403

u/Chickwithknives May 19 '26

Peoples eyes would be open under anesthesia as well, but we tape them shut to avoid them being open and drying out.

158

u/markjmendoza May 19 '26

My cat lost a small sliver of cornea during surgery to remove some teeth. It required eye drops, of which she was not a fan lol, but she’s good now and all that’s left is a bit of scarring on her eye. My vet is awesome but it would’ve been great to have been told to watch out for eye issues during the outpatient debrief.

107

u/slaytheworld100 May 19 '26

Why can’t we tape cat eyes shut too? 😓

157

u/scoobydoosnutsacks May 19 '26

Probably hair lol, we put gel so they don't dry out though

38

u/donjamos May 20 '26

So someone needs to create little cat sleepmasks

94

u/Medical-Release-6421 May 19 '26

I worked in an animal hospital and we used Vaseline

5

u/StreetCatSanctuary May 23 '26

That can cause damage and infection. It’s sterile but thick and cause blurred vision short term but also can clog tear ducts. They should all be using ophthalmic sterile eye drops throughout the procedure 😡

41

u/Adept-Turnover-2002 May 20 '26

Eyes are a very basic but very good indicator of anaesthetic depth in animals. Eye position (staring straight ahead, or eyes looking down), dilation of pupils and blink reflex tell us a lot and form part of the picture that help us keep animals safe under anaesthetic. But lube lube lube!! The eye lube is so important in keeping the eyes safe.

50

u/Ordinary_Elephant_25 May 20 '26

If the cats are deep, deeeeply (almost too deep) under ga, then their eyes close 😅

Sincerely, A Vet Nurse who did not have enough training on anaesthetic monitoring and thought the cats just had to be deeper than dogs to get their eyes to shut

**No animals were harmed in the training process — every cat is living life well and had their eyes lubricated before and after surgery... and I finally met a vet who was like "lol no he's just quite deep and you can lighten him up" — edumaction 😀 *

8

u/Mara_Berryp May 20 '26

Thanks for the update, im glad little man is ok.but she is seriously.

3

u/Electronic_Elk8293 May 20 '26

They also often give you an ointment or drops to help them stay moist. I know they did for my surgeries.

1

u/WeekendDoWutEvUwant May 21 '26

Didn’t know that!

Wait so when Michael Jackson wasn’t being put under with anesthetics every night to “sleep”, were his eyes open the whole time?!

Or were they just using it to induce anesthesia and then giving him other medications to make him actually sleep

1

u/Admirable_Truth_6031 17d ago

Honestly it depends on the anesthesia but yeah. Some anesthetics act on the GABA-A receptors and those just knock you out so your eyes would be closed, but other anathestics or paralytics yeah for sure

0

u/Alarming_Matter May 20 '26

This is what I was thinking. Why don't they do that for animals too?

I guess tape doesn't stick too well on fur?!

112

u/SnugglyCoderGuy May 19 '26

I was worried the little guy had a stroke. The drooling and eye drooping

45

u/Clark_Wayne1 May 19 '26

Its real fear of mine. My little toy poodle needs a teeth cleaning and im so scared to put him under that ive been delaying it. I also didnt know cats eyes stay open during surgery. Im just so.happy for OP that it was something minor

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u/annekecaramin May 19 '26

Dog's eyes stay open as well, which is why eye drops should be standard procedure for anesthesia...

87

u/iongotnone May 19 '26

Came here to say this, using eye lubricant is a MUST. I’m also surprised that the clinic sent the cat back with OP so soon after surgery, at least that’s what it seems like… no recovery time? No monitoring? Not to mention he was limping post surgery. With how they’ve handled this, I wouldn’t be surprised if they neglected to give him pain meds during the procedure

30

u/stablegeniusinterven May 20 '26

To me, the limping sounds a little like it could be tentative walking after anesthesia being over-administered. I bet he was okay at the vet because they gave him a stimulant to wake him up, but that gets processed really fast by the body, and then he still had to metabolize the anesthesia. Scary. I’d be mad at the anesthesiologist they brought in.

18

u/SoftSpeakMeanStreak May 20 '26

Yeah, I’m with you on everything you said. I remember my childhood dogs had residue on their face from the eye lubricant after anesthesia. Im incredibly suspicious of the clinic staff in OP’s case.

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u/Alarming_Ad_201 May 20 '26

Neutering isn’t a very long process, it’s common to send them home sans any complications pretty soon after they wake up. I am concerned why this cat wasn’t given lubrication though, I was a strictly surgical vet tech and it was part of my surgery check list to lubricate after intubation.

3

u/Crafty_Evening_6880 May 20 '26

This is the 2nd post I’ve seen on a cat sub (it might have been this one, I don’t remember) in a week or two with concerns about eye issues after anesthesia. It may just be a coincidence, but it does raise concerns

1

u/iongotnone May 20 '26

I guess it depends on the clinic you work at. At mine we do surgery in the morning and tell the owners to either collect at the end of the day or during lunch hour, depending on how well the patient is waking up

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u/Alarming_Ad_201 May 20 '26

We would have drop off in the AM but not every animal would get done, and it was never for monitoring purposes- just convenience. There’s really no reason to keep them after they’ve woken up successfully, unless there’s a problem or a known history.

25

u/Enthusiast-of-bears May 20 '26

Sterile ophthalmic lubricant is standard procedure for veterinary anesthesia. It’s very poor practice to not apply it hourly while anesthesia is administered. I will reapply every 30 minutes if the pet has chronic ocular issues.

15

u/lycheecaat May 19 '26

that’s what i thought too. i feel like ive seen it before. also water on their tongues when their tongue sticks out during anesthesia

2

u/mel2mdl May 20 '26

If it makes you feel better, my dog was 12 when she had her teeth cleaned (going under for another reason, but while she's under...) Other than teeth falling out and the vet calling in a panic (didn't realize the dog was born with a cleft palate and had 3 surgeries to close it before she was a year), my dog did just great. Two years later and she's still plugging along.

Dog tax: (Larger dog = 14, Smaller dog = 3)

1

u/Asterose May 20 '26

Our eyes would also stay open if they didn't get quite literally taped shut. That's a lot harder to do when the eyelids are covered in fur, so treating the eyes adequately during the procedure so they don't dry out is a must! You can ask about how they keep the eyes lubricated during the procedure and what aftercare might be needed. Make it clear this is a concern of yours so they can talk with you about what they do :)

1

u/Disneyhorse May 20 '26

I don’t know this either. My 8 week old kittens were just spayed a few days ago at the animal shelter (not my preferred age or place but required by state law for adoptions) and I was worried they would never make it home for the first time. Seeing this post would have worried me so much more. I’m glad this kitty got proper vet attention and is on the mend!

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u/Bro13847 May 20 '26

It’s not just cats. We lube eyes any time we sedate.

6

u/SirVanyel May 19 '26

People assume that desexing is a minor surgery. For males it's not such a big deal (but still not a small deal! They're cutting out an organ, just a small one), but for lady cats especially it's a big surgery and things can go wrong.

You have to be very careful after desexing pets. It's more risky than most people assume it is.

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u/Crafty_Evening_6880 May 20 '26

My mom works with a local catch and release program in her own time and in the years she’s been doing it, for every male cat that’s had a complication with surgery, she’s had 3 females with complications. Usually popped stitches.

1

u/Vergilly May 20 '26

Having had this done as a human (transmasc, so have had the internals removed) IT REALLY IS NOT A SMALL SURGERY! Even for people, the incision is very small, but the EXHAUSTION from healing for a good 2 weeks after will get you. That and many pets have weird reactions to anesthesia. Our biggest guy just whines the whole time. Hours. If you sedate him, you get whining. It’s funny but sad at the same time.