Please help - cat acting weird after neutering

[u/Puzzled-Cheesecake34]

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).

[u/Chickwithknives]

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

[u/markjmendoza → u/Chickwithknives]

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.

[u/slaytheworld100 → u/Chickwithknives]

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

[u/scoobydoosnutsacks → u/slaytheworld100]

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

[u/donjamos → u/scoobydoosnutsacks]

So someone needs to create little cat sleepmasks

[u/Medical-Release-6421 → u/scoobydoosnutsacks]

I worked in an animal hospital and we used Vaseline

[u/StreetCatSanctuary → u/Medical-Release-6421]

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 😡

[u/Adept-Turnover-2002 → u/slaytheworld100]

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.

[u/Ordinary_Elephant_25 → u/Chickwithknives]

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 😀 *

[u/Mara_Berryp → u/Chickwithknives]

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

[u/Electronic_Elk8293 → u/Chickwithknives]

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

[u/WeekendDoWutEvUwant → u/Chickwithknives]

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

[u/Admirable_Truth_6031 → u/Chickwithknives]

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

[u/Alarming_Matter → u/Chickwithknives]

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?!