mouse is sick puffy and red eyes

Question
hi tamarah,
i have a female fancy mouse named sasha. i have had her almosta yr in june... today i noticed that one of her eyes is a little red a pinkish red and its draining. ( its clear ) it also seems to be a lil puffy or swollen. at first she could not open it but i called petsmart where i purchased her and they told me to calla small animal vet and gave me a number i cant call until tomorrow cause it was closed. in the mean time they suggested putting clear fresh water onto her eye with an eye dropper. after doing that it seemed to help her open her eye but other symptoms still the same. im not working right now so i cant afford to go to a vet. do you have any suggestions for home remedies i could try that might work? i did see something on here by someone suggesting tetracycline would that be something i could try? im really worried. thank you so much for your help. and god bless.

Answer
Hi Courtney,

I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - I had technical difficulties last night that kept me from getting online until tonight.  Could you reach the vet?  Sometimes even if you can't afford to bring them in, they might give you a little advice over the phone.  :)

Water's a good idea, and so is gently using a moistened cutip to clean off any crusties on or around her eyelids.  You can put a *little* bit of salt in the water and make sure it is completely dissolved, then use that as well.  This basically makes a saline solution, the same thing we put in our eyes when we have irritation.

The tetracycline is also a wonderful idea, because the two possible causes that come to mind are a regular eye infection, or an infection around the eye that's leaking (like a small abscess).  Either could have been caused by a small scratch, or even just getting something dirty in the eye, and then bad bacteria causing an infection in that area.  Therefore, an antibiotic like tetracycline has a great chance of working on them and at the very least will keep the infection from spreading.  I would definitely continue washing the eye, however, at least wiping away any leakage from the area.

Good luck, and I hope her eye starts feeling better soon!
-Tam