L-Lysine

Tucker has problems with weepy eyes. I've been giving him approx 250-300 mg of L-Lysine in his food every morning. It's helping but his eyes still weep a bit.

I've seen folks talking about L-Lysine here and was wanting some advice...
Should I up his dosage and maybe give him some with his evening meal? He weighs about 12-14 pounds and is very active and otherwise very healthy.

Here's my "weepy" guy:

makes a difference. If his problem is due to scarring of the tear ducts rather than simple herpesvirus conjunctivitis, you won't see any improvement. You can continue the lysine long-term. It is not a drug.

I swear by lysine for my feline patients with FHV conjunctivitis, rhinitis, and even if they get the rare skin sores from it. I have even had a patient with a chronic mouth sore that we thought was eosinophilic granuloma show improvement with lysine.

I also use it to control my own cold sores (which it does beautifully).

I also use lysine at that first sign of a tingly feeling next to my lips, and have not had a full blown cold sore in twenty years since using the lysine.

I am going to remember about using it for viral problems with the furbabies!!!
Thanks for that info kestrel.

I've been giving him the L-Lysine both in the morning and in the evening with his wet food. His eyes still water, especially after he comes in from outside but they aren't getting that reddish brown gunk in them. I just gently wipe his eye area with a warm washcloth and he seems to be ok. He can be a pretty tolerant little guy and doesn't mind the washcloth. He likes it a lot better than drops in his eyes!

Is it in a tablet? Is it ok to crush it and mix it in?

I got the L-Lysine from Walgreens. I read somewhere on the internet that it was important to make sure the lysine did not have certain preservatives. I can't remember what they were but the ones from Walgreens didn't have them. I bought 500 mg tablets, crushed one and then measured it. It came out that 250 mg was a little less than 1/4 teaspoon. I crushed the rest of the bottle and I give him a little less than 1/4 teaspoon in his morning wet food and his evening wet food. I mix it in really well and he doesn't seem to even notice it's there.

I crushed all the tablets at once for 2 reasons, 1. convience and 2. the tablet were really hard to crush! I ended up putting them in plastic bags, wrapping a towel around them and hitting them with a hammer to get them crushed into a fine powder. There has got to be a better way to do that!

My vet has it in paste form but my kitty tended to spit it out, even when I put it on the roof of his mouth!

I've also seen the L-Lysine in powder form specifically designed for kittys here
http://www.medi-vet.com/detail.aspx~ID~2751

One of my kitties is getting a cold now, so I will try some asap!

You can crush and mix, that works fine.