We’re at our wit’s end with our poor cat, Teal’c. From a shelter, everything was fine and dandy through his first year or so. Then at around a year or so we noticed he was looking a wee bit scruffy… then we noticed he was a lot bit scraggly. Now he’s downright fuzzless—all along his sides and most of his paws are almost completely defurred (defurlled?).
Given where it is, it seems that it is self-inflicted. That is, it’s along his sides, stomach and legs. However the really odd thing is that we just don’t see him over-grooming. Granted, we could be missing it but Mrs Dvl and I both work out of home, and are often up at odd hours. He, like the rest of our brood (two pooches, another cat and a rabbit), is inclined to stay with the pack—that is, if we are in the office, within ten minutes, he’ll be up in there with us, most likely sitting on top of my monitor. If we go to the parlour, he’ll soon saunter in. Never do we see him groom more than his brother, Ash (as in The Name’s Ash… Housewares), and having been raised with cats, his behaviour is not abnormal in that regard. He’s quirky, yes, but that’s part of being a cat.
Nothing seems to help. We’ve had him to two different vets—one in The City before we moved, and one out here in the sticks. So now we’re turning to the TM in hopes that someone will have “the” suggestion.
Here’s a bit of history of what we’ve done/tried:
Allergens? At the first sign of his thinning coat, our vet grilled us for a while about possible allergens. Nothing came of it—we have no wool in the house, no carpeting, and he has never had fleas (he’s a completely indoor cat). It’s been over a year and a half since we first noticed the problem, during which we moved, so it’s unlikely to be an environmental factor (and right before we moved, we had the two or three rugs in the house and all the furniture professionally cleaned). Over the months we switched through several different litters, both brands and types (i.e. paper pellets, clumping, crystals). We had him on Science Diet Z/D hypoallergenic food, both wet and dry, for several months at a time in both houses, neither had any affect.
At our vet’s suggestion, we made him suffer through baths for weeks on end—two different kinds. One was for soothing skin, and then one that was supposed to help with allergies. I can’t remember exactly what they were at the moment, if it helps I’ll dig out his records and see if it’s there. Neither helped.
Our vet tested him for ringworm and fungus, both of which came up negative. He even went so far as to have him tested for Bartonella, and retested him for leukaemia and FELINE/HIV. Again, all negative (whew!).
He was on Elavil for a month or so (he didn’t react to it too well: suddenly going outside the box) and there was no effect. He has now been on Clomipramine (1.25 mg once a day) for about three months, though there has been no real noticeable change in his fuzz level. (He cries less at Hallmark commercials.)
About the only thing that showed any sign of working was a Depo Medrol steroid injection. It helped in that it made him slightly—just slightly—fuzzier, and kept what appeared to be bite marks to a minimum. But this month would be the seventh consecutive shot (at one-month intervals), and that’s all they did—made him slightly fuzzier (and much less happy with the vet’s office). And from what we’ve heard about the long-term effects, we are reluctant to keep him on it if it’s not doing him any good. (Of course, maybe we heard wrong about the negative side effects, and we should take him in every two weeks).
So please… PLEASE! We’re really sad here. Can anyone offer a suggestion as to what we should do next? Try a third vet? Try a homeopathic/new age/tinfoil hat cure? Learn to knit?!
Rhythm