My 6 year old tabby kitty suddenly, six months ago, began licking and biting at his left rear foot, making it bleed. He has been tested for infections and nothing was found. A biopsy was taken and the report was that it appeared to be similar to the irritation found from itching due to some allergy. We changed his diet. He didn’t improve. He had a round of cortisone pills, then a shot. He wore a nasty collar that kept him from reaching it for over a week, so the foot healed up, and as soon as the collar came off the sore foot came right back. It will improve slightly for a few days and then return, seemingly related to nothing. The vet is out of ideas. So am I. Bloody footprints everywhere, plus he seems so miserable sometimes. Anyone have any ideas? (I have another cat and they don’t really get along all that well, but then they never have.)
Sounds like second opinion time.
I didn’t mean to sound short, but if you see your veterinarian three times for the same problem without arriving at a definitive diagnosis or improving a chronic problem then you should seek a second opinion.
I love seeing second opinions. Often the original veterinarian has fallen into a trap of assuming his original assumptions are correct. Many times I just review prior test results and from a fresh point of view arrive at a treatment plan that works.
Be sure to have your original veterinarian fax test results/records/radiographs/etc to whoever you see. No use paying for all of that work to be repeated. If there are specialists in your area there is no reason a second opinion shouldn’t be with a dermatologist.
kayT My tortishell had a very similar problem. My vet had a lot of options and we tried them all before finding one that worked. I don’t know where in California you are but if you’re in the SF bay area I’d be happy to reccommend my vet to you. If not try asking your vet about topical cotrizone gel. It comes in syringes and you rub it onto the cats ears for absorbtion. It’s very low stress for kitty and you and is what finally cured mine.
E-mail me if you want more info or my vet’s name. E-mail should be in profile.
Good luck.
Sorry to have been away so long. Puck’s Raven, I can’t e-mail to you. Can you tell me a bit more about the cortisone gel? Do you put it on the area that itches? We did cortisone shot and prednisone tabs and cortisone cream, with absolutely no results.
I have had opinions from 3 vets. They all say it’s an allergy. They recommended changing diet; we did; no results. They all say go to a skin specialist. Nearest one is many miles away and wants $120 for first visit. I sure don’t want to do that. All the treatments so far have been unpleasant for kitty and expensive for me and have made no difference at all. I guess I have lost faith in the traditional meds at this point. Have read some pretty negative things about long-term use of steriods as well, but would probably use them anyway if they worked. I can’t help wondering if it’s really stress or some sort of behavioral thing rather than actual allergy…
Here’s a suggestion, but please remember that IANA Vet, and my experience at tending critter ailments is with dogs, not cats. OTOH, so long as you’re careful about dosages, it should be safe enough to try.
I had a 4 y.o. dog who worked up a fairly large size “lick sore.” Missy wasn’t responding to anything my vet (who was highly competent, and really cared about his patients) did, so I tried vitamin A (which I’d learned about coping with a skin tear on another of my dogs), and it worked very well. The other dog breeder who told me to use “A” on the first dog told me to use a once-daily 25,000 I.U. caplet to a 25 pound dog. I would think that a cat weighing at least 6 pounds could safely take an 8,000 I.U. caplet (usual size presently sold) daily for at least two weeks. And by that time, you’ll know whether it’s having any effect or not.
Another point to remember is that once your cat, or my dog, or you or I have an open sore, lots of microbes move in and set up housekeeping. I’d be inclined to ask about an antibiotic, were he mine - not an oral one, but an ointment.
If you try it, and it works, I’d say a maintenance dose of one 8,000 I.U. caplet weekly should keep him healed up.
Good luck!
tygerbryght, not to be stupid, but you do mean give the caplet orally? or rub on sore? Thanks for your help.
Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin present in commercial feline diets. Deficiency is extremely rare except for cases where a cat is fed a vegetarian diet. Toxicity, on the oter hand is not rare. Hypervitaminosis A causes boney changes that are irreversible.
Vitamin A toxicosis has been seen in cases where a cat was fed a commercial diet supplemented with a small amount of liver each day.
I would never advise vitamin A supplementation in a cat unless the animal is shown via laboratory analysis to be deficient.
Cite: Small Animal Clinical Nutrition 4th edition Hand, Thatcher, Remillard, & Roudebush
Don’t overlook possible environmental causes. We had a cat who would get skin irritation, swelling, and sores on his paw pads and around his mouth only in the fall and winter months. We tried all the treatments you mentioned, and he’d heal up while he was wearing his cone collar, but then he’d get worse again as soon as it was taken off. He would start getting the sores in September or October, and he’d get better in March or April. The vet finally said he thought it must be a seasonal allergy, but he wasn’t sure where to go from there.
We finally realized after going through this for three years that we had a small hole in our attic door, just about big enough for this cat to fit through. He was going up there when the weather got cold and lying down in the fiberglas insulation, which was causing irritation to his paw pads and lips. Once we fixed the hole, he never got “sick” again. It’s not that I think the same thing would be happening with your cat, but sometimes there are simple yet very strange explanations for injuries.
My cat has some flaky skin and often scratches his chin until it bleeds. The solution was to use Science Diet Sensitive Skin cat food. I put him on it, problem solved. When I ran out, I used “regular” cat food for a couple weeks and the problem came back. Put him back on the Science Diet Sens Skin food and the problem vanished again. Might work for you. You can order it from online petstores if nobody carries it.
I know this is a bit of a “zebra”, but could your cat have OCD? Ever thought of kitty Prozac?
As a matter of fact I have been reading up on OCD, and it does happen to cats. And sometimes they are given Prozac. I don’t think I’ll be doing that one, but … we’ll see how bad this gets. I am in week 9 of a 10 week trial of an alternate diet which has so far made no difference, but everyone has told me I have to give it at least 10 weeks so maybe all is not lost…
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. If anyone has a cat with obsessive compulsive disorder please let me know what has worked.
I’m going to suggest an odd one for cats. Try giving it a regular bath (like every 1 or 2 weeks). My cat suffered from allergic reactions to SOMETHING (still don’t know what) in my apartment when we moved here and I tried 3 vets, all sorts of medications adn even changing diets with no luck.
I happened across a cat book at the library once that suggested this and believe it or not, but it actually worked.
I bathe her every 2 weeks or so, and other than a really P.Oed kitty afterwards, no more rash or scratching.
(Ticked me off cause I spent a LOT of money on vets and meds for the critter and not one of the vets recommended bathing it).
I wonder if just washing his foot that he won’t stop biting would work; he never scratches anything else, just that foot, so maybe I wouldn’t have to try to wash his entire body. For that I better get help!
I would not get my hopes up if I were you. Every case of food allergy in a cat that I have ever seen involved pruritis of the head and neck. Other areas could also be involved, but head and neck lesions in the cat are typical with food allergies.
well give it a go. Can’t hurt to try.
Sorry for the delay.
In view of vetbridge’s response, I withdraw my suggestion. I also would not suggest that A be applied to the kitty’s sore. Vitamin E is much more effective for topical application, and it also doesn’t have the risk of accidental toxicity if he licks it off. If you do apply E (oil suspension is generally available in vitamin sections of a pharmacy, or at nutrition shops, and what I’d use), do you think he’d leave a wrapping on for at least an hour or two? That would give it time to be absorbed. 
Seconding InternetLegends advice to check the environment, especially for any insulation kitty might be getting into. My sister’s finishing her basement, and before they had the walls up, their kitten had a sore that she’d worry for hours because some fiberglass insulation had gotten in her fur and skin. After they closed off access to the insulation, the sore healed up fine.