So last month our household welcomed a new feline overlord, Percy (short for Purrseus). He is a fine fellow, about 2 years old, full of energy and personality (purrsonality?):D.
Shortly after we brought him home from the humane society we noticed he was scratching himself occasionally. It continued to worsen and he has been back to the vet twice. He now has several raw and bleeding patches and additional bald spots.
It is not: fleas, mites, or a bacterial infection. The vet has mentioned roundworm and food allergies as possibilities. I’ll be taking him back to the vet tomorrow for more testing, but I thought I would call on the collective cat knowledge of the Dopers. Anyone run into this? Any thoughts on what it could be? Any tips on how to get him to stop scratching? We have no other animals in the house, and he is an indoor cat. Only other possibly relevant thing I can think of is that he developed a cold a few days after coming home with us (probably kennel cough). That resolved itself after about a week.
At the last visit the vet recommended a mousse they use for dogs to alleviate itching. I’ll be picking it up today, hopefully it can give him some short-term relief. But I really need to solve the underlying problem too. Poor guy.
Walmart has a house brand of food called Pure Balance, one of the flavors of which is (Limited Ingredient) Turkey & Sweet Potato. It has no corn, wheat, soy, fillers, artificial flavors, or artificial preservatives. With a food like that, you should hopefully be able to eliminate diet as a cause.
He was only at the humane society a few days before we snapped him up, but they were feeding him Hill’s Science Diet Original and we have continued. So if he was allergic to the food, it wouldn’t have shown up at the shelter.
Thanks voltaire, I’ll pick up that Walmart food and try it out.
The vet didn’t seem to think an allergy was likely and was putting off testing for it because she said it required 8 weeks on the same special food and she was checking for the stuff that is easier to deal with first. But after some googling, food allergy seems to be a common cause for skin problems. So now I’m a little ticked off she didn’t suggest changing the food earlier.
I would be too. I know human does not equal cat, but when I myself was itching all the time, I sequentially went through everything I owned, ate, or used on my body. It eventually turned out to be my laundry detergent.
It could be something in your house.
Do you have wall-to-wall carpeting?
What kind of flowers do you have in your yard? Does kitty go out?
Do you guys suffer from allergies? By this I am asking if you have a lot of mold in your house, or if your house is particularly damp.
It is spring, so it could be seasonal. But I would start with the food, definitely.
We have a cat who grooms excessively, to the point where he has bald patches all over his coat. We tried everything & the vet eventually diagnosed it as a form of OCD. Prozac worked, but it was so traumatic for him (and us) to give him the pill everyday, so we eventually stopped & he’s back to excessive grooming. He doesn’t look as good, since he’s got bald patches all over, but his quality of life is better than when we were cramming a pill down his throat on a daily basis (he haaaated that).
So just throwing it out there that sometimes this type of behavior is psychological.
I am currently going through a series of issues with my Dog who had very severe skin problems on her backside which, over a few years has resulted in steroid shots and other mean and nasty treatments. She’s 11, and recently (several months) was vomiting frequently. Vet checked her out. A lot of expensive tests. Gave me some doggy tummy medicine. Sold me some Hill’s Prescription Diet. Worked for a while, but without the medicine, she would start to vomit a lot again. BUT! Taking her off the Purina Kibble totally cleared up her skin itching problem. Go figure. I am not in the anti-gluten camp but that problem seems to have been solved. But she was still vomiting, so I made her some chicken and rice, took her off the Hill’s and the vomiting stopped. Trying a grain free kibble at the moment. Still got a bit of a loose-poop problem though. We’re working it through. Anyway. If Puss is getting any grain in his cat chow, check it out.
I braved Walmart and bought the turkey and sweet potato cat food, we’ll see if it helps. He really likes the food, so that’s a plus. In fact he woke us up at 3am to demand more…
Our house is about 50% carpet but the carpet is fairly new. Our house is fairly clean and quite dry, so that shouldn’t be an issue either. It could be the cat litter, but according to Google he would itch more on his legs and butt, and he’s scratching mainly on his back. He’s an indoor kitty, so plant allergies seems unlikely.
Good to know about the possibility of psychological issues. He seems to have a very easy-going personality, but then again cats is weird.
I got the mousse from the vet to treat his skin to stop the itching, which seems to have worked pretty well. Still need to find out what’s causing it, but I want the bleeding spots to heal up first. Poor kitteh.
My cat started getting little scabby areas – he scratched one open and was bleeding from his face --took him to the vet. Vet said it looks like food allergy, since it was only around the head and neck.
I found several kinds of limited ingredient cat food in the local pet store; stuff like Duck & Green Pea and Turkey & Sweet Potato. The idea is to feed the cat food he has never eaten before, so he hasn’t developed an allergy to it.
Took a few weeks but the cat’s skin cleared up … then tried experimenting by giving a food with corn in it … Bingo, scabs the next day … cleared him up, tried food with soy in it, scabs again, … and then chicken, and wheat.
By avoiding all those very common ingredients in cat food (corn, wheat, soy, chicken), my cat stays clear. If somebody feeds him a bit of their toast or a bite of their chicken he breaks out the next day.
I have one cat that eventually became a compulsive groomer. Turned out to be allergies he developed as he got older and unfortunately not ones that are easily eliminated, like a food allergy - airborne molds/mildews in particular. He is one of those cats that dislikes shots to the point of being somewhat difficult to inject, so immunotherapy with regular injections was something best avoided.
So we tried cyclosporine and it works like a charm - pretty much all of his fur grew back. So far no side effects and this particular cat is relatively easy to dose orally. It’s not necessarily a completely benign medication however and it is pretty fucking pricey even on a maintenance dosage.
