Ellen's Visit To The Vet...

Today I took Ellen to work (I work at an animal hospital.) Ellen is my year old torti and she had this "Scabby" place at the base of her ears and above her eyes. At first we thought it was because Bubba Gump (Our siamese) plays rough with her, but I soon realized it couldn't be that. We had one of the doctors do a skin scrapping on her and it came out negative for anything. She doesn't have fleas, so that ruled out any weird reaction to a flea bite. We found out her ears had a bit of a yeast infection, but nothing major. Doctor Bunker has classified it as a mild allergy of some sort. She may have to get Depo shots if she doesn't respond well to the ear meds or antibiotics.

I guess its just been an interesting day because she reminds us so much of my mom's old torti, Bert, who had to have depo shots because of her allergies. The thing with the depo shots is that it can shorten a cats lifespan if they start getting it as a young feline (Before 7 years of age.) Hopefully she'll respond well to the medications.

I gave her a bath and then a dose of Revolution and now she is happy as a june bug to be home. It really was interesting giving her medications today. She HATED being dewormed when she was little, and giving her the Clavamox suspension drops is similar to how she was given the dewormer.

I've never had to give any of our cats medications before, haha so this will be interesting, especially since now I am the one dosing her.


Its ironic too that she has some sort of allergy, because last night I just told mom how lucky we were to not have any cats that were diabetic, or allergic to anything. :rolleyes:

Keep your fingers crossed that she doesn't need depo shots and responds well to the medications!

Ohh and I forgot to mention, my little baby isn't so little anymore! :eek: She's now 9 pounds and 4 ounces! She did well today at work, everyone kept commenting on how sweet she was.

Has a food allergy been ruled out?

I hope Ellen is feeling more comfortable.

I've read here about cat acne causing the black scabbing...one person got good results with a warm wet washcloth held on the area, and gently loosening the stuff with the cloth. I think steroids were also involved...and kitty liked the warmth of the cloth!

My dads cat gets like this. She has more of it though and if you let it go she starts looking a lot like an alley cat in general. She is also a torti, his vet says he see''s is most in them. Sometimes allergy, otherwise just high strung/stressed. I dont know what he gives her though. My dad dont always keep up on her meds. If he dont take her in and she gets a mess she gets a shot (I assume steroid) She takes pills, 1/4 pill a day and keeps her just fine. I been meaning to look at the pills and see what they are but never remember. She has been this way for about 2yrs now.

Well, a food allergy hasn't been ruled out. But this is just recent that she's had this scabby spot appear. I never see her scratching at herself or anything. We just have her on some meds to help with the "itchyness" and an antibiotic to clear up the scabby spots. The rest of her coat is nice and thick, its just weird that its just above her brows.

I think I've seen quite a few tortis with allergy problems... weird though, my 13 year old torti is fine.


Hopefully Ellen will do alright with the meds. She hated me giving her her meds today, but she'll get used to it. :)

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Originally Posted by emilysgk

My dads cat gets like this. She has more of it though and if you let it go she starts looking a lot like an alley cat in general. She is also a torti, his vet says he see''s is most in them. Sometimes allergy, otherwise just high strung/stressed. I dont know what he gives her though. My dad dont always keep up on her meds. If he dont take her in and she gets a mess she gets a shot (I assume steroid) She takes pills, 1/4 pill a day and keeps her just fine. I been meaning to look at the pills and see what they are but never remember. She has been this way for about 2yrs now.

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My Smudge has this, and got a depo-medrol shot and promptly got sick because it knocked out his immune system. So the vet suggested a quarter tablet (1 mg, quarter of a 4 mg tablet) of chlorpheniramine maleate (generic Chlor-Trimeton - make sure chlorpheniramine maleate is the only active ingredient!) twice a day. I grind it in a mortar & pestle and mix it with a little water and mash it in with his canned food. If he's not in a canned food mood, he doesn't get any and breaks out again, but he's the Classic Unpillable Cat and I'm just thankful he's getting enough to keep it controlled. The trick is to mash it into smelly enough food to cover it!

Love, Columbine

I'm giving Ellen the Chlorpheniramine for the itchyness. She's doing ok taking it. I have to pop half a pill in the back of her throat if she doesn't eat it when I treat her with a bite of canned food. She's hard to pill.

My mom and dad's tortie, Lucey, has major allergies and has meds for them as well. She take pred. on an as needed basis (they don't like to give it to her much because it's a steriod), and there's another med she takes as well. I know if it gets really bad, she goes to the vet for a shot.

They also had to switch her flea medication to Revolution because she had a really bad reaction to Frontline where her fur would fall out in clumps where they put it on her. Revolution doesn't do that to her at all.

Hope your Ellen gets to feeling better and she won't need all those meds!