Advice Needed!!

[heidiv]

Just curious has your vet checked Chloe for dry skin (since heat runs in the winter and dryes out the skin), ringworm, fleas, food allergies, or a skin infection in addition to possible litter allergy?

Those would be some of the more typical things our hospital checks for when a cat comes in with those same problems.


Yeah we have had her in to the vet, the strange thing is that all of hair that is thin almost looks as if she is chewing on it and breaking it off. I made sure that the vet did check for all of the above parasites first then we talked about what the next step would be??

She said that she didn't think it was a food allergy because the area where the hair is missing???? Mainly on her tummy and her back legs all areas that she could chew the hair off. She said that their are things that they can give her for anxiety but since cats systems are so sensitive to any little change that we didn't want to have to go there unless she was chewing to the point that she was breaking it open.

I just thought that if we reduced the chance of dust and dirt of any kind getting onto her skin that we might see some change. The vet thought it is an anxiety thing. Like a nail biting or hair twirling in humans. If she doesn't show any signs of change within the next couple of weeks then I will have her tested for allergies. She wanted to see if changing her surrounding due to christmas and many people being around during the holiday that maybe she was stressed out????? We have put everything back to normal but no change so we wanted to exhaust all of our other options before meds if we can....... Pricilla my other siamese was on prednisone for most of her life due to allergies so I want to make sure that its not something little before we proceed..... She only live till the age of 6 I am not sure if it had anything to do with the Predinisone or anything I just get a little scared if we go away from natural things because of all of that....I will make sure that I ask the vet about all this info. also thanks tons.

[Catlady711]

Yeah we have had her in to the vet, the strange thing is that all of hair that is thin almost looks as if she is chewing on it and breaking it off. She said that she didn't think it was a food allergy because the area where the hair is missing???? Mainly on her tummy and her back legs all areas that she could chew the hair off. She said that their are things that they can give her for anxiety but since cats systems are so sensitive to any little change that we didn't want to have to go there unless she was chewing to the point that she was breaking it open. The vet thought it is an anxiety thing. Like a nail biting or hair twirling in humans.

How old is Chloe?

I'm curious because Dusty (my oldest at 16 1/2) has hair missing in the same areas. We know for a fact that she overgrooms herself. She started doing it when she was about 14 and has only gotten worse since. We tried the allergy route (elimination of things, not actual testing) and nothing helps. She's now gone on to lick all the hair off her ankles, tip of tail, starting on her front paws and scratching hair off the tips only of her ears. Dusty has always been a rather persnickerty cat and gets stressed out if things don't go her way. She's gotten so that now when she sits, she automatically lifts one hind leg like she's gonna groom, even if she doesn't, or she'll be in a 'zone' when she licks like nothing else is going on in the world. We've tried collars and bitter apple, to no avail. Her skin itself is normal unless she gets really agressive with it then she sometimes gets little red sores but they go away in a day or two. With all of Dusty's other health problems over the years we don't want to medicate her unnecessarily. However I do figure when it's Dusty's time to go that she'll probably be bald.

Although I am told that sometimes spayed cats do suddenly lick off the fur on their tummies but that giving them hormones not only doesn't help but can have side effects. Most cats grow it back again though. Vet doesn't think this is what Dusty's problem is.

Good luck on your litter search.