Oh I so so know how you feel. I have two cats with the bare belly syndrome. Both my Deirdre and my Brianna are chewing their hair off their bellies and legs and Deirdre the underside of her tail. Deirdre has always been very highstrung and intense. She also REALLY doesn't like it when I have to leave for work. Often she will growl and hiss at me in displeasure. So while I was distressed I wasn't surprised to see Deirdre showing signs of seperation anxiety and stress. But Brianna was always soooo layed back and clownish. I think it might have been the introduction of my husbands cat Kaliban that started Brianna on her road to bareness. I don't know....*sigh*

But I have had both of them on Prednisone for a year...I have tried Pred with valium and I also have used the Feliway. I have two of the diffusers in the house and it just doesnt' seem to do much good. They have 2 treat balls to keep them busy. My vet and I discuss this often and have decided to try a new anti anxiety medication called Clomicalm. It is specifically for obsessive compulsive disorders and seperation anxiety. It is a human drug that they have been using in dogs and some in cats.

They have only been on it for a little over a week but I have seem some positive changes. Deirdre is not nearly so frantic. She is actually walking about the house rather than running back and forth all the time. She askes politely for food rather than trying to just steal it off my plate. She is still doing the Deirdre loving things like standing on her hind legs on the table when I get home and giving me a hug. But she isn't meowing frantically at me. She went outside yesterday in the beautiful weather while my hubby was grilling burgers and leaped in the air to try and pounce on a shrew.

Brianna's demeaner isn't quite so dramatically changed but she is calmer. She just doesn't seem so tense. She relaxes on the sofa and purrs rather than pacing and meowing.

It took a bit to get the dosage right. Brianna gets 5 mg per day and Deirdre only about 2.5 mg per day. When I gave Deirdre 5 mg which was the recommended dosage she seemed rather spacy. Like she was just looking at all the pretty colors. So we took her off completely for four days then tried her at the lower dosage. So far that seems to be working. What is really funny is my vet asked me if I "wouldn't mind calling her every day to give an update!" *LOL* I told her I would call her every hour if she wanted...wouldn't mind....*L*

I hate giving them meds but I am hoping that after a few more months they will settle down and I can take them off of them. But I would rather have them on medication and happier than not and mutilating themselves from stress. Sorta like a depressed anxious person, they lead a better quality of life with the medication than just trying to tough it out.

Denyce