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[gelseymisha]

Hello,

My cat, Gelsey, has been overgrooming her legs to the point of having no hair, but now she's progressed to biting herself and drawing blood! 

I thought it was anxiety but we've recently seen a lot of dandruff on her back and are wondering if it is because she's itchy from dry skin.  My boyfriend and I looked up dandruff in cats and we got information that said it can be from extremely dry skin (especially in the winter) and can lead to overgrooming and/or biting.

We have been putting her in a cone recently to stop her from infecting herself while the hair grows back.  And we've been brushing her to clear our the hair and dead skin.  But I wonder if there is lotion or oil we can put on her.  She's so sad in the cone and is constantly sitting near my boyfriend and I, looking at us to see if we'll take it off of her. :-( 

We are planning to call the vet on Monday but has anyone had a similar experience or any knowledge about this kind of thing?  Thanks!

-Rachel and Stephen (and Gelsey :-) )

[galensgranny]

Flea bite allergy will cause it.  You might not think there are any fleas, but there might be.

If not a flea bite allergy, likely a food ingredient allergy, or some contact allergy.  Or, maybe some sort of teeny mite.

I would not put anything on her.

It might be good to take the cone off her when she is eating.  Hope you can get her seen by the vet Monday.

[animalangel1]

As Margaret said, it could be an allergy issue and if so, the cone will only stress her out more since she won't be able to scratch the problem area.  (Imagine if you had a horrible itch you could not scratch!) The vet will likely give her a steroid shot to stop the itching.  This will last about 2 weeks or so.  You might also be given a topical treatment or some steroid pills to give her after the 2 weeks for the itchy spots but I'm not sure.  Depends on the vet.  Anyway, the steroid lasting so long might be enough for the allergy issue to dissipate for a while.  Or it might not and a second shot might be needed or the vet might suggest some other treatment if it comes back.  The steroid should give her some relief within the first 24 hours at the most.

You might want to invest in a humidifier for your home to add moisture to the air - or like my grandmother used to do - put several pie tins around the house with water in them and keep refilling them.  Her house was old and had radiators so she put them on the radiators to evaporate while the heat was on. Just have to keep refilling.

[gelseymisha]

I don't think its flea bite or mite allergy because we've been putting Revolution on them both ever since Misha's come home back in Oct and he's not itchy like her.  And we do let her out of the cone to eat twice a day and we leave it off for maybe an hour or so both times and just watch her to make sure she's not biting again.  She's always had periods where she's overgroomed herself but it's always gone back to normal and never escalated to biting and drawing blood. :-(  Hopefully we can talk to the vet tomorrow!! I feel so bad for her :-(

[gelseymisha]

Oh, also we haven't changed any products or food in the house so I hope it's not that...

[galensgranny]

Maybe the Revolution is bothering her.  I would stop using it on her and see if that helps. 

If you use any carpet freshener spray or powder on the rugs, stop.

It could be a problem with the cat litter. What litter are you using?

She might be allergic to an ingredient in the food you are feeding her.  Animals, including humans, develop allergies over time.   The most common foods cats are allergic to are beef, lamb, seafood, corn, soy, dairy products and wheat gluten.  You need to do trial and error to pinpoint the offending ingredient.

My cat Earl is allergic to soy.

An easy thing to try first is eliminating corn, wheat, soy, fish, beef and lamb.  Make sure with the canned food there is no wheat gluten. The types with gravy have wheat gluten, so just serve pate style- no fish or beef.  Read the labels carefully.  Get a grain free, chicken flavor dry food from a pet store.  I use Before Grain chicken for Earl. Read labels carefully as some dry foods use fish oils in them.

You need to give it a good three weeks.

Information on food allergies in cats:
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+1332&aid=142

The vet likely will want to give Gelsey a steroid shot.  That is what the vet gave Earl, and it did stop his allergic reaction, but threw him into diabetes!  ( He recovered from diabetes after being on insulin and a very low carb, all canned diet.)  After he recovered from diabetes, I started him on a little dry food to see how it went.  It was fine blood sugar-wise, but the dry food I tried with him was Purina One.  After a while, his allergic symptoms came back.  For sure I was not going to let him have another steriod shot, so I did trial and error with foods to check if there was a food ingredient causing the problem.  It turned out to be soy.

So, do take Gelsey to the vet, but if the vet wants to give her a steroid shot, ask if there is something else to try first.  Maybe an antihistamine.

Cats seem to tolerate steroids well, but not all, such as Earl. 

[animalangel1]

My Leo scratches all the time and we don't have fleas..... they determined it is some sort of skin allergy.  Steroid shots will help for about a month or so but then he starts scratching again.  Can't keep them on steroids however as it affects either the liver or the kidneys... can't recall which. 

[gelseymisha]

Just called the vet!  We're going in tomorrow afternoon.  She said that we have to do a little trial and error to see what she might be allergic to if anything.  She recommended putting her on some oral steriods for up to 2 weeks to see if its a contact/inhalant allergy and if she improves we can put her on some non-steroid oral allergy medicine long term.  If that doesn't work we'll have to feed her some hypoallergenic food for a few months to see if it's a food allergy.  She said if none of that works we might have to revisit the anxiety theory.  Thanks for all the support guys I just feel so sad seeing her look so uncomfortable :-(

[galensgranny]

There isn't actually such a thing as a "hypoallergenic" food, since an animal can be allergic to anything or become allergic to something.  What is done is to feed the cat a food with novel ingredients that the cat has never eaten before.  Some prescription foods have the proteins and carbohydrates broken down into such small molecular sizes that they no longer would trigger an allergic response.  That would be what your vet meant. 

Meanwhile, you can try my suggestion of ruling out an allergic reaction to corn, wheat or soy by getting one of the no grains dry foods.  Who knows, you might luck out like I did with Earl and find it was one of the grains causing the problem.

[gelseymisha]

Update: Hooray!! Since Tuesday Gelsey has been on the kitty Prednisone and she hasn't been biting or overgrooming herself!!  Her fur is almost grown back in fully and her scabs from the initial biting are almost completely healed.  She hasn't been itching or licking herself hardly at all (except for normal grooming obviously but she used to lick herself nonstop without the cone on).  We even left the cone off all day yesterday while we were at ballet and all night last night and she didn't re-injure herself! :-)

When the vet calls, I was thinking about going ahead and getting the blood test for allergies just to make SURE it's not coincidental that she stopped.  I don't want to buy a ton of allergy medicine she doesn't need and I don't want to give her medicine for allergies when it might still possibly be anxiety (if the blood test shows up with no allergies).

I'm just glad she doesn't seem so uncomfortable anymore!!!