Question for my fellow cat-lovers.

[Kitty Herder]

Do any of you have any suggestions for a cat with itchy, irritated skin due to allergies?

One of my cats has a severely itchy, dry, flaky skin. It's so bad that he actually tears his hair out. The poor little guy is getting bald spots. This started last summer, went away when the weather turned cold, and then came back this summer. The vet first checked him for fleas and mites, and concluded that he's allergic to something. She gave him a shot of cortisol for the allergies, but it didn't help. I've been feeding him fish oil, which does help some, but he's still suffering. I've also combed olive oil onto his skin, which seemed to help a little bit, but even the tiny amount that I used resulted in a big stain on the carpet where he sleeps.

Does anyone know of anything that might help? I've searched for products on line, but I don't know if any of them are any good. I'm also wary of getting something that might be oily and ruin my carpet. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Orsino]

1. Got a long-haired cat with an annual allergy.

Her ears will get itchy and crusty, and this year she managed to draw a little blood from them. Previously, it's cleared up after a steroid shot, but we've just had success with plain old Vaseline, and Neosporin really seemed to do the trick.

It would have to be the cat who's cranky anyway, the one with all her claws.

[Kitty Herder]

2. Mine's a cranky kitty, too.

Even in the winter when he doesn't have allergies. But it's worse in the summer when he's itchy.

We love him anyway.

[distantearlywarning]

3. Suggestions

We had a cat with this problem. The steroids helped the allergies, but exacerbated a pre-existing medical condition (actually, they almost killed him). It was a really bad choice - either we let him dig huge wounds in his face with his hind feet, or we made him sick with drugs. We tried for years to help him in a variety of ways.

I know that some cats have food allergies, and going to a more "pure" diet or even a raw food type diet sometimes helps.

In our case, food changes didn't help, but moving to a house with hardwood floors did a little bit. He seemed to be allergic to carpet, and other typical household chemicals, although we could never exactly pinpoint what the problem was. So you may want to try to reduce chemical usage in the house, especially things like carpet freshener or Febreeze that puts chemicals on places where cats walk and sleep.

Our cat's case was particularly intractable, however, and after many years of changing his food, reducing environmental allergens and so forth, he was still hurting himself on a semi-regular basis, and it was bad enough that it was impacting his quality of life. We even considered declawing at several points (the hind feet), even though I am totally against that practice, just to see if we could get him some relief from his scratching and hurting.

But that's when we found this product: http://www.softpaws.com/ I think our vet recommended it. We put them on his hind claws, which is what he used to dig at himself with.

They were quite literally a life-saver for our cat. He still had allergies, but he wasn't able to injure himself all the time. He could scratch his itches without wounding his poor little face. It was actually amazing how much he perked up after he'd had them on about 2 weeks and his owies started healing up. I felt bad that we had waited so long to put them on him. :-(

He passed away a couple of years ago, but if I had another cat with allergies now, I would get the SoftPaws on first thing and then try to work on diet and environment, just to give them relief from themselves.

[TroglodyteScholar]

29. My Mao Mao has allergies

The steroid shot helped a lot, but left his ear stays red, irritated, and bald still. He also usually has a bit of scabbing under his chin. It's kinda odd, though, because I don't really catch him scratching very much. I guess whenever he scratches, he does so vigorously. Maybe I'll try the Soft Paws. Thanks for the info.

[begin_within]

4. He could be allergic to the flea bites themselves

Are you using Advantage or a similar flea control product? The fact that this happens only during flea season seems to me to point directly to fleas as the cause.

[redwitch]

5. I agree.

Our little Gloria is very allergic to fleas and she had the same symptoms. No fleas = no scratching and hair loss.

[southpaw]

6. Probably allergic to fleas

Our Abbie has this problem. Flea bites cause her skin to react, and she will scratch and gnaw until she's got patches of bare, irritated skin.

We treat her with Advantage throughout flea season, and the problem seems to be taken care of.

[Kitty Herder]

7. The vet says he doesn't have fleas.

She checked him for both fleas and mites. She also said that fleas are very rare in our area. (I had no idea. Seems weird, but o.k.) And my other cat doesn't have the same problem.

[bertha katzenengel]

8. Perhaps you could ask your vet for a referral to an animal allergist.

I'm so sorry I can't help.

One of mine gets allergies. I take him to the vet, and he gets a shot that lasts quite a while. I guess he's pretty lucky.

[MsTryska]

9. Change his diet

Mine were both getting incredibly itchy skin with the bald bleedy patches from licking too much. I finally pinpointed the vet food they were on. it was for UTIs, and my new vet explained to me that essentially that food made them pee, makign them dehydrated.

is tarted researching and found a raw food diet worked best for them.

One of mine eventually passed away, but the current one is doing very well on a combo of all-natural dry in the morning and raw food at night.

I get the food itself from www.hare-today.org

I used to make my owna nd mix all sorts of stuff into it, but he's happy to just have fresh raw bird at night these days.

[AirmensMom]

11. I second that.

We get ours from hare-today as well. :thumbsup:

[MsTryska]

12. hare-today rocks hardcore

What animals do you have?

i can see where it would get expensive with big dogs, but with kitties, hare-today is perfect.

And my cat is hyperthyroid and has been for almsot 5 year snow. My vet swears he's the best looking hyper-t cat he's seen in hsi practice - and I owe it to the diet. Took ages to transition this one to raw food, but now he pitches a fit if there's no raw meat for dinner.

[AirmensMom]

27. It WOULD be perfect ...

but we have 9 kitties. It costs a small fortune to feed them. We also have four dogs, but they don't eat raw. We'd go to the poor house for sure if we tried to feed all 250 pounds of them raw food. :scared:

We almost lost our Abys to commercial food (including the Rx crap) three years ago. They were literally on their death beds, so we tried raw with nothing to lose. They bounced back in a week and are now very healthy with beautiful soft coats. I posted about it a few years ago and got flamed royally. You just have to see it to believe it, I suppose. :shrug:

[MsTryska]

30. Dogs in some ways are a bit easier

since they are a bit omnivorous. Eggs (which are expensive these days) carrots and greens. But yeah it can definitely be expensive if you've got a lot of animals.

I've jsut got the one and we've compromised on crunchy bits in the morning and raw at night. I can stock up for 3 months for under a $100. So it works out well for me since it saves on vet bills. The crunchy bits are a brand I found at whole foods - all natural - real chicken - not chicken meal, and every other ingredient in their are real too.

Aren't the coats lovely? do you add anything to the raw, or just leave it? I used to add pumpkin, yogurt, vitamin e, etc when I made it for them - but now he just gets a garnish of bonito flakes. It still has to have some stink on it for him to consider it food.

I can't believe folks tried to flame you - do you have a link to that thread? that's jsut goofy. feed the machine what it's designed to use. You wouldn't put deisel in a gasoline engine because the car would seize up.

[AirmensMom]

31. I agree.

Gone are the days when we could stock up for that price. It costs us about $300/month for the kitties, but it's worth it. Their coats are so soft and beautiful, their little poops don't stink*, and they're just a lot healthier than they were before. (*Just feed a can of commercial food and smell the difference!) They get raw twice a day and nothing in-between. Of course, they prefer the rabbit, even though the turkey is a lot less expensive.

We add vitamins and water -- wild salmon oil, Vitamin E, taurine, and B vitamins. Got the recipe from Dr. Pierson at catinfo.org.

Watch for a PM.

[Kitty Herder]

13. That might be worth a try.

It seems logical that a diet closer to what they would be eating in the wild would be healthier for them.

I wonder if my cats would eat it, though. My mom has given them raw meat scraps before and they both turned their noses up at it, though the kitty in question will eat cooked meat. (The other one is weird and won't touch anything but cat food and canned tuna, but she's healthy, so I guess it works for her.) I think they're just so used to prepared cat food that they don't know real meat when they see it. (I'm vegetarian, so meat scraps aren't something they see very often.) But maybe they'd get used to it if I started mixing it into their regular food.

I admit, I'd have to get past my squeamishness about the raw meat, too. The photos on the hare-today website kinda grossed me out. But cats are obligate carnivores, so I don't think it's fair for me to deprive them of a diet that could improve their health because of my preference to avoid meat.

[MsTryska]

18. Exactly -

feed them what nature intended - kinda like us humans.

Transitioning takes a while. I had to start with mixing raw into canned food, then there was the "if you don't eat it, you don't eat" period, and we finally had a breakthru when he had to stay overnight at the vet for monitoring, and he wouldn't eat anything they gave him. When he got home all he wanted was mama's chicken and yams. Since then he's been raw food all the way.

[LynneSin]

16. I just posted that below - it worked for my friend's dog too

If our cats were out living in the wild they would not be hunting for Friskies or Meow Mix. A raw diet is based on what cats & dogs have been eating for millions of years.

[Kitty Herder]

17. What's the best kind of meat for kitties?

Is beef good?

I just realized that I have a potential source for free beef organs and scraps. I have relatives that raise cattle and have at least one or two slaughtered each year for their personal use. I should ask them if they wouldn't mind letting me have the bits that they aren't likely to eat, like heart, kidneys, etc.

Maybe if I supplemented that with other kinds of meat occasionally, like fish, that would add some variety to their diets.

[MsTryska]

20. Mmm...it's gonna depend ont he cat.

One of mine would eat anything.

The other one seems to only want to eat soemthign he would be able to take down in the wild.

beef - no good

goat - no good

turkey - no good

rabbit - good

chicken - good

pheasant - delish!

same for Quail and cornish game hen.

I'd skip kidneys - but liver and heart you might could mix into some pork - which for some reasons all cats seem to dig.

[MsTryska]

22. here's a good link

to learn the basics from. From here if you google raw diet cats or BARF and cats you should get a bunch of links on how to feed them raw. That's what i did - i can't remember the exact site I got the recipe from - but as I said - since then I've started just using hare-today - and it's made it convenient. You could go on there and get a bunch of different 1lb meats to try. They sit in the freezer until you need them. I usually serve my cat a 1/3 cup portion per meal - but he's about 14 lbs when he's thin.

http://www.catinfo.org/

[Kitty Herder]

23. Thank you! nt

[Critters2]

10. Fish-based cat food, or fish oil added to his food.

One of mine was having trouble with her coat. Switched her to a food with fish as a main ingredient, and the difference was noticeable and quick.

[Kitty Herder]

14. I have been adding fish oil to his food and it does help some.

But, unfortunately, it hasn't completely solved the problem.

[LynneSin]

15. This was a dog with the same issue and was fixed with going Raw

He just found that the commericial foods available for his dog was causing many of the bad skin allergies. The Dog has now been on Raw for over 2 years and the skin condition has gone away.

And they do have raw diets available for cats too.

[zanne]

19. I'm giving my cat salmon oil.

She's been pulling her hair out, too. I started giving it to her (a squirt of it on her food) about a week ago. She hasn't pulled out any fur in two days.

[Kitty Herder]

21. Thanks for indulging me with your good advice everyone!

I'm gonna look into the raw diet.

I knew this was a good place to ask about this issue because there seem to be a lot of cat-lovers here. Cat-lovers is good people!

:grouphug:

[blue cat]

24. one of my persians has same itching problem

i tried cetaphyl cleanser and aveeno bath for babies - both helped and now she is almost cleared up after about 3 baths (one per week).

[blue cat]

26. also

i rubbed over the counter topical antibiotic oint and hydrocortisone 1% on the areas that she scratched open - and they healed.

[electron_blue]

25. Get new cat food. Pick something the cat has never eaten before, like lamb & rice.

Use it as an "elimination diet" and after a few months, see if the fur grows back in. If so, then you have a food allergy/intolerance on your hands. What you describe sounds like my first cat who reacted this way to dairy. Once we switched her food, she was fine, although it did take half a year for her fur to grow back.

Wouldn't hurt to change the food, at any rate.

[Flaxbee]

28. Indoor kitty? Indoor/outdoor?

I have one cat who breaks out in bloody bumps when she gets too hot -- last year we had NO IDEA what was going on, but this year her bumps didn't appear until it got hot (much later than it did last year). She used to get to sit on the outdoor screened porch all day during the summer, but now we bring her in around 11 a.m. and she goes out onto the porch again when the sun goes down. It has made a huge difference.

If your cat is exposed to outside air, try to eliminate that during the summer. Poor fella. I feel for him, and it is maddening when you don't know what it is. When I first took our girl in, the vet said that it can be really, really difficult to determine the allergen unless you want to go through costly allergy tests. At least you have an idea that it is seasonal, but I don't know what to suggest. You could check this site: www.petalive.com - for info.