Whats Going On With Spike? Is He Troubled?

My eldest male cat Spike seems to be having some mental problems, well I assume so anyway.

He just will NOT stop licking himself and grooming himself, I know this is what cats do but Spike is doing it so much that he is starting to lose his hair... Last year it was similar but when we took him to the vet we were told that he was allergic to beetle larvae called blood bugs... apparently it was a seasonal thing and after a course of anti-biotics his hair would grow back... which it did - sort of.... His winter coat then kicked in and he looked a lot better. Of course his summer coat is starting in now and he looks awful, he's medium haired so he looks straggly..... We have a long hair too, his daughter, but she isn't grooming to the point of baldness, in fact we have the opposite problem with her, we just got her back from the vet where they had to shave parts of her because she wouldn't groom herself!

Now though Spike is just CONSTANTLY grooming, he's doing it now, he's been doign it for the past 2 hours on the window sill... the only time he stops is to eat and to sleep... I'm just concerned that he's ill maybe... or making himself ill....

Any advice????

It looks like allergy but there are a lot of other reasons - boredom, or bone or joint problems (this is the case of my cat QT). Talk to your vet again.

I see, ok I will have a chat with him again. I can't see it being an allergy though, he does nibble at his skin but not as much as he grooms it if that makes sense...?

Sometimes what looks like grooming is actually an effort to relieve discomfort of some kind that's underneath the area. How old is Spike?

By the way, I just love your country! And Dublin is beautiful... especially the bridges and older buildings along the Liffey. Oddly enough, I think of Dublin every time I have pizza -- because my brother and I found a terrific little place called Apache Pizza not far from our hotel at Christchurch. Italian food, from a place with an American Indian name of French origin, in an Irish city. Who knew?