Bare cat

One of my cats has recently begun to worry me. She has been cleaning the back of her right leg so much that the fur is gone. I noticed yesterday that she has started on the left leg now.

We have had her professionally dipped and had the house sprayed - so there are no fleas. Has anyone experienced this before and how do you combat this?

Well, my cat has the same problem, he was obsessed with itching, so we took him to the vet., our vet checked him ooit and just said to get a cortizone shot everytime he acted up, it worked too!

Oh boy, yeah I have seen a lot of that working at a vets office. However, there are a few things that can cause it. The two things I know of are allergies or nerves. I would take her to the vet and see what they say. My vet usually runs a blood panel if he doesn't get an answer from a skin scrape. If you take her, let us know what it is.

Welcome to the forums!

I've read in several books about stress related over-grooming. It can actually lead to bald patches and some cats even bite themselves and bleed.

The first thing to so is rule out medical causes. Flease is one, but allergies is also a common cause. I think mange (skin mites) may also make the skin itchy. If these are all rules out by the vet, then you need to look into stress as the cause. If it's stress, the additional flea dips have probably only made it worse - although fleas are also a cause for stress so you have to do the dips anyway.

I'm feeling better now knowing this isn't as unusual as I thought. I'll make an appointment to take her in to the vet and let you all know what happens.

Thanks!!!