What can cause a bald patch?

Hey folks,
One of my cats, my adult (with seizures) Toby, has a bald patch of skin on one of his forelegs. I just noticed it today. The skin inside the bald patch does not look scaley or irritated and he is not scratching it...

My first thought was ringworm, but we've had him since last february with no signs of it and the last new introduction to the house was my sister-in-law's cat about 3 months ago.

I've checked the others and he is the only one with this symptom.

I was sondering if it could be an allergy or something else besides ringworm? He sometimes plays rough with the two kittens, so maybe it could be missing hair from a bite?

I'd appreciate any comments.
Thanks,
Art

My first thought would also be ringworm, or maybe he has some kind of skin allergy which is causing him to lose the fur.. Is he acting normal??

I'm certainly no expert.. Maybe you can contact your vet to see what he/she has to say..

Good luck!

~KK~

Could be:

Ringworm
Stress-induced over-grooming
Food allergy
Environmental allergy

Just FYI-Ringworm can show up 6 months after exposure.

I haven't seen any scratching or extreme grooming of that area (or any others) and it is not irritated looking. I haven't noticed it before, which is why I am leaning towards a bite/fight incident rather than ringworm (wouldn't ringworm take a while to loose hair or would he loose it all at once?). I thought that there were also signs associated with the condition of the skin/bald area with ringworm (i.e. redness, flakiness, etc.)... Is that always the case or can the skin look "normal"? His seems to look "normal" at the moment.

I have been giving him several different types of wet food lately, so food allergy is a possibility.

I have checked the two kittens and neither has any similar signs (I thought kittens were more susceptible to ringworm). I have asked my brother to look at their cat (a long-haired cat, so maybe she is the carrier even if she doesn't show signs).

I think that I will give this 2-4 days and if no new rings show up and it doesn't get irritated, flakey, or otherwise odd looking, I may just wait and see. If it does get worse or more patches appear, I will take him to the vet asap.

Now I'm paranoid about catching it if it is ringworm... I know that I started "itching" as soon as I thought that it could be ringworm, but I thinkt hat was just a psychological reaction lol.

Thanks,
Art

I thought that I'd give you guys an update...

Toby started getting more spots on him and scratching/grooming said spots, so we went to the vet yesterday.

The vet said that:
1. It doesn't look like typical ring worm, but we'll do a culture and wait and see (be back around christmas)
2. Could be a food allergy, but not typical, as it isn't concentrated on the head/neck.
3. Could be a flea allergy (I decided to skip a month of advantage to save $$, but have already applied some this week just in case).

While we're waiting on the culture, the vet gave me some steroid/antibiotic spray to put on the spots. She said that because there was a small bump in each spot, she thought that he was grooming the hair off because of the itch and that flea allergy was her first guess.

Hopefully, it's that simple and I'll just have to keep on top of applying advantage every month.

Art