Any ideas about allergies

sophie4me

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Hi to all, since we are new here, we probably havn't seen the info that we are looking for about skin allergies. If anyone can point me in the right direction or have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know, it would be greatly appreciated! First of all, I had a cat for over half of my life that I dearly loved and lost her August 12th, 2007 at the age of 19 years. She had been in declining health for about the last 6 months of her life. Needless to say, after I lost my precious Sassy, I decided to make room in my home and heart for a new kitty that we adopted from our local spca. She is a godsend to us and the bright spot in both mine and my husbands life. She is a happy healthy kitty, but has some problems with skin allergies. Our vet put her on a hypoallergenic diet,and we stuck to that to the best of our abilities, but she is a very finicky cat and we had to leave some variety in her diet to get her to eat. I am not a big fan of dry cat food, so to keep her and myself happy, I give her high quality Natures Variety wet and occasional dry, EVO, Natural Balance and occasionally we switch off to several other top quality brands. We stuck with proteins that she normally had not attained in her diet such as lamb, duck, venison and rabbit. On occasion we have to have the depo shot, but we are not fans of those shots either. After trying the diet, our vet determined that we are most likely fighting a combo of food/environmental, inhalant allergies. I try to keep the house vacuumed atleast every other day, and that helps some, but she has a habit of chewing the hair off the backs of her legs and scratches her ears till she actually draws blood at times. We are really looking for a holistic approach at this point and would love to hear from others who are going through this same dilemma or know of any info that would help our Sophie with these pesky skin itchies! We really hate to see her scratching herself to pieces like this. We are open to any suggestions that you may have for us. Thanks in advance!
 

aswient

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I have a female cat Cinnie that is 11 years old I got her from Bida-wee when she was only 4 months old. Almost from the very beginning she had allergies its really to fleas, just one bite sets her off. She's highly allergic. She really suffers and the Vet said except for steroids (which I didn't want to do) there isn't that much else I could do. I was at my wits end. She losses a lot of her fur scratching, she also bit the fur off her legs and behind. I use to find her fur on the floor, walls, everywhere. I try to get the frontline on her in time but sometimes she will get a bite. I found an article in a veterinary book that mentioned evening primorose capsules for this type of allergy and some one mentioned Omega 3 gel caps is better, I mix it into her food. What a difference it made. All her fur grew back in. Every now and again she gets bouts but not at all like it use to be. You could mention it to your Vet. But as long as I try to get the frontline on in time and get a build up of primerose or omega 3 in her she has been much better for years. Good luck.
 

howtoholdacat

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Originally Posted by aswient

primerose or omega 3 in her she has been much better for years
Are there brands of these for cats or do you use the people version (I guess they'd really be the same thing) and how much do you give? My mother-in-law's cat also has a skin allergy.
 

aswient

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Originally Posted by howtoholdacat

Are there brands of these for cats or do you use the people version (I guess they'd really be the same thing) and how much do you give? My mother-in-law's cat also has a skin allergy.
I use the people version and when she was very bad I gave her 2 capsules in the morning and 2 capsules at night. Then when she was improving I put it down to one in the morning and one at night for maintenance. This helps the healing it doesn't take the allergy away. So if she was to get bit by another flea it starts all over again. For me it works with the Frontline. Goodluck.
 

howtoholdacat

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Originally Posted by aswient

I use the people version and when she was very bad I gave her 2 capsules in the morning and 2 capsules at night. Then when she was improving I put it down to one in the morning and one at night for maintenance. This helps the healing it doesn't take the allergy away. So if she was to get bit by another flea it starts all over again. For me it works with the Frontline. Goodluck.
Do you remember how many milligrams or IU's the capsules are.
 
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sophie4me

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Originally Posted by Lovemeow

Did the vet suggest any cat food brands for your kitty? I just looked up for some allergy related information online and came across this one:

http://purebredcatbreedrescue.org/allergy_to_cats.htm

You probably already know most of the stuff mentioned in the article. Hope there is something there that helps. Keep us posted.
My vet suggested science diet hypoallergenic formula, but Sophie would not touch it even after 3 days. I think she would rather have starved than to touch that stuff. From what we have learned in the meantime, with good reason too! Thanks for the link, anything we can read on the subject is more info than we had before. By the way, we used the correct link that you posted.
 
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