Stinkie's allergies have gotten bad. Help!

My cat, Stinkie, is allergic to fleas. He is always scratching and washing a lot more than a cat normally would. He has sores all over his body from the fleas and the scratching, and his skin is red. In the past, we took him to the vet for a steroid shot, and, while it did help for about six weeks, we just found out that it is not good for him. Someone told me it might be okay to give him liquid benadryl. Do you think that would be okay? Could anybody recommend something I could do? He is just so miserable with all of this itching. I've just got to figure out a way to make my baby feel better. Does anybody have any suggestions? PLEASE help! Thank you.

Lisa, Stinkie's Mommy

NEVR EVER GIVE AN ANIMAL HUMAN MEDICATION!!! You never know what it can do to it!! Go to your vet and talk with him, don't try and self medicate.


Meird...

~ Salem

I won't give him any human medication unless I know for sure that it is safe. I am not going to take any chances with my baby. But I need some suggestions on what I can do instead.

The first thing to do is get rid of the fleas. If he has a really bad allery to fleas, just one bite can cause a severe reaction like that. If he's not, get him on either advantage, Revolution, or Frontline. If you have fleas in the house, you should treat the house as well to try and get rid of any eggs or adults. There's a home treatment called Knockout Area treatment, it's safe and will last for 4 months once applied. That is really the biggest step to help him.
Benadryl can be used in pets, however it does not work very well on cats. Long term steroid shots can be harmful to any animal, but if it's only used for an allergic reaction, the chances of liver damage is very slim. If you keep up on the flea medication, he may never need the shot again. I can tell you to ask the vet about Vetalog, it's a little better than some of the other steroids on the market for cats.

What is knockout area treatment? I have never heard of it.

Here's a good link
http://www.healthypets.com/knocartreat1.html

Stinkie also has kind of sweet smelling kind of odor to him in the past week. Could that be from all of the washing that he has been doing? I plan on taking him to the vet next week for it.

Sweet smelling what? Breath? Is he overweight?

He needs a good bath with shampoo your vet should give you, then once he is dry he needs to go on a flea spot on treatment as Sandie says.

It's not his breath. It seems to be just in his fur or something. His fur stays damp from all of the washing he does because of his allergy to fleas. I would like to try bathing him to get rid of the fleas, but I don't know if I can handle him while I do it. He is very strong. The odor just started within the last week, and that is when his allergy really worsened.

Long term steriod treatments aren't good for any living creature, humans included.

I've had the best luck with Revolution, but they're all good, the ones Sandie mentioned.

How often are you washing Stinkie? If it is very frequent then that could contribute to the sweet smelling odor.

It could be the washing, but it could also be a yeast infection starting. They can get yeast infections on the skin, and in the ears that are directly related to allergies, itching, and scratching. If there's any wax or brown stuff in the ears, I would ask them to do an ear cytology to make sure there's no bacteria or yeast.