itchy cat mystery - vet is stumped! ideas?

My 3 year old neutered male cat, Munchkin, seems to be incredibly itchy -- he scratches and licks himself constantly. This has been going on for about 6 weeks, and he now has scabs all over his body and is losing fur in some of the scabby areas.

As a separate symptom -- we don't know if this is related or not -- for the last 1 1 /2 years he has had soft, formed stool with bright red blood in it. The vet's next guess is that this is caused by rectal polyps, so we will do a colonoscopy soon to check for this.

Here's what we've tried or eliminated so far:

- He does not have fleas. No flea dirt, no sign of fleas. The other cat in our household is not scratching.

- It does not seem to be related to having the heat on for the winter. The itching began suddenly the first week in October, before we had turned on the heat.

- We have a pretty non-toxic household -- for the last decade we've tried really hard to eliminate harsh cleaning chemicals, etc. We clean with white vinegar, and have the few dangerous chemicals locked away where the cat couldn't get into them. We can't think of anything that changed in our house around the time the itching started.

- Over the course of the last year and a half we've tried four different cat foods: Purina Cat Chow, Wellness brand canned and dry cat food (grain-free), W/D prescription food with extra fiber, designed to bulk up his stools, and now Royal Canin canned and dry food for cats with food allergies -- it's made with duck instead of chicken or beef, etc. We're also doing everything we can to prevent him from eating our food (no milk, etc). No change in his symptoms with any of these foods.

- We've had 3 stool samples tested at 2 different labs. Nothing abnormal.

- About 6 months ago we gave both cats a course of antibiotics, in case there was some bacteria that was causing problems. No change.

- For a few weeks we mixed Forti Flora into his food, designed to add probiotics to his gut (especially in case the antibiotics had caused problems). No change.

- He's been on Prednisone (steroid) for the last week -- the vet said that the anti-inflammatory effects would help if he was allergic to something in our house. No change.

- We have two peace lily houseplants he used to nibble on, but I moved them to locations where he can't reach. He does still nibble on one palm plant -- I've looked it up and it's not supposed to be toxic to cats at all.

- For the last couple of weeks I've been adding brewer's yeast, kelp powder, and a mixture of cod liver oil and olive oil to his food. No change.

- I gave him a homeopathic combination remedy designed to reduce itching in cats (Arum triph, Viola tri, Comocladia, Chamomilla, and Cina). No change.

- One time I used a cotton ball to put apple cider vinegar on the areas that seemed itchiest. I could try this more -- I didn't see a difference in how much he was scratching.

- We've also tried increasing the amount of attention and TLC we give him, in case there's an emotional cause here -- we have a busy household and travel for work some of the time, so sometimes the cats are alone with just short visits from a cat sitter. He likes the extra attention, but no change in his symptoms.

I'm sure there are medications we could give him that would mask the itchy symptoms, but I'd much rather figure out the source of the problem!

Our other cat (Munchkin's sister) seems to be 100% healthy.

Any ideas on what could be causing Munchkin's health problems? What would you try next??? I'm open to both mainstream medical and holistic/alternative approaches.

Thanks so much!

Welcome to TCS!

It will take about 8 weeks of him being on an elimination diet to see results - and if he's eating the RC food for allergies, to do a true allergy trial it is imperative that he eats only the RC.

Since it seems like an allergy issue is suspected, don't change anything - just stick with the food for now. Changing too much at once can make him worse, or if he improves you won't know what caused improvement.

I would be very nervous having a peace lily in my home, no matter where it is. Cats can pretty much get anything they want. I am not saying this is the problem with your cat. But the lily can be lethel. It is listed on the list of the Cat Fanciers Association as poisonous to cats. This list is compiled with the ASPCA.

I believe any plant with the "lily" name is to dangerous to have around.

You take such good care of you kitties, I would hate to see something preventable happen.

Thanks, everyone!

Yes, the food allergy possibility is intriguing. He's been on the RC (food allergy) food for 4 weeks now, so maybe we'll see improvement as time continues to go by. The vet said we should see some change in two weeks if it was a food allergy, and I see no difference at all. But we're leaving him on it for now -- it would be nice if that were the mystery. Do you think a food allergy could be causing the itchiness, too, or just the blood in the stool?

We know that his previous owner fed him Purina Cat Chow. What we don't know, and unfortunately have no way to find out, is whether he had the blood in his stool then. He definitely didn't have the skin problems -- when we adopted him he had a gorgeous, thick, shiny coat of fur, which remained until a month ago. He looked like the healthiest cat on the planet!

I spent a bunch of time learning more about cats and peace lilies a couple months ago when I first realized they were on the toxic plants lists -- we've had those plants for over a decade, during which time we've owned four cats and fostered two others. It seems that what they can cause is swelling in the mouth for cats that eat them, but they don't seem to be so poisonous to cause other problems. Regardless, I decided to play it safe and get them up very high where he can't go. My partner and I both work from home most of the time (except when we travel for work), so one of us can literally keep an eye on Munchkin all day long, and I can confidently say there's no chance he's eating those plants anymore.

Any other ideas? Or would you just sit tight and wait another month on the RC diet? Is the vet jumping the gun by wanting to try other things? (To her credit, she says we should leave him on the RC diet so we don't change too many things at once.)

i wouldn't discount the possibility of it being fleas, have you flea combed the other cat in your house?

we just went through something very similar with my most allergy-prone cat (who actually gets nasty diarrhea including some blood on his stool when he eats anything with corn in it. wheat causes the runs but no blood) and i thought no way could it be fleas because he came up clean of flea dirt and fleas and no one else was itchy, but after combing down the other two cats i found fleas on both of them! i would have sworn up down and sideways that there was no way they could have had fleas, i flea-comb them all regularly (it's just the normal grooming here) and i saw no signs up till the little guy started scratching. there were NO signs of fleas on the affected cat, and i only found 6 fleas in total on the other two. 6 fleas and after 2 weeks and a dose of revolution our little guy is finally scab free and his fur is coming back in the two patched he scratched bald.

actually it was more like 10 fleas, but still. i only ever found 1 on him at all and it jumped ship when i was combing...

Originally Posted by kwren

there were NO signs of fleas on the affected cat, and i only found 6 fleas in total on the other two.

Click to expand...

Fascinating! I just dug out our flea comb -- I'll try combing the non-affected cat as soon as my toddler gets up from her nap! (They're sleeping in the same room and there's no way I'll risk waking a napping toddler!)

Brewers yeast is a HIGH allergen in cat s

kelp is not a common one but one of my five is allergic to it

oils technically should be allergen free but due to manufacturing practices they often are not

does the vet who gave you the RX food know you have been adding things?

Voila, the tiniest bit of what could definitely be flea dirt found on the cat who is not scratching at all! I'm going to treat them both with Frontline -- maybe our itchy mystery is solved. Fingers crossed!

That's fascinating that brewer's yeast is a common allergen -- I took that advice from the Dr. Pitcarin natural cat care book. The cat had been having both symptoms long before I tried adding the various things, so I don't think they are the original/primary cause, but I'll cut them out and see if that makes any difference.