hot spot and alternate solution to e-collar

My cat has a hot spot at the base of his ear that he's been scratching bloody. The vet has determined that it is very likely a food allergy and I'm currently putting him on an elimination diet that seems to be reducing his scratching. The problem though is that his sore will start to heal, he won't touch it for a couple of days, and as soon as it starts to scab over he either grooms or scratches himself to the point of opening the wound again (I seldom catch him touching it, I just notice that the wound is open again).

I've tried putting polysporin on the wound to make it heal faster, but whenever I do so my cat will furiously scratch it and make it ten times worse. Today after a really bad episode of him scratching at it (fiancee put polysporin on even though I asked him not to) I went and got an e-collar from the vet (one of those hard plastic ones, they didn't have any soft cones). What a mistake! At first he was so scared that he just froze and wouldn't budge. I couldn't get him to move for a good ten minutes and was really scared. But then he absolutely FREAKED out, started bumping into everything, tried to escape to his safe spot in the basement and FELL DOWN THE STAIRS. He's OK but I had to take the collar off.

My problem is that I don't know what to do to keep him from scratching his ear and letting it heal. My vet said she could give him a steroid injection as a last resort but would prefer not to due to possible side effects. I've cut his nails but that doesn't do much. Any suggestions, please help!

My angel kitty Taco once had a lump removed, plus a lymph node for biopsy. He had an incision to his neck that he would try to scratch. I had to resort to wrapping his back leg with Vet Wrap so that he couldn't dig at the incision. This seemed to work. NOTE: the thing with Vet Wrap is.......you have to be very very careful that it's not too snug and that you check the foot for swelling.

With my cat Hobee, he had issues with licking his privates following his neutering and he would lick things almost raw. Until he got used to the e-collar, what I'd do is....put the cream on the affected area..........keep him in the bathroom with the cone on for 60 minutes until the cream had properly absorbed. You might want to ask the Vet about a better cream, like Panolog. It contains and antibiotic plus a steroid. Helps with healing a lot faster than just Polysporin. The tiny amount of steroid in it is not harmful, and not even in the same league as a steroid injection - which yes, is a last resort due to side effects, risk of causing transient diabetes, etc etc.

To note: hobee hated his e-collar, too............but his "issue" went on for a few weeks unfortunately and he ended up getting so used to it that he didn't even care about it. You could try keeping kitty in a small room with e-collar on...so there's no risk of him falling down the stairs or getting injured (if a bathroom, ensure toilet lid is down, of course). She also sell nicer e-collars online, soft collars............do a search on google for them.

I've got a soft foam e-collar: http://petsguard.com/default.aspx that I really like. I've been thinking about one of these: http://www.comfycollars.co.uk/ because it looks like it would be easier to put on.

If you google "soft e-collar cats" you should find a number of alternatives to the plastic cone.