Feline Acne...how bad is it?

One of my cats is a former feral, and while I can occasionally pet him, he's still VERY skittish and my husband and I just generally let him be. He'll sit in a room with us, but its rare when he actually allows us to touch him. We've taken him to the vet for regular checkups, but because of his personality, we obviously don't want to do anything to stress him out. We have several former ferals but Oscar is the one that is taking the longest to come around. I'm not sure if he'll ever be a cat that will let us near him whenever we want to be.

Anyway, this morning was a rare moment when he let me pet him. I was rubbing his chin and noticed that he has what appears to be acne (based on what I have read and seen pictures of). I know this isn't "good" but is it necessarily "bad"? I will absolutely take him to the vet for something that he needs to be seen for, but I don't know much about feline acne and I don't know if its worth putting him through the stress of a car ride and a vet visit for it. I'm off to do some research on my own but also thought I'd ask here about what I should do about it. Any insight would be appreciated!

How bad is his acne? Can you take a decent picture?

Mild acne isn't that bad, provided that you take steps to get rid of it. Left untended and ignored, a cat's chin can get very inflamed and sore or even a secondary infection. While it would be best for a vet to take a look, if it's mild you may be able to avoid a very stressful trip with a semi feral. If you're not sure, take him to the vet.

I assume you've read up a little on it so far and know what precautions you now have to take? Will he let you wipe his face with a damp cloth once or twice a day?

Hi there
We have a former feral as well. If you feed and water him in plastic dishes you need to switch to porcelain or ceramic. Plastic promotes bacteria growth. He would benefit from having his chin cleaned up with anti-acne soap Phisoderm but since you can not do this, just try first changing the bowls.
Our feral Sweet Pea developed acne from an ingredient in the wetfood we used to feed him, as a food intolerance. We stopped feeding him Wellness and the acne went away. We could not wash Sweet Pea's chin either, we tried...He was already eating from porcelain dishes when he developed acne so I knew the reason was not the dishes but something else.

I am just curious, since you can not touch him how did you manage to get him in the carrier to take him to the vet?
Good luck!
Marina

Also get rid of any plastic food mats if you are using them, and make sure you sterilize your food bowls on a regular basis. I've been able to keep the acne away from my boy with chronic acne by using good hygiene.

I'll try to get a picture of it, but from what I can tell it doesn't seem to be too bad.

We already use porcelain and glass food bowls so plastic isn't the problem and we run the bowls through the dishwasher at least twice a week. They all eat dry prescription food, but when we feed wet food occasionally the bowls are in the dishwasher immediately after.

As to how we got him in the carrier, he's not 100% feral anymore. He's mainly just very skittish. I can only pet him when he's laying on a specific blanket on our bed. It seems to be his secure area because he's usually pretty relaxed when he's there. So getting him in the carrier involves gentle petting, then scruffing him just to make sure he doesnt run away and then immediately sort of sliding him in the carrier. Its a 2 person job, but it works. We've been lucky that he spends most of his day sleeping in that spot on the bed so I haven't run into a time where we had to get him in a carrier and he wasn't there. I'm not exactly sure how that would go in that case.

He likes having his chin rubbed which is something that I just discovered recently (but today is the first day that I got a really good look at his chin), so I wonder if he would let me wipe it down. I suppose its worth a try. He's out wandering around right now, but the next time I catch him on the bed I'll see how much he'll let me mess with his chin and attempt a picture and a gentle wipe down. I'm hoping its not a serious case of acne, and thankfully from pictures and stuff that I've read, it doesn't appear to be. Hopefully it will continue to stay that way.

You said you wash the dishes after wet food, but what about after every single dry food meal? Dry foods are covered with a fat coating to help keep them fresh (plus adds flavor and something for the powder coating flavoring to stick to) and that fat will get on a cat's face as it eats and will coat the dish.

You may also want to try just using one of your plates for him. With the food spread out on the plate he would be sticking less of his face and chin right into the food. That';s what has helped a couple of mine.

I have a semi feral outside who loves his chin and face scratched, it's one of the things that tempts him up for close contact.