Sensitivity to Scented Things

I have a kitty who seems to be bothered by scents and odors. I am very observant, so I'm able to figure stuff like this out.

For one, dryer sheets really irritate him. We never use it, but one time we forgot a load of washed laundry in the washing machine and my boyfriend's grandparents put it into the dryer for us, with a dryer sheet. That night, after spending some time on our newly washed (and scented) bed sheet, Tofu's eye was all swollen from him rubbing it. I put the whole load back into the washer and his irritation died down slowly afterwards.

A 'natural' catnip spray I bought for him also caused the same reaction. I ended up returning the product and sticking to less potent catnip buds instead.

Then last night, we had a friend over who is a smoker. For whatever strange reason, as soon as Tofu smelled the cigarette scent on him, he started rubbing himself all over my friend, something he normally doesn't do with strangers. I noticed immediately afterwards that he started rubbing his eyes a lot. It is swollen and red again from all the rubbing, so I put a cone on him and wiped his whole body down with a wet towel. I hope everything will have subsided by the end of tonight.

Are all cats this sensitive or do I just have an extra sensitive kitty? Does anyone have a cat that has similar sensitivity issues? We have to be so careful about everything we use around the house because of this.

Well, Lucas has been hacing an allergic reaction that makes his eyes get all red and swollen and he is also itchy all over (specially his belly and back of his legs) and red and loosing hair. The vet told me it looks like an allergic reaction to food, so we are teating him with a hypoallergenic diet.

But we don't know if is food allergies, I'm very worried about inhalant allergies too, so I changed his litter to hypoallergenic and I stopped using perfumes and lysol, I"m cleaning with natural products.

Now that I read your post I"m wondering if Lucas is also sentitive to scents and I'm thinking I should change washing detergents to a hypoallergenic one. My friedn came to visit yesterday and she had a very strong perfume on, and shortly afterwards I noticed that Lucas's face got a little red.

What other symptoms you see in your kitty? Does he gets rashes?

No rashes, just fervent rubbing of the eye, like a really bad irritation. I wish I took a picture last night when his eye was swollen for you to compare because he has food allergies too. But for that, he scratches around his face and neck a lot which in turn causes wounds and bleeding.

Here's an example of a mild case of his food allergies:




And an extreme case:


Every animal is different in their reactions, but just based on my own experiences with allergies in pets, food allergies usually show up on their paws, face (esp. ABOVE the eye area), and neck. Itchy eyes are more in line with contact or even inhalant allergies. I've never seen a case of food allergies which resulted in swollen eyes (but again, Lucas could be different).

Which litter did you change to? You just reminded me as well -- Tofu is also sensitive to some litters! He is using Yesterday's News paper pellets and it works for him, but I tried a different brand of paper pellets once and not even one day later, the swollen eye appeared. I e-mailed the company asking if they add scent into their litter (I smelled it faintly) and they said no, it's all natural. Well, I changed back to YN and the swelling and eye rubbing went away. Tried it another time and got the same reaction.

It would make sense if Lucas has contact allergies as the belly and back of legs are places that frequently come into contact with whatever he's lying on. Which hypoallergenic diet is he on?

Hi:

Thank you so much for showing the photos. The first picture you posted, that has been Lucas for years. But I guess he is an extreme case now. But with Lucas it is difficult because the vet we used to take him to told me Lucas had skin Lupus, but he never tested Lucas, so we have been giving him prednisolone to control the skin problems.

I changed vets and the new vet says it is NOT Lupus, but food allergies, so we are trying that. Lucas is on Royal canin hypoallergenic dry food now and I also ordered hills z/d canned food. Teh vets prescribed Hills Low allergen z/d food, but with the advice from some great freinds here I decided it will be better to get the royal canin.

here are some photos of Lucas that I took today, I didn't want to post them because it makes me sad to see him like this, but I think it will help:

His back


His neck


His belly


And he looked a lot worse than this two weeks ago, so you can imagine my stress.

I will go buy hypoallergenic detergent tomorrow to wash my bed sheets and his own sheets just in case.

I bought cat's pride hypoallergenic litter, is not the greatest thing, but I wanted to get it just in case.

Tamar