Help my cat :(

My old cat passed away recently and it was the hardest thing to deal with. So last year I got a new kitten. An domestic short haired cat whos ginger. She is the most playful girl ever. When I got her she was around 10 weeks old. And was fine. Until she turned one year old. She eats her self alive. Her hind legs are all red and bleeding. And same with her front legs. She also scratches her neck. I've taken her to the vet numerous amounts of time. The vet is a complete jerk! But besides that he gives her depo shots and has been doing so for the past 6 months. so around 4 shots. I really think that its unhealthy. I've changed her diet to a special allergy food. Ive tried letting her outdoors but it doesnt help either. And I checked for fleas. She is fully vaccinated. I dont want her to be in pain someone help me!

If she has flea allergy it takes just one bite to set it off, and you may well not find any.  Did you check for flea dirt?  Comb the cat on a white surface, dampen whatever comes out and if it's flea dirt it will stain the white surface pink.

It could also be something in the environment - your landry powder / liquid, sprays, diffusers, your purfume (if you use any), anything.  The following page might have something useful in:

http://www.fabcats.org/owners/fleas/itchy_cat.html

Wow this is kinda crazy!!! I just joined this site and this is the first post I happened to randomly choose. it was fate. Don't really respond to posts often but felt really compelled to tell you my story. anyways, my wife and I own two cats one long haired orange (Jack), and one short haired all Black (Mary).  Jacks 5  and Mary's 3 both about like 15 lbs. When we got mary she was about 8 weeks old. But just like your cat, when she was about One years old she started just devouring all of her hair. I mean devouring. We didn't think much of it at first but out of nowhere she went almost completely bald behind her hind legs in a matter of like 3 weeks. Then it progressed upward towards her outer hips and then behind her fronts legs as well.And scratching up her neck.  We were stunned at how much she was just ripping her own hair out.You could hear the nasty sound of when she was just chewing the crap out of her own hair/skin. When we finally went to the vet, the vet was like instantly, "That cat has fleas and is having an allergic reaction to them." Just by looking at her condition, the vet just knew. See we thought we really checked Mary thoroughly for fleas, but apparently not... The vet told us that our cat was getting severe "rashy" skin around the fleas bites and would chew the area till basically all her hair would be gone, no more itch and/or until it bleeds. And also from the allergic reaction some parts were falling out on its own so it just made our cat look even worse.  The vet inspected mary for like a good 5 mins before she found a flea on her. She was using a basic flea comb like the one we used before but she was successful with it. she also stated that our cat could have just eaten away all the fleas when we checked her. but then the eggs hatched on her and she was back to just eaten herself alive. The vet advised us to just give her a really thorough flea bath and then apply flea medicine. We did the old fashioned warm DAWN soap bath . I think we bathed her twice, the baths killed a lot of fleas. Then we used the FrontLn medicine for her for about 3 months, then our vet's office switched carriers to Revolution flea medicine. We used that for another 3 months. Our other cat(Jack) had fleas as well. we really don't know which cat had it first but the only difference was Jack barely scratched himself and Mary scratched and chewed herself constantly. So we applied flea meds to Jack as well. We think that the cats got the fleas when we let them outside only twice.

After we got the cats under control, then started the real trouble. "De-flea"ing the house. We really didn't know much about fleas at the time, but the vet told us that they can lay eggs in your fabrics like carpet, couch, bed, pillows, blankets, etc..not just on your animals.And it takes at least 3 months to hatch.So a good while we were using flea medicine on the cats but the fleas just kept coming back. Found out that even if you killed the fleas and eggs on your pet, the fleas can still live and hatch later-on on the carpet/or some other fabric material and jump back onto your pet. We soon realized that we had a "cat blanket" that we leave near the cats beds and we would move frequently around the house so they can come and chill with us on it in certain rooms, even on our bed and stuff, you know that was the "cat blanket". remembered that Mary would also always be on that blanket when she was eating herself, so many fleas had to of jumped onto and laid eggs in that blanket..  Saw that blanket like the fleas breeding ground, or like the"'eggs blanket", what we called it right before we threw it out. We applied flea powder on all the fabric furniture and carpets throughout the whole house, and then vacuumed it up. we did this twice, one week in between. it was a process. but well worth it. It seemed like when we tossed the blanket and with the flea powder applications we finally killed all the eggs. And just to be thorough we kept the kitties on meds for 6 months. After we took the cats off the flea medicine we just crossed our fingers that there would be no more fleas after all the painstaking work and we could just go back to having two normal, flea-free, good inside cats and one not balding. After a month we saw that neither cat was scratching at all so we were successful with killing the fleas and the eggs in any fabric within the house. Mary already was growing hair back within 2 weeks. She quit scratching behind her head neck area which was the most scabby. The hair came in fast and very healthy. her leg hairs came back within like 2 months and she was totally back to normal by like 6 months. It was really rewarding for us that she finally got better. We felt helpless at first because she was like 40% hairless and we didn't have a clue why. But once the vet showed us it was fleas and an aggressive allergic reaction to them, we got her flea med and sanitized the house of all fleas and flea eggs .And now we have our good old Mary back, full coat and all.

I know i probably could've made this a little more concise, but I hope it helps with you and your cat. And If your vets a jerk try some other vet with a good reputation. Because you love your cat don't you want your vet at least caring too? About the depo shot, i don't really here much about cats getting those types of shots. I really think you should get a second opinion. And stop the shots. If you don't feel right about it, go with your instincts because you're most likely right. And if your cat does go outside she has to have flea medication all the time.Sorry if a little long but I hope my story can help you out at all, and i pray all goes well with you and your cat.

Fo True
 

Depo-shots-are-steriods.They-are-meant-for-very-short-term-use,and-the-vet-has-to-know,specifically,what-they-are-treating-for,its-not-meant-for,well,lets-try-this.**If**-it-is-fleas,depo-is-not-helping,you-have-to-eliminate,the-sourse-of-the-itching,which-is-getting-rid-of-the-fleas,which-you-don't-even-know,if-thats-what-the-issue-is.

If-you-see-what-looks-like-pepper-on-the-kitty,that-is-flea-dirt,its-their-manure.Get-a-flea-comb,they-are-inexpensive,and-comb-the-kitty,if-you-have-fleas,that-will-show-it.As-Fo-True-suggested,if-you-have-fleas,wash-the-kitty,in-Dawn,just-make-sure-to-rinse,real,real,well.

Actually,I-suspect,its-what-your-feeding,what-do-you-feed?