Hairless Tummy and Hind Legs

Thank you GoHolistc for your input.  Yes I did fail to mention the efforts didn't I??   I have switched to grain free foods, dry and wet, have been to the vet 3 times, a skin scraping which showed nothing,  for steroids - first injection which I'm not a huge fan of, then orals for 4 weeks, some anti anxiety med that I immediately stopped as he was falling over drunk the 2nd day - no way will i do that to him.  (these were ALL Vet suggested treatments) the steroids worked for a bit - maybe a week or two and I was getting excited, then it got worse and i noticed more itching (the first time The hair was vanishing but didn't know when he was itching as I wasn't seeing it - maybe at night)... when it started getting worse and now, it's itching every 5 min. I play and cuddle to distract him.  it's stomach,, hind legs, now inside or front forearms, top of outer hip area... ordered and just received paper made littler to try....  Magic has always been the one with sensitive skin, one irritation inside of ear reappears every now and then - antibiotics heals immediately. His brother shows no signs of any of the above.

hope this helps. and yes, when I phoned my Vet to cancel the appt - told her I'd rather try something like Zyrtec for a few weeks, than do the steroid route again. Also made another appt to have another scraping. They agreed and noted in chart.

Thanks for the input.

Hi cats lovers - ok checking in. it's been about 3 weeks since my last post and using Zyrtec 5mg each morning for Magic. He's itching less but still itching and although I know hair grows slow, I'm not seeing him refrain from itching those same bald spots. I made a vet appt to have another skin scraping as now i felt tiny tiny little bump here and there that he's itching. He's indoors but I know the Vet will say once again "it's fleas" or something like that. It's frustrating because I've had fleas (not these cats) in my past, and know what fleas look like. I know the signs to look for and I don't see fleas. I do know there are smaller critters it could be so I will have the vet check him out.

My question as well to those who tried Zyrtec - did anyone go up to 10mg and were there any side effects?  i will absolutely run it by the vet as well but wanted your input too as I really feel those who have posted are the best evidence.

Thanks in advance for your input  =)

Magic's mommy

I can't help you on the dosage. Zyrtec is best used for environmental allergies - pollen, dust, mold, etc. If Magic has an allergy to, say, a protein such as chicken or clay litter, chances are the itching won't completely go away until the allergen is removed. Did you end up buying the paper litter?

yes, I cut the 10mg pill in half and gave it to her twice a day...so she got 10mg... no side effects while she was on it. I read where it is good to spread out the pill in the course of the day as well.... half in the morning, half at night sort of thing. Maybe that's why you saw "some" improvement but it wasn't enough to control it if you only give him 5mg?

My 2 year old neutered Siamese has recently had problems with hair loss on the lower part of his hind legs, a small patch on the back of one front leg and a bit of hair loss under his tail.  I have so far taken him to the vet twice.  First time they checked him for fleas - I had already done that at home - nothing - no fleas.  He is purely an indoor cat and shows no signs of scratching.  I have a second cat - a medium-length-haired tortoiseshell - who has no hair loss and likewise is not scratching and is an inside cat, too.  So having failed to find any fleas on the Siamese the vet gave him a steroid shot of some kind and an antibiotic shot - the kind that lasts two weeks.  On taking him back 2 weeks later for a follow-up the vet gave him a second antibiotic shot.  It has now been a little over a month since that second vet visit and no sign of any hair growing back on the bald places.  The kids eats and drinks normally and I have always given him the same cat food since he was a kitten.  He is urinating and having normal bowel movements and is full of energy.  The only issue is that strange hair loss.

He has not been tested for thyroid (that is something I will ask the vet to do when I call this week to make a 3rd appointment).  He has not shown any allergies previously to anything.  The only thing I can think of that is different over the last several week is I have been buying Purina Lightweight cat litter.  I am now wondering if there is something in that, versus the regular weight cat litter, that might have caused/be causing this hair loss so I was interested in your comment about cat litter.  I am going to try changing to a different cat litter to see if that helps.  I am at a loss as to what else to try to determine the cause of this.  I have had numerous cats over the years and never seen this hair loss issue before.

as I read these posts, it is clear that my cat , and most of these mentioned , are suffering from anxiety , and we mostly ad to that anxiety with every traumatic attempt to treat something else . (non existant fleas, the catch all diagnosis of overactive thyroid) and with every vet visit , and every unneeded medication, we continue to add to that anxiety. my cat has overcleaned her inner hind legs, she has no sores, or fleas, and if it were allergy, it would be more generalized, not so local. I also don't believe her food is the cause, because , again , it would be all over, not just her inner rear legs. I don't know why they  concentrate in that area , but it seems to be common. just try to remember , the more we traumatize the animal , the more anxious it will be.

Since there had been no change in my cat's diet; my other cat was  having no issues with hair loss; a ringworm test showed negative; the affected cat was behaving normally, eating and drinking normally, and acting normally and had no weight loss, I was puzzled as to what could be wrong - until I came across a posting on one particular cat website (I do not recall which one).  Somebody had posted about their cat's inexplicable hair loss with apparently no underlying illness and a particular post back suggested the hair loss might be caused by the cat litter being used.  BINGO!  The light bulb went on in my head.  I had changed out cat litter and started using the lightweight variety since I am old and having less weight to lift in the large containers would make my life easier.  Upon examining the specific areas where the hair was missing it was obvious that this had happened in all places where the cat's body would touch cat litter when squatting.  Long story short I immediately cleaned out both my cat boxes (I have 2 cats and they use both boxes), scrubbed them thoroughly to get rid of any chemical residue from the lightweight cat litter and filled them back up with the original litter I had used all along.  This was about 3 months ago and guess whose hair is growing back nicely!  So if somebody has not changed out their cat's diet, the cat is obviously not ill, and any other pets in the household are not affected by hair loss, then the next question should be:  Have you changed your brand of cat litter in a timeframe that coincides with the beginning of the hair loss?

My cat had this. You might check to see if she has a UTI. Mine has had after it was treated she improved a little. However she is now 17.5 years old, and dying, not of the hair loss though. Like you I didn't want multiple cortisone injections. My floors are laminate, so it wasn't the carpet!

Good luck.

Jan

Hello Jan

Yes, my cat did have a UTI and I had that treated at my vet with antibiotics and he was also given a cortisone injection so all that was taken care of around the time I figured out what was causing it.  I also phoned Purina as I had switched out to their Lightweight product and I can only assume something in the content caused this allergic reaction.  

Love the Web Site.Will follow the Tip about changing the Litter.(might even try ,PLAIN Builders sand.

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I did got myself some wooden C.Litter.Will keep you informed if it worked.(I changed the Litter on Sunday)

I just joined your club when i was looking for something that pertains to your hairless problem,unfortunately i know what is wrong i can fix yours but not mine.  The problem is a mite that responds to one thing and believe me it works very fast it is called frontline apply between the shoulders and below the neck carefully. for me I cant do that because the cat i speak of is ferral and will not allow me 2 feet .in order to feed them,i have 2,i place the food down two feet away from my front door.I just gave one of them some high rated tuna in a jar with broth hoping i disguised the clindamycin i am trying to gibe her to see if it would help she will not take it so i lose again I assume your cats are not ferral otherwise i have wasted your time and mine. good luck

hiya

Not sure we get this stuff,FRONTLINE, over here in the Uk.

I am tomorrow off to a Petstore and see if I can get it.

Hope you had success with your Ferral cats.

 Good Luck

my black male 5 year old cat has been having the same issues! he's usually an indoor/outdoor cat but with this winter being so cold we kept him inside. we also have a 1 year old male that is only inside, he's just fine- no hair loss.
upon reading it was the litter post that struck me. he's barely used a litter box in almost 4 years and I also switched to the lightweight brand. going to go back to the original and see if that helps!

My 5 year old female cat has lost most of her fur on her hind legs and her stomach. She is a nervy cat as it is and we thought it was stress. We thought it was once of our other cats stressing her.  We took her to the vets and the vet said they thought it was stress. They advised us to buy a feliway plug in and we did. It hasn't worked she's lost even more fur. We changed her diet and that hasn't worked either were at a loss. No one knows what to do she looks so bad and I'm worried she's in pain Can anyone help??? 

aww sorry to hear that. I hope someone pipes in that knows a bit more about stress in cats. Before our Min passed from an unrelated illness, she had that happen as well, constantly licking it raw. In her case, I gave her zyrtec and it completely stopped her from licking, so it must've been allergy related. Then when she got ill, I stopped the zyrtec as I was dealing with her illness, and I noticed she started licking again... so I do know that helped her.
Maybe someone else will have insight on medication they've used.

Hiya

I got FRONTLINS and New WOOD BASED Catlitter,to try if it would Help against the hairlos.

It seems to be getting better.i also aired all his blankets etc on the washing line.

Thanks for your help.The Litter was the Solution(I think) The Frontline,against Mites & Fleas

don't do any harm and should be done on a regular Basis anyway.

My cat has been overgrooming her stomach and hind legs for years (my friends call it the "assless chaps look"). It started when some bluejays decided to nest in the tree outside the window and the other cats in the apartment complex were hanging out in front of the window all the time trying to eat bluejay chicks and it never fully went away. When I lived in a house for a year and let her go outside semi-regularly, her hair grew back a lot, which makes me think part of it is anxiety mixed with boredom. Now that I'm back in an apartment and she's partially bald again, I'm looking into ways I can make her environment more interesting.

More recently, she was overgrooming her back around the base of her tail. The vet assumed flea allergy and gave her flea medication, it didn't go away. I took her to another vet, and as she was also having intermittent issues with diarrhea, the vet checked her anal gland and found one of them had been blocked and full of gunk. She (the vet) told me that the overgrooming could have been from the cat feeling like there was something in there that needed to come out (even though the area she was making bald wasn't directly over the anal gland area). I think that also explains why cats with food allergies overgroom on their stomach/anus, they're uncomfortable in those areas and the only thing they know how to do to make themselves feel better is licking the area.

The hair on her back/base of tail grew back two months after the vet cleared her anal gland (there's still a small spot that's really thin, but it's mostly filled in). The stomach/leg area is still pretty bald, but I'm hoping that resolves when I figure out the food allergy issue.

let us know how that goes. What type of diet are you going to try?

My cat experiences this as well. It's called feline Alopecia, and basically it's an OCD disorder which causes a cat to groom excessivelyZ the belly is the most common area as well as down the inside if the thighs.
Increase in Anxiety triggers a cat to groom even more.
I found a wonderful product called feliway that helps calm down anxious cats. Maybe this could be a possibility.

MnM said:

let us know how that goes. What type of diet are you going to try?

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Step one is getting her off the dry cat food she's been eating for the past couple years (Orijen 6-Fish) onto a single protein wet food (Kattovit Sensitive Chicken). Depending on how she does with that and whether I can find a good commercial food with low enough phosphorous for her kidneys (the Kattovit's a little high), I might start cooking food (or maybe even do raw) as a supplement to or as her complete diet. Chicken isn't technically a "novel" protein, since before the Orijen she was on a fish-chicken food, but she hasn't had chicken in a while so I figured it'd be an easier starting point.

I've tried Feliway before and didn't see a difference, but I didn't have the automatic dispenser and maybe wasn't spraying it often enough (which was maybe a couple times a week when I'd remember, and mainly focused in the area that smelled like cat when we moved into the apartment).