How common is pillow foot?

My cat is suffering from pillow foot, again.

This is the third time in 12 months.

(Would of been four but we stopped it in time, that was about 2 months ago.)

Does every cat get this at some stage?

All the vet does is send me home with steroid/antibiotic tablets and it usually goes away over the course of a week.

But it's driving me insane, I still don't understand why he keeps getting it and seeing as he has a ridiculous amount of energy he won't sit still long enough to relax he's sore feet

I'm sorry, I had no idea what this was - I had to look it up.  I found this article:

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_plasma_cell_pododermatitis.html

Has he had surgery to remove any of the "pillows"?  That might be the next step?

It looks a little like the sores diabetics get - has he been tested for that?

I sure hope it isn't as painful as it looks.  Poor boo-boo.

No he's never had the surgery, yet. Thank god!

Every time he's had it, it starts off with a pretty foul odour coming from he's paws so that's how we've been able to catch it and get antibiotics into him straight away.

He's had a few tests done to try and see what's causing it but our vet still doesn't know why it keeps happening to him

I also have never hear of it. It does say in the article above that it can sometimes be connected to FIV has he been tested for that? We have a lot of great information for FIV positive cats on here. One member LDG is a wealth of information and here is her thread about her cat with FIV (http://www.thecatsite.com/t/224483/chumleys-fiv-health-journal).