identical missing patch of hair on both inside heels? No idea.

Hey everyone,

So both of my kittens have been in good health the last few weeks (thank goodness.) but recently Ares, our orange tabby, seems to be loosing hair on his heels. Same spot on both feet. He's had several vet checkups for unrelated things and each time we bring up the spots and most vets just brush it off. One vet put a UV light over it and it did glow slightly, which made her think it may be a fungues infection. We were going to get him medication for it, but at the time we were at the vet because he was vomiting non-stop, so we kinda put the small missing patch of hair on the back burner. Today while I was holding him I noticed the batches have gotten a little bigger and red. We've started putting apple cider vinegar on it in case it is a fungus infection like on of the vets thought, and if we don't see improvement in a week we'll bring him back to the vet. Has anyone ever encountered this before? I find it odd that the two spots are in the EXACT same place on both feet, and no where else. He does have a tendency to rapidly kick the side of the littler box with both feet after he finishes (to get the litter off) could that case it to be raw like this? Picture below of what it looks like.

My first guess would be ringworm, a fungal infection as your vet said. It's common and there are a number of threads here if you search for it. The litter box scratching is interesting though. Have you tried a different litter, something softer, to see if that helps? I suppose it's even possible that he has broken the skin on the litter box and an infection got in that way. Personally, I would take him to the vet asap to avoid further hassles if it's infected. My kitten had ringworm when I brought him home. His paws were the first place I noticed it though it was not red like yours but more dry and scaly. The vet did the black light test for me too, and it glowed but not a great deal. If it glowed in your case then I think it's a good possibility that's what you've got. Ringworm is easily spread to humans and other animals so the faster you act the better. You will need to do more than cider vinegar I'm afraid. There are topical creams, oral medication, sulphur dips and more approaches to consider with your vet. It doesn't have to be the nightmare some people have had. It was very simple and easily cleared up in my case, but I have only one cat. Good luck!

Oh, I know all about ring worm unfortunately. We had a bit of an epidemic here when we brought our second kitten home. They went through 2-3 weeks of medication and have been ringworm free for almost 3 months now. These patches only showed up about 3 weeks ago, and have not really gotten any worse then this, nor has it spread on his body or on the other cat (they wrestle all the time). Both my boyfriend and I got it last time too, and we are both free so far. I guess the only reason I'm leaning toward it not being ring worm is the positioning. Both spots are directly over the ankle bone - where there is a little bone bump protruding. I had said it was on the inside of the foot, but I was mistaken, it's more near the outside/middle of the heel back there.


ghtly from the heel.

Hi - did you ever figure this out? My cat has exactly the same spots on the same two heel spots, for a few weeks now.

She's a very healthy 2-year-old, with lots of energy. Indoors for close to 1 year, was outdoors before that.

The spots are simply a loss of fur. Noticed it first on one heel, then on the other one. It has gotten a bit worse, but doesn't seem to bother her. When I touch both heels, she doesn't act like it hurts. She moves away because she's not a touchy-feely type of cat (just wants to play), but otherwise it doesn't seem to bother her.

Any advice? Is it time to call the vet? Or does it heal on its own? Thanks for any advice. And thanks very much for posting the photo and diagram - that's exactly what I'm looking at here.