Cat large bulbous scabs all over face

Hey y'all. I'm here for my girlfriend, her cat Smush has recently developed (the past couple months) a terrible skin condition. The cat scratches at her head constantly and has been mutilating (tearing large chunks of skin off) herself for a while. When the cat gashed it's eye open recently, we took her to the vet again (she has tested negative beforehand for ringworm) and they were unsure of the problem. They gave us some steroids and some anti-biotic cream and did a skin-scrape to find out if it was an outward source. 

The problem started when the cat switched food, leading us to believe it was an allergic reaction, but upon further research... learned that the food had been rancid and recalled. So the cat had been eating rancid food for a couple weeks when the problem started.

She has large bulbous (round) scabs appearing on and around her ears and eyes, and loss of fur in those areas as well as between her abdomen and hind legs. We are so worried about her, she has a cone on right now and has learned to take her medicine, but since vets can't seem to figure out the issue, maybe one of you can? If you've had a similar issue, please let us know the problem and maybe the course of action you took to resolve the issue. The cat seems to be getting better (maybe not from the steroids, but truly from the cone and preventative measures from her mutilating herself from the skin condition) -- But we are very curious as to if any of you have experienced anything like this with your cat, and maybe what it might be. 

Please respond,

Thanks, Brendon

Hi Brendon,

Did the vet rule out allergies? Given all you describe this is a hard to ignore possibility.  One obvious test that your Vet could do would be to start the cat on an anti allergy drug of the appropriate type and dosage (do NOT do this without a Vet's instructions!) and see how she responds.  If she responds well, then you have a diagnosis.  This would be a logical step before doing steroids.

Foodwise, rancid or not, cats develop food allergies all the time and so i would wonder if your vet suggested a trial on a special anti allergy food?

Can you tell us what the vet did with respect to allergies as a possibility?

Thanks

Hey Stephen,

The vet didn't rule out the possibility of allergies (I think she gave us the steroids to suppress an allergic reaction), but we had thought after the ringworm test came back negative that an allergy was a possibility, and changed the cats food for a couple weeks twice, and changed her litter as well. When the vet heard that we had changed food and litter and none of the food we tried nor the litter was making a noticeable difference, that is when she prescribed the steroids. 

The vet hasn't given us any allergy -specific medication, and can still do a biopsy. With the cone on, the skin looks better (as the cat isn't scratching) -- but I'm worried that there could be a sort of parasite that she picked up in the bad food (when the reaction started) that is evading the vet, and the steroids could suppress her immune system trying to fight it off. 

So, to answer your question, the vet believed it to be an auto-inflammatory response, that could be an allergy, but we have tried changing the cat's food and litter for a couple weeks at a time, and it hasn't made any noticeable difference.

Thanks,
Brendon

I'd get a biopsy at this point. I fought a skin lesion on my old horse's leg for a long time (had other pressing issues that were more important), and once I got a biopsy and culture/sensitivity we were able to treat it more appropriately. The condition he had was called Pemphigus, which is also not uncommon in cats.

Also, just throwing it out there, does he eat/drink from plastic? Plastic harbors bacteria and even if bacteria is only a secondary issue for him, it would be good to reduce that exposure.

Brendon

As someone else has mentioned, a biopsy may be the way to go.  On the allergy issue, i'm surprised the vet didn't want to do a trial of an appropriately dosaged anti-histamine to see if this helped.  It's an easy thing to do, the relief (if it was an allergy) is generally quick and the trial would help rule in or out an allergy.  Do not do this without consulting your vet, and I would definitely suggest having that conversation.

No, she does not eat from plastic. But I'm not sure we have appropriately cleaned her eating/drinking bowls while changing food. I will get on that. 

Well as she seems to be improving just from leaving it alone and the steroids, hopefully that will be the end of this, We have a follow up appointment with the vet, and if she believes the cat isn't improving well enough, we'll just have to suffer the monetary hit and get the biopsy (which is why we wanted to try other avenues before getting a biopsy done.) 

Thanks for the input though, from both of you!

Thanks, 
Brendon

Also,you need to be aware that for food allergies, it can take several weeks (as in up to 6) when changing foods, to see a difference.  You can't change a food a expect to see then stop scratching the next day, or even the next week, if the old food was the culprit.  So food tests take quite a long time unless you want to pay hundreds of dollars to have the skin test done (like on humans) to see what they are allergic to.

I had a cat who did this, he had food allergies, he would mutilate his face as well.  We put him on a Rabbit diet and it took a while but that improved his situation.