Cat keeps licking and biting herself

Hi!

I signed up to this site literally to ask this question.

So, my cat's name is Missy and I've had her for over 2 years now. She was a stray cat I found in my garden one day--she was extremely skinny (her ribcage was very visible), and she was covered in scabs, and cuts. She also had mange, but we got that treated. She was just a year old, so it's very likely she was strayed as a kitten. She was also toilet trained to go on cardboard, which leads me to believe someone owned her previously

However, since we took her in, she is constantly licking and biting her underbelly, legs, and scratches her inner ears until they bleed. As a result of this constant licking, she has little to no fur on her belly, it's red raw, slimey, and she smells appalling--we believe this smell is from her spittle, which would typically be all over her stomach from licking. There are self-inflicted cuts and scabs all over her belly. Wherever she lies down, she leaves a damp, brownish liquid that smells as bad as she does. 

The vets we've consulted have no idea what's wrong with her--we've tried all sorts of different treatments. They thought she has allergies, or has some sort of fungal infection. However, the only thing that genuinely seems to work is placing a cone around her neck to prevent her getting at her underbelly, which is not exactly a perfect solution as she hates wearing it.

Apart from that, her coat is sleek and clean, she has a wonderful personality, and is very friendly.

I suspect she may have some sort of anxiety issue from being a stray? It definitely isn't an infection or something--it's entirely self inflicted.

I have no idea what else to do about this. I don't suppose anyone has had similar symptoms with their cat?

It definitely sounds like an allergy.  She could be healing up because she can't get at the area to bite it or get at her ears with her paws, the area could still be itchy.  I would try switching her food to a simple grain free food in a protein that she isn't eating now.  I would also switch her litter to a different type.  My kitty's chicken allergy showed up as yeast infection in his ears and he at scratched at them until he had some bloody places in his ears.

I'm seeing similar symptoms with my cat Sweetie that started just a couple of weeks ago.  So far he's licked a lot of fur off the lower part of his underbelly and also licked some fur off his back legs where the foot and leg join.  His skin looks completely normal but furless, I've spoken to the vet clinic over the phone about this a couple of times, and one of the things they said to do was to place him on a white towel and groom him looking for flea dirt, but there was nothing there.  I keep a towel on the couch and a couple of times I saw him frantically grooming the towel.  In Sweetie's case could this be stress?  He has an appointment at the vet clinic this Thursday (9/25).

obviously you should always try to find the underlying cause, but for our kitty that started licking all her fur off her hind legs and belly, zyrtec worked. Maybe ask your vet if that'd be ok ...it sure did the trick for ours... and I haven't read any side effects on it after searching it.

 My vet has no idea what's wrong with Sweetie also, but he did say this is a very common problem in cats.  The vet gave him a steroid injection to reduce the inflammation, which will hopefully prevent him from overgrooming, and I did notice Sweetie seemed more comfortable this morning.   Since Missy's problem is much more severe, maybe  you could ask your vet about giving her daily doses of predisone?????