Scratching bald spots beneath ears

Can I just mention first that I will be making an appointment with my vet today.

My poor little Willow is not having a good time of it - she is currently on two different antibotics (Tylan and Flagyl) to manage clostridium perfringens. She has for the past few weeks been shaking her head every once in a while. I checked her ears and saw nothing, and got my vet to check as well when she went in for a check up. He could see some wax but nothing major.

Well I had noticed that her hair was thinning yesterday but thought I was just imagining it, but woke up and found she has scratched a bald spot with a small dot of blood.


Now as I said, I am booking her in with the vet, however is there anything I can do to soothe her in the meantime?

Have you been to the Vet yet today?  If she weren't shaking her head, I would suspect this might be a food sensitivity, but with the head shaking, it does sound like an ear infection or infestation type thing.  I've heard that coconut oil is good for skin issues, and if she gets it on her paw and ingests it, it won't hurt.  You might try that if you haven't been to see the Vet yet. 

Poor Wllow.  I'm guessing she had bad diarrhea from the Clostridium P.?  Is that being helped with the meds?  Are you giving her some probiotics in between the doses of the antibiotics?  That might be helpful. 

Thanks for replying!

We are booked in for this afternoon, unfortuantely my preferred vet wasn't available yesterday (he knows her history) however, I am thinking of calling to see if I can get Willow in earlier - the bald spot on both sides are worse than yesterday because she is obviously still scratching when I am not looking (I redirect her if I see her doing it).

I do have coconut oil, so I might give her some of that

My poor Willow has had loose stools since we got her in April and although she has been on antibiotics for three weeks (two weeks of Flagyl and one week of both Tylan and Flagyl), there really hasn't been an improvement yet. My vet did say that it's been so ongoing it may take a while to resolve (but I am chucking a bit at her at the moment, so I would expect that we haven't really reached a stage yet where I can say the antibiotics don't seem to be working). I asked him about s. Boulardii (Jarrow) and he said to go for it, so she has also been on that for a week now. (She had previously been on a probiotic for a couple of months with no change to her poops - this was before the antibiotics. I was going to put her on it again once the meds finished to try and rebuild gut flora - I had heard that probiotics interfere with antibiotics...?).

I am taking another sample down to the vet to get another PCR done to see if we are making headway.

I am a first time cat Mum and while I love her to death and wouldn't give her up for the world, this hasn't exactly been a great introduction to cat ownership lol I am lucky that my husband is like me and just wants to get her well, doesn't care on what we have to spend to get her there

Okay the plot thickens on this one. My vet has found no evidence of infection or infestation, actually nothing at all, but did see that she was 'twitchy' and she did shake her head while he was there.

He did think maybe an insect, possible flea, bite.....and recommended a flea treatment....but he isn't sure. He didn't think there was any side effects for Flagyl or Tylan, but was going to double check.

Has anyone had this happen before?

S. Boulardi is WONDERFUL, particularly with this particular issue of hers

As to using probiotics with antibiotics, as long as you don't use them at the same time, meaning don't give them within a couple hours of each other, they are fine to take one while taking the other.  Preferred, actually, because antibiotics can really mess up all the GOOD flora in the intestines while killing the bad stuff.

A followup PCR is a good idea.  There could actually be something else in there, since she's still having issues. Possibly T-Foetus?  And that particular parasite takes a special antibiotic to eradicate.

So, is she scratching at both ears now, or developing bald spots over both eyes?  Now I'm leaning towards food issues again if that's the case.  Food sensitivities often show up with itching around the head area.  What are you feeding  her?

That's disappointing that your Vet couldn't come up with anything.  Has he investigating side effect of the two drugs she's on and gotten back with you yet? 

I know that I have seen posts that you could start seeing changes within a week of starting saccharimyces boulardii, but we haven't had that joy yet. She looks like she is going to be a more long term kitty lol I am going to keep giving it to her until....not sure yet!

Okay, it's such a pity that the probiotics I got for her are water soluable, she just drinks it from her drinking water when I give it to her. Yep okay, I can just mix it up and leave it for her just before I go to work, that's usually a couple of hours after I have given her her antibiotics.

She does have bald spots over both eyes, just like the one in the pic though a little more baldy now and one is worse than the other. In saying that though, she hasn't continued scratching until she has bled. We gave her the flea treatment last nigh, so will see if this helps.

Willow definitely has issues with food - unfortuantely at the moment, I can't seem to give her any wet food, no matter how small, without the end result being explosive poops. So she is exclusively dry food at the moment, and have been giving her Canidae Grain Free. I wanted something that had minimal ingredients because at first we thought her pooping issues was due to food intolerances.

Poop sample has been delivered with a joke on there is plenty more where that came from, and I await the results

My appointment with the vet yesterday was late, so I will give him a call later today to see if he has found anything about side effects

Thanks so much for replying

Well mrsgreenjeens , just an update, while we still haven't found anything from the head shaking, we are making headway with the poops.......by switching her to Royal Canin kitten food. I know it's not the best, but damn, if it keeps working I have no choice to keep her on it!! For the first time since we have her, I don't have to be fully on 'poop watch' and she only poops once or twice a day!!

Nightwriter said:

Well @mrsgreenjeens, just an update, while we still haven't found anything from the head shaking, we are making headway with the poops.......by switching her to Royal Canin kitten food. I know it's not the best, but damn, if it keeps working I have no choice to keep her on it!! For the first time since we have her, I don't have to be fully on 'poop watch' and she only poops once or twice a day!!

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Solid Poop is a good thing.  Although it COULD be the S. Boulardi that's doing it, NOT the food .  Or, it could be the antibiotics?  How do you know it's the food that's doing it?  Have you stopped everything else? 

How is the head shaking, scratching? 

I'm pretty confident it's the food that has made a difference - as soon as I started her on it, the poops started improving when I had really seen no improvement before. I did take her off the meds and stopped the s boulardii to see if it was the food. Yep. I have started giving her a bit of s boulardii again just to try and improve things more. While they are formed and don't leave her in a mess, they are still soft. They aren't perfect, but if this is the best I get, I am still happy.

Her hair is growing back on her bald spots, and I have noticed less scratching.....but she still is twitchy and shakes her head. On the vets advice, I just dosed her again with Revolution last night. But he swabbed her ears and found nothing, and there are no reported side effects from the meds she was taking. But it was the other reason why I wanted her off the meds. If anyone was going to have an unexpected reaction, it would be my Willow!