HELP! My cat won't stop licking his fur off

salem29

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Hi all, i'm new to this forum but am having an issue with my 5yrs domestic short hair cat, Salem. For the past few weeks he has been obsessively grooming the area between his back legs as well as the inside area of his back legs and alot of his fur is now missing and he looks like he is balding. He has been flead and wormed very recently and is in great health, there has been no change to his home environment, he isn't stressed. He is a very relaxed cat. I am not sure how to stop this licking habit. I cannot see any irritation or inflammation to the skin. I am thinking i need to take him to the vet as i cannot work out what is going on.
Has anyone had a similar issue before? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
 

jschwartz

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That could have been a photo of my cat (Blix), he does the same thing.

In Blix's case it is not fleas, because I regularly give him flea medicine.

For my cat, it gets much worse in winter, and his licking lessons in the other months. We tried adding humidifiers in the winter. It doesn't help (or, at least, doesn't stop completely).

I tried changing his food, no help there in my cat's case.

My vet suggested doing a tests for allergies, but that would be expensive. And Blix's licking doesn't seem to hurt him. Outside of that, my vet said it could be a psychological thing, a reaction to stress. Blix's condition worsened when another cat in the house (Loki) was going through a terrible illness and died.

So that's my experience. Probably not useful to you.
 

jikin

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My cat would do that, and it came down to allergies. Stress can also cause overgrooming

Since it's recent you may want to look into any recent changes at all in your cat's life: diet, cleaning products, litter, or even a new neighborhood cat who might be stressing him out.
 
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salem29

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That could have been a photo of my cat (Blix), he does the same thing.

In Blix's case it is not fleas, because I regularly give him flea medicine.

For my cat, it gets much worse in winter, and his licking lessons in the other months. We tried adding humidifiers in the winter. It doesn't help (or, at least, doesn't stop completely).

I tried changing his food, no help there in my cat's case.

My vet suggested doing a tests for allergies, but that would be expensive. And Blix's licking doesn't seem to hurt him. Outside of that, my vet said it could be a psychological thing, a reaction to stress. Blix's condition worsened when another cat in the house (Loki) was going through a terrible illness and died.

So that's my experience. Probably not useful to you.
​That's interesting you mention your cat seems to do this over winter. I live in New Zealand and winter has just been here and that is when the licking started, I'm not sure if it's because Salem likes to relax a lot more in the colder months and therefore groom himself more or if it is just a coincidence..?
 
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salem29

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My cat would do that, and it came down to allergies. Stress can also cause overgrooming

Since it's recent you may want to look into any recent changes at all in your cat's life: diet, cleaning products, litter, or even a new neighborhood cat who might be stressing him out.
Yes I am starting to think allergies may be it in his case? or perhaps something is going on in his life I don't know about that could be upsetting him, but he doesn't show any signs of any stress and he is inside most of the time being lazy (out of choice, ha!) his food is the same and he's very happy overall, just how he always is. I think I need to take him to a vet and have them take a look as they may notice something I have not..
 
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salem29

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Thank you both for your replies :-)
 
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