My cat has some mysterious problems...

My cat's about 4.5, sole cat in the house, and is strictly indoors.

About a month ago, she developed a dime-size bald spot under her eye, that vanished after a couple of weeks. It's like the hair just fell out. My vet dismissed it as an allergy or stress. Well, there's no stress here, because she runs the place...

Now, three weeks later, she's meowing a lot, shaking her head, scratching at the back of her ear (always done that), and constantly licking around her mouth and stretching her jaw. Mind you, it's NOT as bad as it sounds. She looks normal, plays the same, eats and drinks the same, poops and pees the same, and she's restful when sleeping.

I had her checked for earmites numerous times but nothing's ever found. She's always had bad breath, and her teeth have been professionally cleaned twice in the last three years, the most recent in January of this year.

When I open her mouth, I notice there are two black sacs on either side of the front part of her lower inner lip, and I'm wondering if any of your cats also have squishy sacs there.

I'm at a loss to understand the ear scratching, shaking of the head, soulful meowing and bad breath.

No earmites, no fleas, doesn't appear to be diabetes... *sigh* Any ideas?

Stress dosen't always mean mental or environmental, it could be physical. If there is something wrong with her ears or mouth(or both) then that could stress her out to the point of losing her fur. I've seen it many times in cats who are in kidney failure, respiratory distress ect.(Not trying to say your cat has any of these)

If her ears are otherwise clean and been varified by a veterinarian then there could be the possibility of a food allergy or atopy, which is an allergic condition caused by absorbing allergens through the skin or inhaling them.

There's a bunch of reasons why your cat's breath smells. Do you brush her teeth or have some other sort of dental regimin? Do you feed dry or canned or both? It would be best to bring these concerns to your veterinarian's attention and hopefully he/she will be able to give you a solid answer.

Those black sacks are perfectly normal on most cats. Did the vet rule out ringworm? That small round bald spot would trigger warning signs for me. Of course ringworm does not just vanish either. It could be spring allergies, even though she is not an outside cat, spores come in through the window. You can effectively clean her teeth by giving her a raw chicken wing once a week. That is how my cats keep their teeth clean and it works great. Unlike dogs, they have the capacity to chew up the bones small enough to not choke or cause other problems.

Ringworm is awfull. I caught it one time from a cat at work and it took forever to go away. Of course now at work I get laughed at everytime ringworm is mentioned.

I caught ringworm a long time ago from a cat my sister brought home. That really sucked! Hehehe...nope, it's not ringworm. As I said, it was isoladed to a slightly smaller than dime-size patch under her eye (nowhere else) and it's since vanished.

I feed her primarily dry food, and give one can per week of the soft stuff. Her breath has always been horrible. And she's so cute! No, I don't brush her teeth regularly, because most vets have said it really isn't necessary because cats have very strong teeth and the dry food helps clean it. I only had her teeth cleaned because I thought it would help her breath, but it didn't. She had virtually no tartar on her teeth.

Cryogenix, has your Vet run the whole battery of tests? Bloodwork, urine, stool? It's hard to say if these problems are related, but maybe it would show up on the tests. You just might need to take her to an allergist. Allergies have strange symptoms in cats. Keep us posted.

elaine