Itching...?Flea?Allergy?

Hi my cats Foxy and Soy are almost 5 months old, neutered two weeks ago, indoor and brothers. Foxy is domestic long hair.

About from yesterday morning, Foxy suddenly start to itching a lot (we think it is itching). It looks like this: he was sitting there, then somewhere on the back the skin with hair "contracts" (sorry for my poor English, but the hair around there looks "jumpy", almost like belly dancing :-S) Then he started licking there, and then go to licking the legs, then tail "jumps" too. Anyway, the "jump" is kind of like a reflex or something, let's call it "reflex" for now. When these "reflex" begins, he seems annoyed, not like to be touched, and runs. He licked his paws a lot too.

We suspected flea initially, but doubt it afterward.

First, both my cats are strictly indoor kittens and never found any fleas before, the only chance they may get flea is: 1.a weeks ago my friends brought their sibling sisters over for 3 hours, they are indoor cats too, never had flea, and the cats didn't play together, almost hiding all the time; 2. The day before yesterday we took them back to the hospital for a "after surgery examine" to see how their wounds look, it is less likely to get flea from the vet too. These are the only two chances they get in touch with outside for the past two weeks.

Second, when I was in China, I used to have cats with lots of fleas, they didn't have those "reflex" look on their back, and the condition gets better for a few days after bath. yesterday morning when we see him seems itching, we called the doctor make sure we are able to bath them, then gave him a bath, right after he was dry, he started to have the "reflex" again. He doesn't seem to have these "reflex" when he is resting.

We bought a flea comb today, go through him and found nothing, no flea, flea dirt, eggs... and he doesn't have dandruffs.

What might be the problem? Food allergies? Note the itching suddenly started yesterday morning and they changed their food from "chicken soup kitten" to "Nutro natural balance kitten" about a week ago.

Does the dry weather a possible reason? We live in New Mexico, USA and it is pretty dry here... Can we add any oil (like olive oil) in their bath to help soothing the skin?

Beside all these itching like thing, he's eating/pooping/playing normal.

Thanks very much...

I am not a skin expert or a flea expert ...

So I would advise a vet trip ASAP ... it could be flea allergy , could be internal issues or a few million other things..


do you have nutros natural choice or natural balence two different foods...

did you slowly change foods??

Thanks for your reply, we're using natural balance for kitten, and we did change food slowly.

Right now I'm leaning toward food more and more, yesterday one of the boys' poop is pretty dry and have some yellowish thing inside, looks like the color of dry food, so maybe one of them does not digest that well, I guess Foxy. We cooked him some food yesterday according to the books and going to buy the old food (chicken soup) again. We think he's getting better already, especially when he's relaxing, there's no that kind of "reflex".

We'll change food first, then if not work, turn on the humidifier, and watch closely. If still not ok by Wednesday or get worse before that, we'll send him to a vet... (we have really tight budget and everytime we had problem and visit the vet, the vet always said nothing wrong :-S)

Natural Balence the 6lb or 16 lb bag in a nearly floresent bag>>?/ is an all stage it can be very rich , much rich than chn soup ... I would say turn on the humidifier for all of you ...

If anything gets worse get to the dr before weds