Acne Out Of Control

Poor Autumn, her chin looks horrible. A while back we took her in for some dental work and when she came back she soon developed acne. I didn't think much about it as I've had a cat with acne that never escalated and was always minor.

Well it became obvious that this was not right when her chin started swelling up. It had gotten infected so we put her on clavamox and prednilisone (sp?). If it was related to the dental then after this course of treatment things should be better...

Well it only got worse, the swelling was no longer, but it still itches. You merely touch it and it will start bleeding (sometimes her whole chin). So we know that its somethign environmental that is causing the allergic reaction. But what??

Last year she coughed and sneezed quite a bit in the spring so we had to put her on antihistimines but nothing ever like this happened. The vet also thinks it could be a food allergy but with a raw diet the only thing left might be a protein allergy (please not that!).

So now we have her on chloro-something or other as an antihistimine and more prednilisone. Today I'm going to get an e-collar for her to see if we can get the bleeding under control. Its getting so hard to pill her because that area hurts her so bad and blood gets all over and is very painful to the touch.

We are going to give her the antihistimine for 3 weeks and see if she improves as the season moves on. If not then it has to be something else.

Does anyone have any ideas? Anyone have anything similar happen? I've never done allergy tests on cats and not sure I could right now (maybe I could in the fall, as I'm sure this is very costly).

She also eats off of plates so its not rubbing. However, my cats do drink out of glasses so maybe that could cause it? Some kind of contact dermatitis? With the e-collar I'm going to have to put bowls down anyway for her to drink so we'll see.

I'm really at a loss for what is causing this.

do you rotate meats>>>??

The antihistamine should give you a very good idea if it is an allergy ,,...

Poor Autumn , get well soon

Was gonna ask if she ate or drank from plastic bowls - that usually is the cause of acne in many cases. The cups she's drinking from - are they plastic or glass?

It could be the smaller surface (touching the sides) - try to get them to use normal stainless steel bowls to drink from.

Also hormones may cause an increase of oils which would cause the acne.

I rotate turkey and chicken. I could possibly throw in duck and rabbit (though costly) but I'm worried they wouldn't eat them, don't recall them liking those in the past.

The glass is glass. She might be rubbing on that though. I'll put down some of the stainless steel bowls for water.

Are you thoroughly washing the food dishes after each use? I never refill a dish - I always get a new dish and put the used one in the dishwasher for a thorough cleaning.