So all 3 of my cats started getting itchy back at the end of december. scratching and overgrooming, one has half of the hair on his back legs gone from grooming, they all have little sores/bumps. Took them to the vet on jan 5th, they didn't find any fleas or see anything in a skin scraping. They were on prednisolone for 3 weeks and antibiotic for 2 weeks, the condition improved but started coming back after the meds wore off. So the other day I took them back in, more steroids and antibiotics, still no sign of fleas. this time my vet sent in a skin biopsy. and blood from one of the cats for an allergy test. They've settled down now since they are on meds again. It looks like some kind of allergy but what are the chances of all 3 cats developing an allergy all at the same time? could it be something other than an allergy?
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all 3 of my cats started scratching around the same time. very itchy!
- Thread starter shaggyzr2
- Start Date
It might be some sort of mites, or other microscopic parasites, rather than fleas. What did the vet check for in the initial skin scraping? I don't know what all they will be checking for this time with the skin sample, but hopefully it will include looking for other types of parasites, especially if the last test did not.
It does seem odd - but, not entirely impossible - that all 3 would be allergic to the same thing. However, cleaning products and other items that contain chemicals could elicit a reaction in all three cats. If these cats are related, that increases the chance of an allergy related issue, but could also be genetically related as well.
Hopefully, other members will have some ideas to share with you! Either way, please keep us posted!
It does seem odd - but, not entirely impossible - that all 3 would be allergic to the same thing. However, cleaning products and other items that contain chemicals could elicit a reaction in all three cats. If these cats are related, that increases the chance of an allergy related issue, but could also be genetically related as well.
Hopefully, other members will have some ideas to share with you! Either way, please keep us posted!
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- #3
I think the vet was looking for whatever he could see in the scraping, he didn't see anything abnormal. He said they will look through the layers of skin in the lab to see if they can find anything, I should have results back next week. I've taken everything out of the house that I brought in around the time this started hoping it was one of those items that was causing it. I did start using new cat litter at that time, Dr elseys ultra litter after reading reviews on amazon about other cats being allergic to it. after I took that away things did seem better but got worse again. The only other thing was I had gotten a new furnace, new furnaces have a protective oil coating on the heat exchanger that will burn off after you use it for a while, the smell was very irritating to me for quite a while so thinking it was affecting the cats also but that smell is gone now and cats are still itchy.
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- #4
Any chance the oil coating while burning off penetrated the litter? Just an 'off the wall' Idea... Seems like you've done your investigative 'due diligence'!!
I would change the litter again, and maybe start a different brand of food, just in case. I started buying the food that Tractor Supply has, 4 Health, and my one little girl who has scratched raw is MUCH better!
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- #7
Seems like all I've been doing lately is investigating! I doubt it did anything to the litter. I've even thought about mold, I have a small crawl space under part of the house 80 sq ft. it does smell moldy under there but it's isolated from the rest of the house and the cats don't go in there. I'm sure it's possible that some mold spores could sneak out and float around the house but I would think it would take more than a few spores to cause a problem like that, and you would also think there would be some repiratory issues with along with a mold allergy.
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- #8
I will try different litter again. I've tried different foods, even tried allergy food from the vet, but they don't seem to like the allergy food.
We use Dr Elsey's, but I don't buy it from Amazon. We haven't had a problem, though it's coarser than it once was. However, I was looking at the one star reviews on Amazon, and the second or third one mentioned that it made their cat very itchy. This is the unscented version.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009X29WK/?tag=thecatsite
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009X29WK/?tag=thecatsite
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- #11
Took one of them to the vet again and found lice, that was 3 weeks ago, treating with frontline gold. So far I see some improvement but still itchy. anyone use frontline for lice? how long does it take to get rid of them?
