Cat scratching to flesh

[blakeoman]

Chloe:
http://ploader.net/files/d902299a027...6416fadaab.JPG

A few months ago a beautiful little white kitty walked into my garage and decided that I was to be her new owner. She seemed to be in pretty decent health when she arrived, so we decided to keep her. After a few weeks we noticed she began rubbing her eyebrows and ears raw. The eyebrows and ears began to scab badly. We took her to the vet and he checked for ear mites and it came up negative. So he gave her a steroid injection and gave us some tresaderm drops to put in her ears and on her wounds. This worked great and everything seemed to go away. Then about a week later one day we woke up and she had a huge flesh wound the size of a quarter on the back of her head from her scratching it. We took her to the vet once again. He didnt really have an explanation for us but gave us some Betagen spray to spray on the wounds, shaved her neck near the wounds, and another steroid injection. She is still scratching today and has a couple new fresh wounds on her neck. She is eating Science diet sensitive skin formula. Any suggestions??

 

[blakeoman]

A picture of her neck:

http://ploader.net/files/d5d81b0f5ff...94aee224fb.jpg

 

[ducman69]

There are many possible causes from mange to ringworm to allergies from food or a bite who knows, but when dealing with something that serious, I would recommend simply bringing her to one or two other vets, preferably a feline specialist.

If you think that human doctors can misdiagnose or not be familiar with a case, that is far more-so the case with animal doctors and especially cats unfortunately.

Can you just put on an ecollar for now, as that's just downright bad.

 

[missamy018]

It could also be some type of autoimmune problem.. You may want to consider taking her to a specialist, such as a kitty dermatologist. I've come to learn that when regular vets resort to giving steroid injections as the only treatment, it's most likely allergy or autoimmune related. I think the kitty should definitely see a specialist considering how bad her wounds look. They must be painful.

It can be hard to find a specialist depending on where you live. I have to travel almost 2 hrs to get to the closest specialists to me. You can search here for the closest one to you if you don't already know of any. https://www.acvd.org/locator/locator.asp

 

[missamy018]

Also, you could try switching her food. Science Diet is high quality, but it contains what I call "crap ingredients". Many cats are allergic to corns, grains, etc that are in most cat foods. I've had a few cats with problems that cleared up completely after switching to a holistic food. Look into Wellness or Blue Buffalo (2 of the most popular brands). I personally use Blue Buffalo. One of my cats had doctors completely baffled, tried everything to fix her problems and nothing worked. All she needed was a food change and she was 100% back to normal!

 

[adweena]

I'm wondering if a topical flea/parasitic treatment could cause this? Have you used one on her? I second asking for a second opinion. That looks just awful.

She is sooo cute though! Congrats on such a cutie!

 

[cableknit]

My cat Stan has the *exact* same problem. He's white too (although that probably doesn't mean anything)!

I can totally relate to the frustration. We've spent thousands of dollars trying to get a diagnosis (in addition to surgery for one wound that just would never heal due to him scratching at it constantly), and we still do not have any clear answers. If you do get a diagnosis, please update us!

I believe it is an allergic reaction - we changed his food to Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diet (duck & green pea), and it seemed to work well. Since, he's had urinary problems so he's on a vet diet (Medi-cal preventive). He still gets sores once in a while, but we treat them right away with Panalog (from our vet) and they eventually heal. But that's just treating with steroids and not getting at the root of the problem (as noted above).

My partner thinks it's a neurotic thing. But he could be allergic to something non-food related.

I would recommend an ecollar and maybe some steroid/antibiotic ointment from the vet for those sores. That's what has worked best for us in the short term. Best of luck!!

 

[blakeoman]

We have some antibiotic ointment to put on the wounds from the vet. This really helps with the healing and makes sure her skin isnt too dry and itchy. We are trying a new limited ingredient food too. In the meantime we got her some little soft rubber nail caps for her back paws so that she cant tear herself apart. She might just be scratching the scabs because scabs are itchy so we are hoping that if we can get the scabs to heal then she will be fine.

 

[momto4kitties]

My cat Lucas is going through something similar, the first vet who saw him told us Lucas had Lupus, our new vet things he is just allergic to food, so he prescribed Hills hypoallergenic cat food, we have been giving it to him for two weeks and he is still sick, but it takes time.

I hope you can find out what is wrong with your baby..