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- Aug 2, 2022
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Hi! Sorry for the long post just hoping to get some information on what we might be dealing with as far as Feline Cutaneous Asthenia. Specifically whether or not this is something that progressively worsens as they age, whether or not milder variations exist, quality of life, and experiences of anyone else can share.
We recently took in a barn cat of an approximate age of 4 months that we were hoping to transition to our property as an indoor/outdoor cat for companionship and rodent control. When we picked him up he had recently healed from a scratch behind one ear and had developed an abscess which was being treated behind the other ear. We chalked it up to excessive scratching due to ear mites as his ears were visibly infected with something. Brought him home and regularly treated the abscess which seemed to be healing well began treatment for the mites and schedule a vet appointment for abscess follow up and vaccination. Since having him in our home he has had access to outside during most of the day when supervised, and indoors isolated from our senior cat until tested and vaxed. He has been a super cuddly friendly guy and seemed to fit right in the minute we brought him home. The night prior to his vet appointment he tore open the ear with the abscess which had seemed almost healed. At this point he had been in our care for about 2 weeks, had a week of ear mite treatment and was looking good. He regularly submitted to being handled for treatments and was an absolute cuddle bug. We had not noticed anything unusual about him other than I have never experienced a cat who wounded themselves so severely by scratching their ears. We got him to the vet this morning and she took a closer look at the abscess, drained it again, and gave him an antibiotic injection. She then noted that his skin was extremely stretchy. She said that could be why he keeps scratching his ears open (loose skin getting caught on rear claws) and mentioned Ehlers-Danlos syndrome as a possibility. She suggested waiting and seeing how he "grows into" his skin but did note that the stretchiness did not appear normal. At this point other than the issue with the abscess, he does not at this time seem to be wounding too easily but we are definitely coming to terms with the fact that he may need to be strictly indoors which will take some adjustments as our senior cat has never been very tolerant of other cats outside of her sister who passed away last year. I guess I am looking for something hopeful as everything I read online so far is pretty bleak. TIA
We recently took in a barn cat of an approximate age of 4 months that we were hoping to transition to our property as an indoor/outdoor cat for companionship and rodent control. When we picked him up he had recently healed from a scratch behind one ear and had developed an abscess which was being treated behind the other ear. We chalked it up to excessive scratching due to ear mites as his ears were visibly infected with something. Brought him home and regularly treated the abscess which seemed to be healing well began treatment for the mites and schedule a vet appointment for abscess follow up and vaccination. Since having him in our home he has had access to outside during most of the day when supervised, and indoors isolated from our senior cat until tested and vaxed. He has been a super cuddly friendly guy and seemed to fit right in the minute we brought him home. The night prior to his vet appointment he tore open the ear with the abscess which had seemed almost healed. At this point he had been in our care for about 2 weeks, had a week of ear mite treatment and was looking good. He regularly submitted to being handled for treatments and was an absolute cuddle bug. We had not noticed anything unusual about him other than I have never experienced a cat who wounded themselves so severely by scratching their ears. We got him to the vet this morning and she took a closer look at the abscess, drained it again, and gave him an antibiotic injection. She then noted that his skin was extremely stretchy. She said that could be why he keeps scratching his ears open (loose skin getting caught on rear claws) and mentioned Ehlers-Danlos syndrome as a possibility. She suggested waiting and seeing how he "grows into" his skin but did note that the stretchiness did not appear normal. At this point other than the issue with the abscess, he does not at this time seem to be wounding too easily but we are definitely coming to terms with the fact that he may need to be strictly indoors which will take some adjustments as our senior cat has never been very tolerant of other cats outside of her sister who passed away last year. I guess I am looking for something hopeful as everything I read online so far is pretty bleak. TIA