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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

No idea what to do.

12 replies

RoyalWelsh · 02/01/2012 23:12

My three and a half year old moggy has some sort of allergy. To me, my immediate reaction was an allergy to fleas, because she was itching all the time and developed a bald spot right where I put the defleaing stuff. I took her to the vets and explained what I thought it was, but the locum said she thought it was ringworm. I was pretty sure it wasn't as she sleeps on our bed and plays with the dog and no one had any symptoms, but I let the vet do a skin scrape etc which cost £££. Lo and behold, tests came back negative and by this time my poor little cat had chewed all the hair off around her tail.

I took her back to the vets and saw the vet who runs the practice. She said, yes, definitely a flea allergy, injected her with steroids and said keep up the flea treatments.

Three months ish down the line and I deflead the cat last night. Recently she has begun to abhorr it and will scratch etc to try and prevent me doing it. She never used to do this in the first, say, two and a half to three years of her life. This morning I wake up and she has two perfectly bald patches between her shoulder blades, where I had squeezed the frontline on. It doesn't appear to hurt her yet, but I feel so sorry for her, it honestly looks like the hair has just fallen out.

Has anyone else heard of this? Do you think she is now allergic to the frontline? I tried her on bob Martin stuff a few years ago and it was rubbish. I don't really know what else to do, and I'm not sure I trust the vet anymore as they have a history of diagnosing my animals with wild and dangerous things when common sense says otherwise, the ringworm being a case in point. Another example was when I knew my cat had worms, asked to buy some tablets but was told I couldn't buy any until she had been weighed - took her in Just for the weighing and the vet told me she had an incurable bowel disease. Tests came back negative.

That was much longer than I anticipated, clearly I needed a bit of a rant, sorry!

OP posts:
Jux · 02/01/2012 23:21

Change your vet. Switch to another flea treatment. There are others, but I can't remember names; in this case Google is your friend!

Poor little thing.

oreocrumbs · 02/01/2012 23:22

You need to see another vet. I don't have any real ideas about what it could be, have you moved house? (so she is exposed to new areas), have you brought any new plants into the house, some are dangerous for cats?

Ask your friends about, or on here if you want to say where you are for recomendations for a new vet - they sound only interested in the money and not the animal.

Another thought have you changed your washing powder? Could be a skin irritation rather than an allergy?

oreocrumbs · 02/01/2012 23:34

Had a quick google and they mostly point to flea allergies, but also ticks and lice.

You can get flea tablets now, I wonder if that would be worth a try rather than the drops.

some skin treatments

Cat flea tablets

Jellykat · 03/01/2012 00:10

I agree with change your vet..

It must be an allergy to Frontline if your cats skin reacts to it like that surely? However i have found, and there's been many MNers saying the same, that Frontline doesn't work anymore. In which case your cat could still have fleas- trouble being you'll have to wait a month before trying anything else, as the Frontline will still be in her/his system regardless.

I use Stronghold on my dog, and my DM uses it on her cat, both have sensitive
skin problems, and my dog has a flea allergy so it must work. It also controls mites, mange, lice and roundworm.

sashh · 03/01/2012 04:44

Change vet.

I used to foster for cats' protection - the vet used by them would have done the vets' flea treatment - they take the cat into another room and they come back looking damp and disgruntled but flealess.

Also if she has fleas because the frontline isn't working then your house needs defleeing too - you can get a spray from the vet, it isn't cheap but does work.

mathanxiety · 03/01/2012 06:23

My cat did something like this this, and ended up scratching/biting off big patches of her fur. It started just at the base of her tail -- there was continual twitching and biting of her fur at that spot, but it spread virtually everywhere.

The diagnosis of the vet (after we had tried but failed with ringworm remedies and flea stuff) was an allergy to commercial catfood laden with preservatives and artificial colours. We always fed her dry food and she wouldn't touch tinned food at all.

In the end the vet prescribed an antibiotic as she had developed a staph infection on her skin (large bare patches were being scratched a lot and quite raw), a vitamin (E?) oil to be added to expensive organic catfood we bought from the vet, and no more cheap catfood.

RoyalWelsh · 03/01/2012 07:18

Thanks for all your replies. We have just moved house, but the problem started in the old house, so I don't think it's that.

I KNEW there were other flea treatments! I practically begged the vet to give her something else because I'd read on here that frontline wasn't that great anymore and she basically told me I was being silly and there wasn't anything else! They dis the same with worming tablets for my dog, who reacts badly to them Every Time she has them, and even though google shows collies can react badly to milbemax. I think I shall be changing my vet!

Food could well be an issue as well actually - she had royal canin, the exigent one for fussy eaters, for about two and a half years. Not for any particular reason other than that is what she was on when we got her from the rescue man, but it was just so expensive that eventually we swapped her whiskas dry food instead. She gobbles it down so doesn't dislike it, but perhaps I will change it back to see what happens.

Somebody up thread mentioned the house having fleas, but I really don't think it does. I'm not just bing defensive :) but the dog isn't itching and, more importantly, neither am I. A flea needs only to breathe by me and I have ten bites, and the cat has been stealing sleeping on my pillow since the flea treatment because she feels sorry for herself, and before that she usually sleeps in the crook of my knee.

OP posts:
SantasNutellaFairy · 03/01/2012 08:03

Advocate is the name of the flea treatment- frontline is useless- the fleas have become resistant to it.

Jellykat · 03/01/2012 15:22

Your vet is a big fat liar!
.. and i'd recommend Drontal tablets for worms Smile

RoyalWelsh · 03/01/2012 18:19

Thank you! I have sourced a new vet and have booking the cat in for Friday. I will be going in armed with lots of new names and knowledge thanks to here and google!

It's a bit like going to the doctors isn't it - the first few times you go in and blindly believe everything they say and then you slowly realise that you need to push them to actually make a difference :s

OP posts:
SantasNutellaFairy · 03/01/2012 18:40

Tell you what- get your new vet to do a hormone test. My first cat, Ebony developed a hugely horrible skin condition that was linked to hormone levels a couple of years after he had been done. He looked like he was abused, with all the fur he had missing that was scabbing over as well. He was on hormone treatment for it, and he just had a tiny little patch left that was healing when he died. He got hit by a car, so nothing to do with his normal health!

Fromheaven · 16/01/2012 11:22

It took 4 months of treatment to de-flea my cat; finally succeeded with flea treatment for small dogs!
She's not a big cat BTW

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