Excessive scratching on the neck - just a mess. Vet appears to be running out of ideas. Help

[bellinisurge]

She has purina hypoallergenic kibble plus applaws kitten wet food as a snack. She's 9. She's not a pedigree. She has monthly arthritis jabs because nothing else was helping her joint pain symptoms.
But what started as a bit of scratching on her chin has now turned into an inch square of bald sore skin.
She had a steroid jab it made little difference. She had antibiotics on her wet food which cleared up an infection. We clean it twice a day with some generic antibacterial liquid the vet gave us.
A cone of shame would irritate the area because it would sit on top of it. I'm taking her back to the vet tomorrow. All advice/suggestions welcome.🙏🏽

Our kitten had that sort of allergy, she eventually grew out of it mostly. Royal Canin or Hills hypoallergenic wet and dry (expensive and stinks) but it worked. Salmon( fresh!) was the only other thing that didn't set her buffing.

I was going to ask what medication your cat is on but just read it's Solensia. Our cat had one injection of it for her arthritis and came up with awful sores around her neck. We were however aware this could happen as my dd googled it after the appointment, and we knew what to look out for. She is back on Gabapentin which does seem to help with her joint pain, plus as it's an anti anxiety medication it helps her be a bit calmer as she's quite a nervous cat. The only issue with Gabapentin is the small compressed pills can be quite hard to get hold of.

The vet insisted that skin problems would only happen on the injection site so it would be unconnected and that she had never had a cat with problems.
I said I wanted to focus on the skin issue for now and we have isaderm to apply twice daily.
Apparently if that doesn't do it she may need more invasive biopsies etc. that seems like overkill to me.

Poor little thing is now over grooming anywhere her tongue can reach near her neck.
I'm so worried about her

I would probably change her food. The current brand doesn't seem to be helping, and it could be hindering.

The Solensia may be implicated so I would avoid another dose of that for the time being. You could end up with her on so many different foods and treatments you have no idea what is happening.

If you need to give different arthritis medication as a tablet, there should be one you can crush up and put into half a teaspoon of something she likes e.g. cream cheese/ marmite or whatever.

I suspect part of the reason she is overgrooming 'nearby' the original site now is because of the isaderm. If you put a topical ointment on a cat they will immediately want to groom it off, it's inevitable.

She's a little better. I'm hoping she is pointing in the right direction

Royal Canin Hypoallergenic food is expensive, but my two gobbled it up no problem.
I also bought a soft collar for my girl.

Thanks everyone

I would look again at food. So many brands even the ‘medical’ ones have a load of fillers in which cats may be allergic to, we have an older cat who overgrooms badly if she eats certain brands. Felix/Purina is mostly awful, I would look on e.g. Zooplus and really check the ingredients. Anything with the main ingredient ‘meat and animal derivatives’ should be avoided. So many brands promise health and wellbeing and they are essentially just junk food!

Encore is better, example ingredients chicken breast 75% chicken broth, ham 5%, rice. Nood or lily’s kitchen also high protein.

Scrumbles dried food is available in supermarkets, main ingredient 75% chicken.

I mainly order from Zooplus, also get some from Amazon, but read the ingredients on everything.

We have noticed a huge difference with all of ours since we moved to decent food. We were dealing with food vomit from all 4, now it is just the odd hairball, and they all seem content.