Cat pulling his fur out

[Roadtonowe]

My bengal boy has started pulling out the fur on his back with his teeth 😳

12 yrs old, neutered. Up to date with flea & worm. No injuries. No obvious irritation on skin. Feels a little warm in that patch but is that because I can feel his skin more rather than fur 🤷🏻‍♀️ is up to date with flea & worm treatment (from vet as usual).

Vet gave a steroid injection but its not changed anything. He goes out all day. Nothing has changed in his routine. No obvious stressors. Is eating/toileting as normal. Happy enough in himself. He eats whiskas food & has done for years... know this is shite and have tried him on other brands/raw/dry in the past but he doesn't like/want anything else

Anything I can try to help stop him / treat this?
Ive ordered a vetmed suit to cover him in the short term and will obvs take him back to the vet but they seemed pretty dismissive and just said something these thing happen & you never find the cause!

I've tried anti scratch spray on his fur. No difference. He's not constantly overgrowing but I find clumps of fur here & there occasionally.

Ideas / treatment options welcome

I have the same problem with one of my Siamese. She is also flea free and has been give steroid injections that made no difference. This girl has always been very highly strung though and Vets find the cause is usually fleas etc, or stress.

We had this problem with our boy, but he was pulling out the fur on his belly. We took him for expensive tests, put him on a fancy exclusion diet, got in a behaviourist, none of it worked. In the end I figured out that it was caused by his spot-on flea treatment, Bravecto. I hadn’t initially put two and two together because it was a few months before he started overgrooming (possibly it only built up in his system after a few applications) and a few more months later that I noticed he had a bald patch. A month after I had swapped over to a different brand he had stopped overgrooming and his fur then grew back completely.
I feel horrible about what happened, it must have been really painful for him, at the very least uncomfortable, and the vet was (falsely) convinced it had to be behavioural…

I would try switching flea treatments - it sounds like a flea allergy, which can be present even if you can't actually see any fleas.

It can’t be that for my girl because I don’t routinely use flea treatment. They only picked them up once in 20 years! I’m at a loss really 😦

It can be. My indoor cat had an awful flea allergy - her brother was fine and we never once found any fleas on either of them.

Really? One of my cats (a lilac point Siamese) is almost white. My vet said we would know if we had fleas, as we would see them on her.

@StrikeAlways - yep - she was ripping herself bald, it was horrendous. As soon as we switched treatments, she stopped.

Like I say, we never once saw a flea on either of the cats or in the house, but they were there!

Bengals are a stressy breed by nature. They also get bored more quickly than most cats, which will also stress them. If your cat is "out all day", it could be that a new cat has moved into the neighbourhood and has threatened his territory. Pulling hair without any obvious cause (allergy etc. ) is almost always a stress reaction. If you don't know what he does all day, try and find out. If there is a new cat or a cat he's taken an objection to, you don't want it to escalate to fighting.

I'm not a fan of cats roaming the neighbourhood, but I know thoughts about that are different in the UK (where I'm assuming you are?) Cats are so vulnerable, it's really not in their best interests to be allowed to roam. I'm not saying they should be 100% indoors, but at least contained to an outdoor area from which they can't escape.

My Bengal did this. I came to the conclusion that she was bored, so every time I saw her doing it I redirected with a flicky bird and then played with her more often.

Obviously I could only do that while I was in the house but it did seem to help & she no longer had little scabs all over her back. She's never had fleas & is an indoor only cat.

It was Da Bird from amazon. She still loves it.
Apologies, My master is calling screaming for more food.

Maybe I’ll go back to flea treatments then based on your experience. It’s a minefield though. Have you seen the recent advice to vets to discontinue the advice for routine flea treatments because they are damaging the environment and killing bees? 🤷‍♀️

My old cat used to do this. She was allergic to dust mites, mites from dry food, all sorts of things. She was actually tested so we knew that was what was causing it.

So we had to feed her wet food and keep the house clean and dust free. We were also told to put a flea collar in the hoover bag.

One of our cats over-grooms and it happens when there's any upheaval in the house, especially when furniture is moved, or work men are around. It last happened at Christmas as we move things to accommodate the tree. Luckily we shouldn't have any more major building works going on, and all we can do is minimise any other changes. We did try one of those plug ins but it didn't do anything.

I have seen it - and we don't treat our current cats as none of them have ever had any issues (oldest is nearly 9) but I think there's a difference between treating for the sake of it, and treating a cat with an allergy that ends up over-grooming or injuring themselves over it.

Thank you. That’s food for thought. I’ll try just treating her to see if that’s the problem. If I give it 3 months, that should clarify if it is.

Our boy ( typical moggie , no breeding but very stressed ) started this a year or so ago.
Took him to the Vet , no fleas or skin conditions , the Vet suggested cuttting out fish as some cats are allergic .. It did help .
We noticed with our boy that stress inciting situations ( things that are stressey for him , his sister doesn't blink ) like NYE fireworks or someone coming to the house (plumber/electrician type ) makes him self barber .