Cat attacking own tail - anyone experienced this?!

[Catlady724]

Sorry in advance, this may be long… My 3 year old cat attacks her own tail pretty much every day. Usually in the evening but sometimes in the morning too. She acts as if it’s a foreign object and chases it and hisses, has bitten it and sprayed blood around many times. When she’s not having one of her episodes she’s the softest loveliest cat, I don’t think it’s stress. She’s not stressed the other 22 hours a day, she’s happy and well bonded with us.

We’ve had multiple vet visits about this now and I’m getting nowhere, I don’t think they have a clue and they are a bit fed up of me now. We’ve tried steroid injections, painkillers, antibiotics (no effect), had an X-ray (all fine, no injuries) and lastly tried gabapentin (the lowest dose, seems to help a bit but not eliminate the problem and they won’t increase the dose).

Anal glands have been checked several times - one time they were full and infected so that was sorted, every time since they’ve only had a small amount in them and no infection. She ‘scoots’ all the time though as though her bum is bothering her.

When the attacks happen her back is all twitchy and she runs around trying to get away from her tail, ears back and often hissing. From my constant googling I think it could be feline hyperesthesia but the vets have dismissed this, I don’t know why, they don’t seem to have anything to say when I’ve suggested it?

I’m at the end of my tether with it. It’s so stressful when she starts up and I just want to solve it for her, poor thing. Has anyone experienced this with a cat before and if so did you manage to fix them?!

My cat won't take pills either, not even through her wet food and she loves all kinds of food. I grind pills up into a powder or open capsules to spread the powder over her dry food. Sometimes I use a bit of water over the dry kibble to hide the powder.

Another thing you could try is "Easy Pill" for cats. It's a type of putty to hide a pill in. I think it's got a lot of catnip inside. Cats supposedly love it. Never tried it myself as my cat is food crazy. It's also not exactly cheap.

This happened to my DMs cat, she was self mutilating and went quite feral biting her tail constantly- nothing worked for her unfortunately and after she had her tail amputated she then had to be put to sleep. Hope this doesn’t happen to your cat but this doesn’t seem well understood.

@pashmina696 I'm sorry that happened to your mums cat. Can I ask why she had to be put to sleep after amputating her tail? Did the behaviour not stop even after the tail was gone?

the behaviour got worse unfortunately- it went feral and beserk ripped off all the bandages and carried on harming herself - it was horrific. They couldn’t get much gabapentin in her as couldn’t pick her up easily- vet couldn’t do any more for her. So sad

Hello, l know this is an older thread but wondering if you had any respite with your kitty problem?
l've been struggling with this for over 2 years and despite how much l love my little cat, l am finally getting to the end of my tether as it's just exhausting to try to manage! I've tried all sorts of things but nothing works for very long. Just wondering if you were any further forward??

@Donetrying1im sorry I’ve only just noticed your comment. Sorry you and you cat are going through this too, have you tried gabapentin? My cat has settled down in the last few weeks and I’m rarely giving her the drug now, she still has episodes but much less than than it was when I made this thread. I don’t really know why but my feelings are… she’s outside a lot more with the better weather and I think this makes her happier, I’ve kept her on a grain free diet 100% of the time (no idea if this has had an impact but I’m sticking with it!), and I’ve changed my routine a bit on an evening when she was mostly having the attacks… weirdly I noticed she seemed much more triggered in one room of the house, where I spent most evenings before. The whole evening would be her attacking her tail and me trying to stop her. I now don’t go in that room on an evening and I go watch tv in bed instead and she doesn’t do it half as much.

I don’t know if any of this helps you but it’s all a bit of a guessing game isn’t it. If your cat tends to do it more at a certain time of day or in a certain room could you change your routine to see if it helps? And definitely try gabapentin if you haven’t already. For a while after posting this thread I got really consistent with giving it twice a day and it did definitely improve things.