Inside leg gone bald.

[EachandEveryone]

It’s my 8 year old girl. The sensitive one who spends all day living in a flower pot. She doesn’t like being picked up. I was rushed to hospital and stayed in for 8 weeks. She wouldn’t have liked it. Her sister is ok. I haven’t noticed her scratching or anything but the inside of her leg has gone completely bald. I’m not able to take her to the vets. Any ideas what it could be?

Stress, my cat has this last year and the vet said baldness, especially around the legs is normally due to stress. A vet can prescribe a treatment to help the fur grow back, I think it's a steroid injection.

Edit to add - sorry just seen your comment about the vets. I dont think a steroid is necessary, it just helped mine when he had this issue.

thanks. I’ll give it some time then.

Mine did this due to overgrooming when we didn't realise the flea treatment we were using had stopped working and she had fleas, we switched to a different one and it grew back.

Mine has over groomed twice due to stress. When we first brought her home from rescue for example. The only time she’s needed specific treatment for it is when the skin underneath was quite badly broken and then they gave us a steroid to break the cycle of itchiness and over grooming. I expect there are over the counter things to soothe the skin if needed (mine is scared of everything and the vet is not worth the stress a lot of the time!)

Edited to add the second time was same as poster above where the flea treatment had stopped working. She needed the one prescribed by the vet in the end because another OTC one we tried didn’t work.

Well my vet is playing up really as I pay the monthly amount to cover flea and vaccines. I’ve been sick with the cancer for two years and I’ve begged her to post them and she point blank refuses unless I bring them in to weigh them. I’m in no position to put her through that. She’s known me and my cats for years.

Vets aren't supposed to prescribe things like flea & worm treatments unless they know the weight of the cat, as over-prescribing can be harmful to the cat & under-prescribing just encourages tolerance to the treatment by fleas & worms.

You may have to bite the bullet and ask for some gabapentin for beforehand, and take the cat in anyway.

In the interim can you try Feliway (or similar), and Zylkene to see if those can de-stress her?

Its stress. I rescued a cat as owner passed away from cancer, he went from the only cat with dogs to a house of 4 cats. He licked himself bald near enough then got into the habit of doing it even when he was chilled. I just distracted him when he was licking & its all grown back now apart from his belly which he no longer licks. 🤷🏻‍♀️

She’s a big girl and I’m using a walking stick so just can’t imagine us getting there I wish they did home visits

Mine was the same. A house cat and very timid. My ex turned up, extremely stressful for all of us! My poor cat lost a lot of fur on the insides of her back legs. She is fine now. Happy as ever and her fur is back to normal.