Hair loss in cats
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- EileenKay
- QuartzNH
- Caroline
- biogardener
- Cottage_Garden
- Caroline
- Cottage_Garden
- Caroline
- Cottage_Garden
- EileenKay
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» EileenKay - Not necessarily
Itching and/or hair loss seem to be the most common symptoms of food allergies based on what I've read.In Lidiana's case I think the vet didn't do a good job of advising her. Trying Proplan and similar foods is generally a waste of time and just allows for some more suffering by the cat. He could have recommended allergy testing on most proteins and grains instead of asking her to play 'guess your best'. Also, there is no 'purely hypoallergenic' food, any food can cause an allergic reaction if the cat is allergic to one of the ingredients in that food.
The best single-protein source diets I know of are those by IVD (Innovative Veterinary Diets) so at a minimum one of their formulas should be a given a try. It's best if the protein source is something your cat hasn't been eating (since they have several to choose from). There is also a standard allergy trial feeding protocol for home feeding which consists of immediately removing all the most common allergens from the diet and adding one protein or grain at a time (plus some other details). Often a holistic vet is better about this than regular vets.
And as I mentioned, allergy testing could have been recommended, done either by your vet or by a specialist.
-- posted by EileenKay
» QuartzNH - Allergies
Yes I would suggest an allergy test as well! If you had/have a child and you believe they have a food allergy, the doctor would ask about testing to find out what it is. It's strange that the Vet didn't do the same thing. You might want to consider going to another vet, or get a second opinion. hope this helps!GQQDLUCK
Erica
and Roger
-- posted by QuartzNH
» biogardener - about the name Salem
The name Salem is the same as the Hebrew word Shalom meaning "peace." That is also the word in the name of the city Jerusalem. So it is indeed a beautiful name.-- posted by biogardener
» Cottage_Garden - well in all fairness
Our vet said something similar to the same thing as Salem's -- and put the cat on a duck-based diet because duck is not found in regular kitten feeds so it is less likely to cause allergies. I believe he did it because there is no allergist locally and because food allergy is one of the most common reasons kittens lose hair. It's also a lot cheaper to try a food than run all those tests. If that doesn't help, then move on to the next thing. Seemed pragmatic to me and the food costs about the same as what you buy elsewhere so I don;pt think profit was in the motive.-- posted by Cottage_Garden
» Cottage_Garden - ummm I don;t know
Hi Caroline, I think she has seasonal allergies not food allergies, but I haven't changed the duck food just in case. She is sneezing now just as the ragweed is making me sneeze. The other scratching and so on appeared at peak spring allergy season. Coincidence?Her skin thing turned out to be ringworm. That's a catchall for a bunch of fungal infections. They identified it by lab culture. You can check for it with a special light too (the fungus turns color) but it won't always react to the light. So a culture is more reliable but it can take weeks and weeks to get a result. The culture took about ten days longer than they expected to show anything at all -- they kept it because the vets thought it really *looked* like ringworm.
For that the vets gave her some serious drugs, a fungicidal shampoo, and a fatty acids supplement for good measure. She liked the fish oil part. The shampoo was hard to do: lather, sit ten minutes, then rinse.
We also washed her bed cover daily in bleach water along with mopping bare floors and vaccuuming to try to kill or trap the spores and keep it from spreading. I also swabbed down random surfaces and anywhere she sat as best I could....
Very not fun, but since the cat is only allowed in certain rooms (my husband is allergic to cats)it was not as hard as it might have been.
We also only have one cat and since it is very contagious that's a good thing, too.
My daughter caught two patches from the cat, but there is a newly available over the counter ointment that works in a week instead of a month; that wasn't so bad. Considering the cat had been sleeping in her bed, and considering she really couldn't help herself from petting and cuddling the kitten (who could!!!), I think we got off pretty easy.
Surprisingly, I didn't catch it at all. I was careful about washing regularly when I had touched her and kept the cat away from my face. I also avoided touching the patches except when I washed her. And we were pretty careful handling the laundry too. Lots of bleach. I ruined all my husbands socks. He ruined a batch of towels. But we knew they were clean.
Anyway, ringworm tends to show up fairly often in kittens and very often on their faces. I saw a photo in a book of a kitten with bare rings over top both eyes from ringworm. The skin looks very bald and smooth. So Salem's patches sounded kind of suspicious.
OUr cat is white so she has pink skin. The patch would start small like a thinning of the hair, then it would look like the hair had fallen out over night. This would be maybe a quarter inch across. The patch would get a bit larger, like a lopsided dime size, then the hair would grow back. Then it would happen again in the same spot, but start and end a bit larger than the first times.
Patches will sometimes heal in the center and spread in a ring around that, hence the name ringworm. But hers never made rings. Just bald patches of very smooth skin. They were on her back where she couldn't scratch them, so maybe that is why she only had one or two at a time.
You can catch ringworm from the environment. Kittens are just more susceptible to it. It is also very contagious, so once it is started it can be hard to control, especially if you have more than one pet. On the other hand, it is also self limiting in that it usually goes away in a few months all on its own -- but I sure wouldn't want to risk being around an infected animal that long because it is so contagious.
I hope that's not what Salem has, but it's worth checking into so you can stop it early. If you need tips on giving a cat a bath, I think I have a handle on it now. Poor cat gets a bath twice a week anyway to cut down on dander because my husband is allergic to cats.
-- posted by Cottage_Garden
» Cottage_Garden - bathing
I wrapped her in a towel and set her on the counter. The towel made it harder for her to struggle and kept the draft off.Then we watched the clock and chatted. At tne minutes, whammo back into the sink!
It helped if my daughter hung around to entertain us.
It also helped if she would hold the spray attachment for me at rinse time. That way I could hold the cat with one hand and rub away the suds with the other.
Keeping the cat's nails trimmed short is also a good idea.
Then use a nice supply of towels to dry the cat as best you can so the cat doesn't get cold. Three really fluffy hand towels or one big bath towel will about do one small short haired cat.
Our cat is terrified of the hair dryer (but she doesn't mind the vaccuum at all, go figure)but some people are able to use those.
-- posted by Cottage_Garden
» EileenKay - Clarification
regarding the comment in a post above "and put the cat on a duck-based diet because duck is not found in regular kitten feeds so it is less likely to cause allergies."In case the 'exactness' of this is ever needed for someone reading these messages, the actual reason is more accurately stated like this:
"and put the cat on a duck-based diet because duck is not found in regular kitten feeds so the kitten is less likely to ALREADY be allergic to it"
which has a different meaning. After a few years on the duck-diet a cat could certainly become allergic to duck, regardless of the makeup of other foods on the market. Cats are most likely to become allergic to an ingredient in foods they have been eating regularly.
-- posted by EileenKay
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