Expert: Jessica - 8/20/2009

Question
My cat has been to he vet 4 times, 2 rounds of antibiotics, one of prednisone. She will not leave her scabs alone and has had an open wound on her right side of face for 5 months. (She seems to have break outs and it starts a whole bunch of self induced cuts from scratching. I put a "comfort" collar on her (the blow up type that looks like a mini inner tube). She got the scab off within 2 days so I took off the collar, just to find more cuts where the collar layed on her neck! She gets Omega 3 drops in her natural food,and lots of tuna. She is about 2 1/2 yr old, we got her from the shelter at 9 months, she was possibly feral for at least a short while. she is white with blue eyes, I have heard that white cats are very sensitive, she is over the top sensitive!! Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

Answer
Hi Joan.  Has the vet done a skin scraping and skin and hair culture to see if there were any pathogens?  Most diseases like mange and ringworm do cause certain typical appearances, but there are occasional cases that don't fit the classic description.  I've had a number of ringworm cases that were not diagnosed for literally months because they didn't appear like the classic ringworm rash, but finally showed up positive when I requested a skin culture.  If none of these tests have been performed, I would recommend requesting them just to be on the safe side.

If the tests all come back negative, you may need to consider another immunosuppressant drug for your kitty, since she is not respondng to the prednisone.  Dexamethasone is another corticosteroid that could be tried.  But she may respond better to cyclosporine, an anti-rejection drug for organ transplant recipients, or chlorambucil, which is also used as a chemotherapeutic agent.  The trouble with these two is that they become significantly more expensive than prednisone.  However, since some of her condition may be precipitated by her scratching, if they help get her itching under control, she may need treatment only temporarily.

I would also consider talking to the vet about trying a special diet.  Sometimes dermatitis is caused by food allergies.  Most often, it's to grains in food, especially corn.  Eliminating corn products from her diet is a first good step, and I would actually recommend switching to a grain-free food over the course of a couple weeks.  There are a number of these available at pet stores, including B.G. (Before Grain), Evo, Felidae Grain Free and Taste of the Wild among many others.  However, some cats are also sensitive to meats and need alternative meat sources, which are mainly found in prescription foods.  Some require prescription foods with simplified proteins because they have difficulty tolerating even alternative meat sources.

I hope she improves soon!


Jessica