Does anybody elses cat get sore spots on the skin that they.

[Susan and the girls]

I didn't call the vet yesterday like I'd planned - for some reason it totally slipped my mind until I got home, and then the office was closed!

I called the vet today and my favorite vet isn't in - but my favorite vet tech is going to take a peek at the bald spot this afternoon. I'll post a reply as soon as I know something.

Oh - and just to clarify - I haven't seen any fleas but that doesn't mean there aren't any. I just assumed the few black specks were flea droppings.... We'll find out today!

[Sara]

if you put the black spots on a wet paper towel the water will make them turn blood red if they are flea droppings. If you are dying to test it out before seeing the tech tomorrow. Might be interesting to see what happens.

All mine are indoors and I have not seen a flea in 6 years when we moved into our old apartment. The person before us must have had a pet with fleas because my cats got them. But after a little while they went away forever and I have never seen them since. I just cleaned the apartment and bathed them and used those flea drops from the vet. De- parasited of course. But ever since then, in 6 years not one flea. I am so lucky I think. Is it really unusual for indoor kitties to get fleas? I get that impression from my own experience. Maybe Argentina is different but I doubt it, flea wise anyway. Let me know what you find out.

[mwbeck8841@netzero.com]

I have a long hair 12 yr old female cat. She developed a sore spot on the back of her neck about nine months ago. I have had her to the vet over and over. He has been giving her cortizone shots once a month and using white powder to keep the place dry. She still scratches the place raw and scratches the hair off. Does anyone know anything else I can try?

[Traci]

It sounds like you need to find a new vet, one who is willing to get to the bottom of the cause instead of treating blindly.

I suggest getting a skin scrape (painless procedure) and a culture done to rule out the obvious (mites, flea allergy, food/environmental allergies, etc), and if the culture is negative, then full bloodwork to rule out immunological stress, organ disfunction or neoplasia. Any kitty over the age of 7 should have a routine annual blood profile done to monitor kidney, liver, heart and thyroid function, there are various diseases that senior kitties may be predisposed to...if they go undetected, the problems only worsen and quite quickly I might add.

Please get your kitty to another vet (preferrably feline only), and ask for the skin scrape/culture and full blood profiling right away.

[Sara]

She scraped from the back of his ear, neck and right on one of the spots. He only has two now. The cream she prescribed me seems to be helping. She also put a Q-tip in his ear and rubbed it around, looked at it and smelled it and said he had no ear mites. The slides she took were looked at under the microscope in the lab because they don't have one in the vet. They came back negative and now she will do it again in 10 days. I bought some shampoo at the vets for Vest, it's the medicated one for dogs and cats she recommended. I will give him a bath soon with this. If the next slide comes up negative she will pluck the hair and do the culture. This has to be sent to the states though, I think... For some reason they can't do the cultures here. Something about it being hard to import the necessary things. At any rate we are doing one test at a time until we find out what it is or until it goes away. If it's an allergy I am not sure we will ever find out what it is but at least we will know it's nothing else. He is still young and is acting very happy and healthy. Still running the household and terrorizing everything.