Cats will be very careful to keep their fur in good condition. However, sometimes they go too far, by plucking their fur excessively. This can make the cat's coat look bad or even lead to bald patches. To stop your cat from plucking its fur, you first need to find out why it's doing it. Unfortunately, the answers are not always easy to understand or simple.
Step
Part 1 of 3: Evaluating Whether Environmental Allergens Are a Factor
Step 1. Understand pet allergies
If humans have allergies, such as hay fever (hay fever), then we tend to experience sore eyes, runny nose, and sneezing. However, cats react differently. The most common manifestation of allergy in cats is itchy skin, which results in self-cleaning and excessive hair removal
Just as some people have a peanut allergy, seafood allergy, or hay fever, cats can be allergic to a substance, while other cats may not
Step 2. Investigate possible environmental allergens
Anything that is potential in the environment can be an allergen, if the cat is sensitive to the allergen. Common allergens that appear are house dust mites, grass pollen, tree pollen, and flea bites.
- If your cat has a pollen allergy, you will find that cat grooming is more severe in the seasons when the pollen is scattered, such as spring for trees, or summer for grass. There is also a large overlap in reactions to some pollens so the cat is likely to recover in winter, when there is only a small amount of pollen scattered around to trigger a reaction.
- Other substances act as irritants (slightly different from allergies, but produce the same effect). This is like spray deodorant, perfume, or hairspray that is used near a cat and sticks to its fur, causing irritation.
Step 3. Eliminate possible environmental allergens
Unfortunately, it is difficult to diagnose the exact allergen to which a cat is reacting. Blood tests, or skin prick tests, which can be done on dogs, give almost unclear (and very unreliable) results in cats. This means the vet will arrive at a diagnosis by eliminating possible causes of skin irritation (such as parasites, food allergies, and behavioral causes) and then see if the cat's excessive self-cleaning can be treated with medication.
Part 2 of 3: Dealing with Environmental Allergies
Step 1. Minimize exposure to the suspected allergen
Remove as much of the allergen or irritant as possible. Avoid spraying aerosols near cats, stop using scented candles (the smell of the wax will stick to the fur and can trigger the cat to clean itself to get rid of it), air fresheners, and daily use of vacuum cleaners to reduce the number of dust mites in your home.
The effectiveness of this method may be limited if the cat reacts to pollen, for which drug therapy may be necessary
Step 2. Use an anti-inflammatory medication to reduce irritation
The veterinarian will make the decision whether medication is necessary or not. Medications used to reduce itching can have side effects and the veterinarian must make a decision about whether the benefits of the procedure outweigh the risks.
- If the cat plucks its fur and causes the skin to become inflamed, red, infected, or swollen, then drug therapy is recommended. If the decision to give medicine or not is something you have to decide in consultation with your veterinarian.
- The drugs commonly used are anti-inflammatory. Corticosteroids such as prednisolone are inexpensive and effective. Medium-sized cats are usually given one 5 mg tablet once daily with food or after meals for 5 to 10 days (depending on how itchy the skin is) and the dose is reduced by one tablet every other day for periods of pollen season.
- If possible, the drug is discontinued in winter. Although cats are relatively resistant to steroid side effects, when compared to humans or dogs, the risks include increased thirst and appetite (thus leading to weight gain), and an increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus (sugar diabetes). You should discuss your cat's risk of side effects with your veterinarian.
Step 3. Treat the cat with antibiotics if the skin becomes infected
Antibiotics may be needed if the cat is pulling out its fur and making the skin sore or infected. In this case, the skin becomes shiny or looks moist, there may also be sticky mucus or the area of the skin becomes smelly.
You can help by gently washing the infected area at home twice a day with a salt water solution and then drying the skin with a towel. To make a brine solution, bring water to a boil in a kettle, then dissolve a teaspoon of regular table salt in a pint of boiling water. Store this solution in a clean container and soak a clean cotton ball after each use
Part 3 of 3: Investigating and Treating Possible Allergens
Step 1. Investigate the possibility that the cat has a food allergy
Another common cause of skin irritation, which causes hair loss, is food allergies. If a cat eats a food that it is allergic to, it triggers a mechanism that makes the skin very itchy. This allergy usually refers to a specific protein in a food (such as a peanut allergy in humans).
Step 2. Give your cat a new food if there is any indication of a food allergy
The good news about food allergies is that by avoiding food allergens, cats can be 'cured' and stop having itching. However, again, there is no reliable laboratory test for food allergies. The diagnosis is made by giving the cat a low-allergenic or hypoallergenic diet.
- The easiest way to provide hypoallergenic food is to consult a prescription food veterinarian. Foods such as Hills DD, Hills ZD, Hills ZD ultra, or Purina HA are made in such a way that the protein molecules they contain become too small to physically pass through receptors in the gut wall that trigger an allergic reaction.
- An alternative is to analyze all the foods your cat eats and then look for foods that do NOT contain any of the ingredients in those foods.
- It can take up to 8 weeks for the allergen to clear from the body and symptoms go down, so don't expect quick results. Even if you're doing a feeding test, you should be feeding exclusively hypoallergenic foods, so you don't mistakenly give them foods that contain allergens.
- If your cat has a food allergy, then your options are to continue feeding the hypoallergenic food, or add a new food every two weeks, and wait to see if the itching returns, before concluding that the food is good for the cat.
Step 3. Check if the cat has a flea allergy
A common cause of skin irritation are parasites, particularly lice. If a flea bites, its saliva gets into the cat's skin, which acts as a strong allergen. If your cat is plucking its fur, then the basic requirements are to treat your cat for fleas on a monthly basis and use an environmental spray to kill nits and larvae in your home.
Examples of effective products are fipronil, which is available over-the-counter and alamectin called Revolution in the United States and Stronghold in the United Kingdom, and is available by prescription only. Perform the action of administering medication regardless of whether or not you see evidence of lice. This is because it only takes one bite to trigger an allergic reaction, and because the fleas don't stay on the pet's body, the fleas may have disappeared and the cat is still itching
Step 4. Identify possible causes of behavioral problems
When a cat cleans itself, its body releases endorphins, which are the natural form of morphine. This substance makes cats feel good and many cats over-cleanse because they are addicted to these endorphins. This is accurate if the cat is feeling stressed for some reason, as body licking offers a form of stress relief.
- Identify why the cat feels stressed. There may be an intruder cat in the house, or you just got a new pet. Addressing the cause is likely to be the answer.
- Additionally, you can use Feliway, which is a synthetic version of cat pheromone (chemical messenger) that makes cats feel safe and protected. Feliway comes in both spray and room diffuser forms, and the latter is the best option as it works continuously indoors.
