What's Causing my cat's hair loss?

Question

My cat is over-grooming and ripping out chunks of his fur, leaving red sores behind. He's got a growing bald patch on his back near his tail and other small patches wherever he can reach. I've given him an lice/tick/flea treatment just in case, but there was no evidence of critters.

Is he stressed? His companion cat was recently injured, but she's fully recovered and treating him normally. I thought it would be a response to that, but now I'm not sure. Or perhaps ringworm? The scabs don't seem to exist until he pulls his hair out, but maybe something is making his skin very itchy???

It breaks my heart to see him mutilating himself. My instinct is to Cone him so he can't groom, but I don't want to cause him even more stress. He's been acting this way for over a week now. Other than the over-grooming, he is acting normally, is sociable, eats fine, cuddles and purrs.

I live in a place with limited access to veterinary care. Any advice greatly appreciated

Answer 1

I had a foster cat who was also overgrooming to the point of extreme hair loss. Obviously an exam by a vet would be the most ideal, but since you said it's limited in your area I can share with you what my vet shared with me.

The first thing she shared was that fur loss can be caused by a number of things, and sometimes process of elimination is how you have to tackle it:

• Reaction to fleas/lice - some cats can have a reaction to a single flea or tick bite! So even though you haven't seen any pests on him it's great that you went ahead and did a flea/lice/tick treatment!
• Allergy (food or environmental) - word for word, my vet wrote me: "To rule out a food allergy, a hypoallergenic diet is recommended. Please choose one of the following limited ingredient diets, then transition slowly to the new diet over about a week. Continue the diet strictly (i.e. no other food or treats) for 2-3 months." The diets she linked to were all using "hydrolized protein" or a limited ingredient protein that is NOT chicken, fish or beef. Rabbit and duck proteins are popular, and we ultimately switched our foster to a novel rabbit protein diet.
• Ringworm - this isn't a worm but a fungus. I'd google to see if he has the telltale patterns but it normally occurs around the ears and feet.
• Stress - you'd know best if this might be the case and what might be causing it.

In our fosters case, when we switched him to the rabbit diet he stopped pulling out his fur within just 3-5 days and then his fur started to grow back. Since you've already tackled flea/lice allergies maybe try switching his diet up to one of the hydrolized or novel proteins.

All in all, our vet told us that the process of elimination method is sometimes the only way to get to the bottom of overgrooming issues and it can sometimes take weeks to identify and resolve. Wishing you and your boy luck!