Adopting cat with allergies - advice on testing

Lavendyr

Hi everyone
I've been fostering a beautiful young cat for a couple of months and am planning to adopt him. He's 2 and a half and a very friendly, happy cat, but he has severe allergies which are currently controlled with steroids (without them he scratches very badly at his eyes). The rescue shelter can't justify the cost of allergy testing (understandable) so that would fall to me. However I'm wondering if it would help as he has been completely indoor-only since he came to me and on Hills z/d prescription diet, and has still suffered from allergies unless on steroids.

Has anyone investigated allergy testing at all and if so, was it useful/worth the money?

teddysmum

When my dog started scratching, the first 'tests' were food (they gave a sample of Royal Canin,which made no difference after buying a sack, but said if he had disliked it, they would recommend JWB,which happens to be a lot cheaper).Also, I was advised to use cotton bedding or at least a cotton sheet over his bedding.


Some then suggest removing one foodstuff at a time , but we went straight to allergy tests (done from blood and not patches as with humans). About 6/7years ago the batch cost around £50, but only came up with a possibility of dust mite.


The vet said it's very common not to trace an allergy, if it's not one of the common ones in the batch test and even sparaying the house with Virbac flea and mite spray,treating Teddy, although he had no fleas,hot washing all bedding, the scartaing remained.


Vets don't like long term use of steroids unless it is for a serious illness,so went onto Atopica ,which is given daily for two weeks,then the gap increased to a weekly maintenance dose, which reduced the scratching to the odd habit,with no more skin damage.


However,after a few years, he began to vomit right after his tablet (he didn't have this common reaction when first given the med),so the treatment stopped. Now at 14 he still scratches,more than on the drug, but less than before taking it and some scratching s habit,as he's easily distracted from it.

Lavendyr

Thanks so much for the reply teddysmum! I've heard of Atopica and would be keen to move him onto that as I've read that long-term steroid use has negative side-effects for the poor kitty. The vet that the rescue shelter use seems to think it's OK, but I'm not convinced (I'll be taking him to a locally recommended vet once I take ownership of him).

ElusiveLucy

Mine had really bad skin on her "armpits" and used to make it bleed. Allergy tests cam back showing she was allergic to everything, including grass. She was put on Atopica and this sorted her out. We have a liquid that is in a pipette and she is down to 3 times a week. We did reduce it further but she broke out in a rash again. It does upset her stomach sometimes but the vet said the choice is upset tummy vs itchy skin and lampshade collar, so its a no-brainer. It is very expensive £120 a bottle but lasts a long time (dosage is dependent on cat's weight). My Petplan insurance pays some of the cost of mine (my cat is now 15 so I have an annual excess and have to pay 20% of other costs, but at least I know my maximum commitment for that medication every year.

Slinky

My cat was pulling her fur out down her back. Was prescribed Atopica, but she could detect it in her food and it was a continual nightmare everyday trying to hide it. Absolutely no chance of giving it to her directly into her mouth, we'd have been ripped to bits. And it wasn't really working very well either. In the end our vet consulted somebody he knew who specialises in animal skin conditions as she recommended he try Colvasone which is supposed to be a short acting steroid given by injection. Our cat has this orally in her food. We've played around with the dosage and got her down to 0.1 ml every second day, which is literally just a drip. This keeps her under control. Fortunately this costs just over £10 a go for a couple of months' worth. Much cheaper than the £95 we were paying for Atopica (which fortunately was being paid for by PP).

It may be worth mentioning Colvasone taken orally to your vet as it's something they may not be aware of, it's not a conventional use of the medicine but it works for ours. There used to be Colvasone tablets but they aren't made anymore.

ETA we cleaned the carpets, did all the flea stuff, still don't know what sets her off, could be pollen of some sort as she's less itchy in the winter.

wort

If its food allergies, then feeding raw and making your own, would be easier you could tailor it exactly, starting with one protein, and gradually adding others, cats are obligate carnivores and shouldn't eat veg, and carbohydrate which are in most pet foods.
Cats should have around 80% meat 10%secreting organ and 10% bone. If balanced there's no need for anything else to be added.

Lavendyr

Slinky, thanks for that suggestion, I'll definitely make a note of that for the vet. I know insurance won't touch this as it's a pre-existing condition so I am aware he is not going to be a cheap cat! - it's one of the reasons I want to take him on as I know that he's such a lovely cat that he is worth it, but he might take a while to be rehomed otherwise/another owner might choose to keep him on steroids rather than exploring other options which could be better for him.

If the vet doesn't go for that then Atopica looks like a good possibility. He's very good at taking tablets so I think he'd probably be fine with a drop. I might be able to buy it cheaper on line with a vet's prescription from a bit of research - 17ml for £51 on animeddirect.co.uk. Though I guess it depends on how much the vet charges for a prescription!

Wort - I'm actually hoping to try him on raw food, a friend of mine swears by it for her two kitties! Until I take ownership of him though I have to keep him on the prescription diet that the cat shelter provide.

Thanks again everyone - it's really helpful advice, much appreciated.

Slinky

ElusiveLucy wrote: »

Mine had really bad skin on her "armpits" and used to make it bleed. Allergy tests cam back showing she was allergic to everything, including grass. She was put on Atopica and this sorted her out. We have a liquid that is in a pipette and she is down to 3 times a week. We did reduce it further but she broke out in a rash again. It does upset her stomach sometimes but the vet said the choice is upset tummy vs itchy skin and lampshade collar, so its a no-brainer. It is very expensive £120 a bottle but lasts a long time (dosage is dependent on cat's weight). My Petplan insurance pays some of the cost of mine (my cat is now 15 so I have an annual excess and have to pay 20% of other costs, but at least I know my maximum commitment for that medication every year.

Your vet is taking the pee at £120 a bottle for Atopica. I'd ring around and find out what other local vets charge for comparison, even if only to use it as a bargaining tool to get your's down. We were paying £95 for the larger bottle about 18 months ago and as said above, it's available on the net for £51

Fen1

Once you have the cat, changing his diet step-by-step would be a very good idea. It might be his food, it might not. But definitely worth trying.

Even an indoor cat can have a flea allergy, so make sure he is deflead and the home sprayed. Flea allergy is the no.1 allergy. Frontline has basically stopped working, so use Advocate or one of the new three-monthly prescription drops.

If your cat were human, what would be your thinking process? I would look at room scents, candles, sprays, plug-in diffuser. Anything that adds a chemical, whether 'natural' or not, can irritate. Remember that a cat is a hundred times more sensitive than a human. Look at the washing powder and conditioner on your clothes and any blankets he lies on. Do you wear perfume or hairspray? What cleaning products do you use:floor cleaner, furniture polish, what do you use to clean his food bowls?

Anything that could irritate a human can certainly irritate a cat ( or dog.)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Might sound silly (and potentially damaging to your arms if you don't have leather gauntlets), but I'd bath the poor mog first to get any allergens on his coat out of the way.

One of mine nearly ended up costing me a fortune as she was sore and completely bald on her belly to her armpits when I took her in.

Bathing her in baby temperature water (relatively cool, but not enough to make her cold) made it less sore and took away the scent of excessive cleaning products (she came from a woman who would spend five hours a night cleaning her house after eight hours at work, cleaning other people's houses) but it flared up again.

I was on the phone to the vet getting a rough figure for allergy testing _pale_ when I glanced over to the spot she had immediately commandeered as her own upon moving in, as it was very similar to her favourite spot in her old home.


She was sitting on top of the cable box. The cooling vents of the very hot cable box, to be precise.

Much to her disgust, I moved the cable box to a smaller shelf where she couldn't get to it. Her fur began to grow back within days and she hasn't had a single skin problem in the subsequent 13 years. She is currently sleeping on a tattered old sheepskin that probably weighs more of dustmites than it does sheep. So dust (which was the vet's initial thoughts on the phone) had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Lavendyr

Thank you again for the new replies. Fen1 you're absolutely right, it could be any number of things - he sleeps in a variety of places, from my bed to one of the dining chairs (in front of the radiator - a popular spot right now for him funnily enough!) to pretty much any clean bedding anywhere. I'm thinking of trying non-bio washing liquid - we switched to bio a while back but I used to be allergic to it so perhaps non-bio would help him too. And I'm definitely not an obsessive cleaner But I do currently use chemical products, could try switching to Ecover or something gentler.

Jojo that's really interesting. I haven't identified any similar behaviour patterns - he treats the whole house and everything in it as his own and will happily sit, stomp and snooze wheresoever he fancies!

It's going to be a journey of discovery ;-)