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Pet Vet: Cat’s hair pulling can be caused by several things Dear Dr. Jorden: Our cat has been pulling out her own hair now for a year and a half. In the morning we find huge clumps of hair all over the house. She has been treated for mites and a food allergy. She keeps doing the hair pulling. Is there something else we can do?
Allergies are harder to treat. There are prepared foods that are good to try to eliminate food allergies. You need to use the hypoallergenic food for a month and feed nothing else during that time. Even a small treat or table scrap during the food trial will mess the whole thing up. If you have not been diligent in the feeding of the food and have not continued for an entire month, then you have not ruled out the food allergy. Other allergies will cause these same symptoms. Your cat could be allergic to a new carpet, the carpet cleaner you might have used or just about any object in your house. I once had a cat severely allergic to a dried Christmas wreath that had been left in the house for several months after the holiday. We tried everything to alleviate the itching skin and nothing worked. The day they noticed the wreath and threw it out was the day the cat stopped scratching. Take a careful look around your house and see if there might be something like this that could be the allergen. There is another disease that is poorly understood but is fairly common among cats that will make them tear out their hair. It is called neurologic dermatitis. It is thought that the cat’s nerve endings become sensitized and must tingle or irritate the cat. The cat may pull out its hair or its skin may crawl because of the irritation. It seems to be very annoying to the cat. Oddly enough, the treatment for neurologic dermatitis involves using either steroids or a female hormone. In my experience, the hormone works the best. It is thought that the hormone is changed in the body to a steroid compound, and that is why it works. Whatever the process, the medication can relieve the symptoms. If you are lucky, the symptoms may go away for a long time after the hormone is used for a few months. Other cases require constant use of the medication. One last cause could be a chronic irritation from the anal sacs that are right under the anus. Dogs have a lot of trouble with these glands but cats can also. If the glands are full and the fluid builds up pressure, pain results and some cats will pull out hair. They usually concentrate on the area above their pelvis or kidneys. A simple check of the anal glands can be done by your veterinarian to rule out this problem. A trial of the hormone or other medication may help tell what the problem is. At any rate, you still have a few options to try before throwing in the towel.
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The two most common reasons for this hair pulling would be the allergy and the mites. The mites are easy to figure out if a strong dip or medication that will kill them is given. They can be hard to find, but the treatment will definitely make your cat better. Several weeks of the treatment may be needed to get rid of the mites.