Thanks for looking, we could do with some ideas please!!

We shall start at the beginning.

Shortly after we built the cat gym in the conservatory, we noticed Marmalde had what we would describe as a friction burn above her left eye (this was on Saturday). On closer inspection, it was a single round red mark, skin was broken, hair just around it missing, looked sore and about 5mm in diameter. We came to the conclusion that Marmalde must have fallen off the climbing frame chasing flies (a regular game - not that the conservatory is full of flies you understand!!!) and we thought it looked like a sisal rope burn and just put it down to that.

During the course of this week, we noticed it seemed to be getting better and scabbed over and we thought we had come up with the right diagnosis. However this morning, we were horrified to see that there were lots more of these marks, above her left and right eye, on her eyelid, lip, 2 in her ear and one on her chin. Definately now NOT sisal rope burns!! They look really sore, poor darling!!

We made an immeidiate call to the vet, who saw her this afternoon - but unfortunately, no clear diagnosis. She was given a steroid and antibiotic injection and we have 5 day course of antibiotics to give her, but the vet doesn't know what has caused it.

She has no fleas, is otherwise in great shape considering that her kittens are 8 weeks old and she is eating, drinking, playing normally and has normal stools. She is not scratching the marks and the vet described them as infected spots. The only other thing is that she has been in call since the kittens were about 4 weeks old (she is in her 2nd call now and it is very intense, having had only a couple of days off in between these calls).

The vet mentioned an allergy to something, but nothing in her life has really changed!! She is a wonderful Mum and so no problems there, she has been doing the same as all the other cats (they all live in the house together), none of the others appear to have any symptoms at all.

The shame now is that because of the steroid jab, we have had to oull her away from her babies and we just want her better, but need to know what has caused this!!

She is 16 months old and has never been unwell, she has not been outside, we can't think of anything else to say.

PLEASE PLEASE HELP if you have any ideas - all imput very welcome.
Here is photos of the marks, please take time to have a look and comment if you can.

Many Many thanks, Paddy & Polly

Awww bless her....poor girl!

I would say definately an allergic reaction to something, it may be enviromental rather than dietary.

From what you've already said the only recent changes in her life have been the gym, I would remove all the fibrous things like the sisal and carpet for starters until you get to the bottom of it all....even that dandy little rope bridge should go for now!

Then maybe disinfect the whole gym area just as a precautionary measure to be on the safe side.

It might be as simple as sisal rope thats been contaminated with something whilst in storage thats causing it all, did she play excessively with anything in particular because it really looks as if she's been rubbing up against something?

And also you shouldn't rule out insect bites, especially with the weird weather we've all been getting lately...we've had pure quanties of beetles and flying ants swamping us out over here!

It is strange that she's the only one thats suffering, but I guess allergies don't affect humans all the same way so why should it be any different for felines. I can recommend something for her sores though, we've always used Sudocrem for things like that.....Just dab it on her sores very lightly whilst she's sleeping so no-one trys to lick it off before its absorbed, keep applying for about a week and hopefully she should heal up nicely.

It really helps with the healing time, and will stop it from irritating her as much after it starts to scab over!

Let us know how she gets on Paddy.

Not a chance that the kittens have been a bit bitey and done that??

Thanks to you all for your advice and suggestions.

We spent hours trawling the Internet looking for possible solutions and think that miliary dermatitis is probably causing the sores, we just have to come up with the reason for the allergic reaction now. We have just recently completed the cat gym in the conservatory and with a mesh guard have the french doors open during the hot weather. Marmalade has therefore for the first time been exposed to outside airborne carried allergens such as pollen. Also, there have been a few ants in the conservatory, so it could possibly be an allergic reaction to an ant bite.

We are taking her back to vets on Tuesday (the antibiotics and steroid injections seem to be helping the sores), so we will see where we go from there.

Her 9 week old kittens were missing her loads this morning and she was also missing them, so we made her a homemade t-shirt for her to wear so that we could let them all spend the day together (she is not allowed to feed them because of the steroid injection, so covering her nipples was the only option!)
We will keep you all posted, but she seems loads better this evening.

Paddy & Polly

Hi Paddy,

Thank goodness, her sores are getting better, they did look sore. Poor thing.

Some folk use a small babygro for their queens when they don't want the kittens to suckle. Just a suggestion.

Aww, poor Marms! I know bugger all of course, just wanted to wish her well! *pat pat*

Hi Paddy.

How is Marms?


Elsa

Hello,
My Bengal Boy Sunny had what looked liked very similar leisions in exactly the same area - he also had one or two on his hind quaters.
I had some biopsies taken at the vet & they were sent off for analysis - they were an allergic reation but we still have no idea to what.
We changed his diet to all natural which helped, but it could just as easily been a reation to something he brushed up against in the garden.
He was about 9 months old when he got it & took about 3 months to get under control (I didn't want to go the steriod route as this generally doesn't solve the problem - it will relieve the syptoms but it's not a long term solution).It could also just be a hormone inbalance which may sort itself out .

Wishing Marms a speedy recoverly, bless

_________________
Billie
Baydon Bengal

Hi every body

Sorry its taken me so long to reply, marms is much better and back feeding her ikkle ones, just thought you would like to see our home made bra!!!

Thanks Paddy

haha the home made bra is brilliant..........so glad marms is much better she is a beautiful cat & her babies are stunners xx

Those are the most hilarious photos!! She has such an expressive face!