Question by Robert C:
Cat is scratching and bitting, has scabs on her back and upper part of tail?
My cat is always scratching and gnawing on her tail and back. I can feel small scabs. She does not go outside. Is it fleas? I bought a collar 3 weeks ago and it is doing nothing. I also just found out that the apt above me has bedbugs. I checked my bed and apt and see no signs of them. I am not being bitten. My cat sleeps mostly in the kitchen and on my bed with me. Could she be being bit by them? Like I said, I do not have any bites.
Best answer:
Answer by Neal
Yes I think it’s fleas – we had the same on our cat. We got rid of the fleas but the scabs remained.
We took her to the vets and they gave her a steroid injection which cleared it up within a couple of weeks 🙂
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Hiya,
It could be fleas my late cat Toots was allergic to flea bites and she used to get scabs on her back and the base of her tail, as well as scratch all of the time when a filthy relative brought the things into the home.
If the flea collar is not working, get either some Frontline or Bob Martin’s (It’s available in the UK, but possibly the best stuff on the market for the money paid), and spray your house with either some Purple Raid or a good home flea killer (your vet most likely have a product which is safer to use if you have a sick pet).
While you are there, your vet most likely will be able to give your cat an injection or something to help the scabs heal up, but please bear in mind that a scab is a scab, it won’t disappear until the sores underneath heal.
Good luck, and hugs for your cat x
it could be a variety of things, it could be nerves, diet(try cat grass-can get that at like pet smart), it might be fleas…i recommend you run slightly warm water in a clean kitchen sink, put her in and use a little dawn dish soap to bathe her, it will kill what ever’s bitting her and will calm her skin.i hope it works and you and kitty feel better
Yes, it’s probably fleas. And flea collars do nothing for your cat, other than irritate her neck, and keep the fleas off the area around the collar. Take the collar off and throw it away. You need a safe and effective flea treatment for her. The best bet is to take her to the vet – she may need something to help her over the itchies she’s clearly gotten from the flea bites (it’s called flea allergy dermatitis). If you won’t do that, then get her a safe flea product from the pet store – the only two are Advantage or Frontline. Anything else (Hartz, Bio Spot, Sargent’s, Zodiac, etc.) all contain ingredients that can cause seizures and death in cats, and they aren’t very effective either.
If you’re concerned about the bed bugs, then you need either Advantage Multi or Revolution, as those kill all those little mites as well. But these are only available from your veterinarian.
My cat had/has those! It actually turned out to be allergy related. It was causing the skin to be super sensitive and shed gnaw and rip at it, causing the scabs. We still aren’t sure what exactly is causing the sensitivity (there is no such thing as an allergy expert for cats…just educated guesses by the vet), but we have eliminated loads of stuff from her diet and there are significantly less. Hope that helps 🙂