Scratch wounds on neck

[Amitu78]

My cat Mikku is a 3 year old male cat. I adopted him from a shelter. Initially he was weak and after vet consultation he put on weight. In the mean while he developed some boils on his neck area. Dr. advised me to apply Kiskin lotion. But eventually Mikku scratched the boils and it converted into scratch wounds. Its been 2 months now and  guessing it as an infection Dr. gave a course of anti-biotic. During the course it was better but after the course again its come back to same situation. Both the neck areas have lost hair now, every time when the wound starts to heal he scratches and it becomes worse. Please suggest me how to heal the wound with better medication or any other ways of avoiding the cat to scratch the wound.

[Nighthawk61]

  Opus, thank you so much for the websites above. I have four cats that could benefit from this information. Liz

[opus88]

Anita I will telll you some things you may not want to hear but may have to if you truly want to help your kitty.....first of all dry foods are the worst!!! full of additives/preservatives/carbs and very dehydrating to a cat...leads to serious health problems like UTI's/diabetes just to name 2. heres an excellent website by a world renown Vet it you want confirmation of that.

www.catinfo.org

secondly....whiskas/dry is at the very bottom of the list for acceptable foods, not only the brand, it has a double whammy b/c its whiskas and its dry.

I don't agree with your Vet, even if it is boils......cats and their food allergies show up as skin erruptions of some sort. and to me this is an easy fix if this is whats wrong, easy and cheap...no medictions, just try feeding a new canned food...preferably with NO carbs b/c many cats have allergies to carbs. for a list of carb free canned diets check out the site I gave above...on the right hand side of her column...BEST COMMERCIAL CANNED FOODS.

if you are going to change the food also read on that site HOW TO TRANSITION from dry food to wet.....you have to do so slowly, most cats don't lke carb free cans b/c they sure don't taste as good without all the additives so it take a slow transition. cats also get diarrhea when their food is rapidly changed.

I will gvie you another site to copy and paste, read all the signs and causes of allergies...(don't believe you need to resort to steroid treatments as suggested for some ailments tho...)

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2141&aid=195

as far as how to stop kitty from scratching the area, there are cones you can use, however I sure don't like the hard ones that are sold thru a vet office, they are torture to wear....hard to walk around with, hard to eat/drink and even use their litter boxes with.
there are good ones that are called SOFT Collars that bend and move with the cat but still prevent scratching. they are avail thru amazon or most good pet stores.....it would be very good for your kitty if you bought one of these, but don't just stop the scratching PLEASE also find the cause and eliminate that so the condition will clear up.

heres the order info for the soft collars...keep us posted :)

http://www.amazon.com/KONG-Soft-E-Collar-Cats-Small/dp/B004GEAQ46/ref=sr_1_2?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1342369009&sr=1-2&keywords=soft+cone+collar+for+cats

[Amitu78]

Thank you so much for the reply and the article. Much appreciated.
I feed my cat dry food. Its Whiskas.
Initially it was only boils behind the ear, so our vet diagnosed it as bacterial infection, we actually asked the Dr. whether it was some food allergy. But Dr. ruled out food allergy by seeing the kind of boil. After seeing the article you've shared I am getting a serious doubt about the food now, because I've noticed 2 more boils near the leg. Our problem is he is scratching the scabs by which the wound is never healing. Please suggest me how to control the cat not to scratch the wound for faster healing and not to reopen the wound.

[opus88]

hi and welcome....can I ask what you are feeding your kitty? what type of food, is it a dry food?
often this type of reaction is a food allergy...or allergy to some chemical in the household...but most often its food related.

its best to find out the cause rather than treat the symptoms.....the boils keep returning because you haven't found the cause.

I will send you a site to do some more reading. please post again and I will try and help with some suggestions.

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2117&aid=142