is it allergies?

[kiki119]

So my cat has bin licking herself bald on her legs and now on her stomach. i took her to the vet they said it may be allergies. so i changed her food, litter, bought some fish oil. Nothing helped,now she has a crust around her eyes and has goopy green stuff coming out of the eyes! It was so much money for the vet and i was wondering if anyone had some info before i spend so much money again.

[zodiacqueen]

Hi, you can ask your vet to test the green goop to see if it contains fungi, parasites, or bacteria.  

I also agree that the hair loss could be from fleas, but it could also be from stress.  Anything change in your home lately?

Good luck!!

PS-You should go to the Ask a vet forum, it's great and they give very thorough answers!!  =)

[Jade59]

Hi Kiki,

My cat was just dx'd with herpes in her eyes.  For years, we too, thought it was allergies, but no.  According to my vet, herpes is very common in cats.  The way I figured out what was possibly going on with my cat was to google "feline herpes conjunctivitis."  Some sites will give you pictures to look at and compare as well as descriptions.  

Discharge from the eyes have many possible dx's, but a simple blood test will confirm whether your kitty has herpes or not.  I will hope for Not.  It may just be conjunctivitis which would clear up with some antibiotic drops, but you don't want to take a chance as herpes can cause a lot of irreparable damage.  

Definitely post on "Ask a Vet" too, and if you have a pic of kittys eyes that would be really helpful.  

Best of luck!

[Thomas Dock, CVJ, Vet. Technician]

Hi Kiki...I had a Siamese cat that did the same thing (licking until she was bald) several years ago.   She ended up having fleas!   We couldn't tell she had fleas because she was so good at catching the fleas when they bit her.  But, the obvious reaction of continually licking, grooming, and hair barbering showed that she was still being irritated by them.   We ended up finding the fleas on another one of our cats and after treating everyone appropriate, she stopped the excessive grooming.

Do you have other pets?   You might check them for fleas and if you find any, get all the pets in the household treated with a good flea medication (Advantage, Frontline or Revolution).   You will also need to treat the house with a good area treatment that kills eggs and larva (95% of fleas in your house are in egg, larva, or coccoon stage...the adults we see on our pets are less than 5% of the total population).

As far as the discharge, you might post that question over in the Ask A Vet Expert forum for our veterinarians to answer.   I think it could be allergy related (even if it is a flea allergy) but I think one of the experts would give you a better answer.

Good luck...keep us posted!

[FurballsMom]

I don't know what the discharge is or what it means.  I had to try a few different kinds of cat foods before I found one that my cat likes that she isn't allergic to.  My cat is allergic to grains.