Sores on my cat's face

by Jennifer
(Rio Rancho, NM)

My cat keeps getting sores on her head near her ear. We've taken her to the vet once before this and all it did was land me a $200 bill and some advice to keep the wound clean until it healed.

For some reason it keeps coming back. We were assuming that it was allergies. Recently a sore on the corner of her mouth formed. We have been putting ointment on it to try to heal it. I was just about to give her a quarter of a Benadryl tablet. When I tried to pry her mouth open it started foaming. She became timid backing into a corner and darting away from us. I thought it may be rabies at this point. I put fresh water in a bowl and gave her some treats just to make sure she was eating. She barely ate half of the treat and with difficulty at that. Now she is eating and drinking as I am writing this E-mail. I am just confused, I don't know what to do because I can't afford the vet especially for them to send me away again. Please help. They tested for fleas and mites when I took her in lest time and the results were negative.

Reply
Hi
After reading your question I would say that this episode is different from the last as the mouth may be the main concern here.

I say this because as your vet has made sure that mites or fleas are not the cause then it is possible that your cat is over grooming her head due to anxiety caused by some other illness. the over grooming causing the sores etc. Have you see her grooming this area lately?

the trouble is there could be many different causes for your cat to have problems with her mouth, ranging from digestive ones, to stings, to gum disease or loose teethe or infections.

I would say that you should not try to give your cat any human medicine at all. A cats systems is very different from our own and cannot process the same chemicals in the same way even in low doses.

There are also condition such as cat acne which may cause the sore on your cats mouth, as the chin area is the main place for this.

it is very difficult to point in you in the right direction as the symptoms could be caused by all sorts of things and normally what would happen is that the vet would go through a serious of tests and a process of elimination to discover the exact cause.

Also there is no way of knowing whether the mouth sore and the sores on the head are related.

i am sorry to say that to really get to the bottom of this problem a trip to your vets is probably your best option.

As you say an allergy may be at the root of this but further tests would have to be carried out.

i do have a page about cat allergy which you may find of further help here

http://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-allergy.html

I hope the cause can be discovered soon

best wishes kate