Cat Skin Thing...

My son's cat Spaz had a patch of hair missing beside her tail, upon further investigation, she had other patches of hair missing on her belly & her under her hind legs as well as little red "chicken pox" looking spots on her belly, legs, tail, etc. even where there was hair still, I could see the little "pox". She was biting & itching, etc. Eliminating the obvious: We have lots of fleas in Oregon & I give her Advantage religiously. She has never had this type of reaction from fleas before. Ringworm? there is no raised outer area and at times the skin looks perfectly normal, no bumps or "pox". The patches of hair loss are not getting bigger. I bathed her in an anti-fungual shampoo and flea shampoo. She seemed to be doing better, however, I just don't know what exactly could be causing her to pull her hair out. Any thoughts?

['too crazy]

My thought is a quick trip to the vet. Some things need medication and this might be one of those things. I don't know if you have other animals, but if you do, you don't want it to spread to them. And aslo some things can be spread to humans. I'd go to the vet just to be on the safe side. Keep us posted as I have 4 kitty's myself.

[CrazyCat]

Sounds pretty similar to what my cat had. She was also losing spots of hair under her chin, shomache, etd. I don't remember whether she had red spots though. I took her to the vet and got some medication for her. Have you taken her to the vet yet?

Thanks TooCrazy & CrazyCat. I need to take her to the vet. Checked her yesterday pretty thoroughly and she still has little red bumps (not like they were!) and in between her hind leggs and down them is pretty bald. She has one of those cranky personalities all the time - hair issues or not! Thanks for the reply.

[timtwo]

Hard to say what it is, but there is one way you can check for ringworm (which by the way is contagious to people and particularly prevelant in cats). Vets use a Woods Lamp, which is a fancy term for a black light! You can get a black light bulb, take the cat into a dark room and hold the bulb near the suspected areas. Ringworm will fluorese, or glow, green.

[Furbaby Mom]

Actually, the black light will florese in about 50% of the ringworm cases. If it does, your cat has it. If it doesn't, she could still have it. A skin scraping would be in order.

Ringworm can be difficult to treat, as if you don't treat the environment also, it can reoccur. Thorough washing with bleach of everything in the house, and vacuum, vacuum, vacuum of the rest of the house is the start.