Cat lose their hair for many reasons. Sometimes it is from boredom or stress, and hair loss from that cause most often appears as thin or short hair on the tummy and insides of the legs. Sometimes there is a major disease behind the hair loss. And sometimes the hair loss is from allergy. The allergic reaction can be set off by four different groups of things: insect allergy, food allergy, pollen allergy, and contact (chemicals, plastics, other things your cat touches) allergy. Insect allergy is the most common reason for cats to do excessive licking and scratching, with flea allergy being the most common insect allergy.
With flea allergy, often cats will pull out their hair, especially on the back half of the body. They often do it when they are not in our sight, so we owners may think that the hair is just failing to grow. And apparently in cats with flea allergy, you may never even see a flea on the cat because since the cat is so sensitized to the bites, he will meticulously remove any single flea that bites him. Many of these cats develop miliary dermatitis, which is small scabs and crusts over their body caused by the cat biting and scratching the itchy skin.
My cat Rosie started losing her hair one summer and it was very gradual. The thin areas even looked a bit fuzzy, so we always thought it was “coming back.” She was eating and running around like normal, so we didn’t fear a serious disease, but something was wrong.
I took her to the vet, and the doctor we saw did skin scrapings but found no parasites like mange to worry about. A few more weeks went by and she continued to lose hair. Finally I took her to a different vet and he immediately pronounced that she had flea allergy. She never had any fleas that we could see, but she did go outside for a short time each day after everyone was home from work and school. The doctor showed me how if he touched the skin on her back right above the base of her tail the skin would wiggle as if it had a life of its own. He said she was hypersensitive to fleas and that the bite of even one flea could set off the intense itchiness that was causing her hair loss, and that reaction could last for days or a couple of weeks!
He gave us some prescription pills that we could use to safely remove all the fleas on her, but of course we had to spray our carpets with cat-safe flea spray too and wash all bedding several times before all the fleas were removed from the house. And that also meant that she could no longer go outside. After all the flea removal heroics we had just done, we certainly did not need to bring in more fleas to multiply and start all over. Rosie got all her hair back, and she is a happy tabby now.
Remember, don’t use dog flea products or cheap flea products like Hartz or Sargeant’s on your cat or you could actually kill him or her. Ask your vet’s office for a recommendation. It’s a lot less expensive to have a safe product than to kill or nearly-kill your cat.
Reference: Cat Health Encyclopedia Edited by Dr. Lowell Ackerman T.F.H. Publications, Inc.
