Cat: excessive licking, biting. Over grooming?

Hecate

We have a 10+ year old female cat that seems to be obsessed with biting and licking the area around it's stomach and back legs. She has managed to basically remove most of the fur around these areas and is causing serious damage to herself - mostly through biting.

The vet seemed to rule out fleas after a quick inspection with a comb; he believed that inflamation due to excema was the cause of the problem. We've been giving her anti-inflammatory drugs over the past few weeks and have had her in an elizabethan collar for a while to stop the licking and biting. I took the collar off last week on the vets advice and the cat appeared to stop licking and biting itself but now this morning she seems to have begun it again with interest. It looks like a common problem, possibly non-medical:

Over-grooming, in the form of excessive licking, biting, nibbling, chewing, or sucking the coat or skin, with no underlying medical cause, is typically indicative of stress. Common causes of feline stress are: fear, lack of stimulation, isolation, new pet in the household, move to a new household, separation anxiety, or in some cases early weaning. Over-grooming becomes problematic when it results in self-inflicted injury (hair thinning, removal of complete tufts of hair, skin infections), a condition called “Psychogenic Alopecia.” This diagnosis is made when no underlying medical condition can be detected. In some cases, excessive grooming can start in response to a skin irritation (fleas, allergies, infections), but it can escalate into a behavioral problem even though the condition has cleared. It is thought that the grooming behaviors become self-reinforcing by reducing anxiety. The grooming actions become repetitive, called “stereotypies,” that may come and go, depending on the cat’s current level of stress.

The problem is our cat is the most non-stressed animal you could imagine. We have no other pets and she spends most of her time sleeping, eating and wandering around the garden. The only explanation is she's doing this out of boredom!

Has anyone else come across this problem before; did medication or some kind of change in habits/surroundings help? Or did it just mysteriously go away.

Alun

We once had a cat who did this kind of thing, and despite us treating her regularly and there being no evidence of any kind of flea infestation, the vet was convinced it was flea related in as much as she seemed to be very allergic to flea bites, and it would only really need one bite to set the whole thing off. Flea treatments will stop fleas spreading but won't stop the occasional flea jumping on her and biting her when she's outside, thus setting off the whole process.

Nala

Dobermann dogs are prone to over-licking their front legs, though as far as I know it's a psychological thing with them, maybe like some form of OCD.
As for the cat, none of mine have ever had that problem but it sounds nasty.
Maybe bring her to a different vet and get a second opinion?

CookieCat

Tend to agree with Alun any skin condition can be a pain to get to the bottom off. It can be diet related, environmental as in change of products and more rare is Feline Hypereshesia...Over grooming.

This is however not common:FELINE HYPERESTHESIA, OVER-GROOMING, AND SELF-MUTILATION

Feline hyperesthesia syndrome has been variously called rolling skin disease, neuritis, twitchy cat disease, and atypical neurodermatitis. The behaviours demonstrated can include those mimicking estrus or biting at the tail, flank, anal or lumbar areas (sometimes with resultant barbering and self-mutilation); or skin rippling and muscle spasms/twitching (usually dorsally), often accompanied by vocalisation, running, jumping, hallucinations and self-directed aggression. Not all cats exhibiting these behaviours self-mutilate, but those that do can exhibit a range of mutilation from excessive licking, to plucking (trichotillomania), barbering, biting, and chewing that lead to skin lesions. Regardless of the degree of behavioural change, owners report that it is difficult to distract the cat from the behaviour. The behaviour sequence can vary. Cats might twitch and then focus on a part of the body to lick or chew. Or they might be grooming, start to twitch, and then exhibit more furious behaviours. Painful and dermatological causes MUST be ruled-out before even considering the possibility of a behavioural disorder.

Environmental and social stresses have been associated with these disorders and range from readily apparent (skin conditions including food allergy, atopy, or fleas; the addition or loss of another cat; intercat aggression; the addition or loss of a human with attendant changes in attention); to indiscernible exogenous cues. Cats may also perceive truly endogenous cues (anxiety can be the result of altered neurochemistry/neurotransmission and can therefore also be endogenous).

deaddonkey

My cat does the same, the vet is convinced it's fleas and we treat her for them but it doesn't make much of a difference. What has worked the best is to make a cardboard flea collar out of cereal packets or whatever so that she can't turn around and scratch herself. We put it on her for a couple of weeks and it's brought the problem back under control.

edit: just noticed you'd already tried that, sorry.

Alun

deaddonkey wrote:

My cat does the same, the vet is convinced it's fleas and we treat her for them but it doesn't make much of a difference.

The main thing that treating a cat for fleas achieves is prevent them breeding / spreading. It won't immediately kill every passing flea tht happens to jump onto your cat and give it a quick bite. Some cats just react very badly to flea bites, in much the same way as some humans do to, say, midge bites ... it's just the way it is unfortunately.

Ramon

It could be a physical or pschycological problem.

Has the onset of this behaviour coincided with any changes that might have caused stress.

Alternatively she might be getting senile in her middle age, over grooming has been associated with the onset of dimentia in cats.

Good luck with Puss

Ramon