Cat has swollen lower lip (pictures included)

molly120382

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What's wrong with Beau's lip?? His lower lip looked thick last night and now it looks even worse! He's acting totally normal, but the lip looks gross. Is it an allergic reaction? He hasn't, to my knowledge, eaten anything out of the ordinary.
 

jcat

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Your vet is going to have to take a look at that. It could be a so-called "rodent ulcer":
This unsightly condition is unique to the cat. It may be found in cats of any age, and occurs three times more often in females than males. The exact cause of rodent ulcer is unknown, and there is actually no direct connection with rodents. The presence of eosinophils suggests an allergic reaction, parasite problem, or immune problem. It is thought to be part of the eosinophilic granuloma complex. Hypersensitivity is strongly suggested, with causative agents including insects, environmental substances, and diet. Flea allergy should always be considered as a possible cause. Some cases are associated with dental infection. An underlying genetic predisposition is suspected.
Eosinophilic granuloma (rodent ulcer, labial ulcer)

This is a chronic ulcerative area occurring on the lips, usually where the skin joins the lining membrane of the mouth. The affected part is relatively localised but the area gradually becomes larger. It is usually found in the region between the mid-line cleft of the lip (philtrum) and the canine tooth on the upper lip. The problem may occur on one side or both and occasionally may be seen elsewhere. The edges of the ulcer are hard and raised and the broken skin irregular. The base of the ulcer is salmon-pink. In most cases the problem is a cosmetic one rather than presenting any real disability for the cat, but sometimes very deep ulcers may cause pain and reluctance or inability to eat, and the animal may be unable to groom itself. A number of causes have been suggested for this problem, including continual irritation by the rough tongue, infection or food allergy; there is little to support these propositions.

A wide variation of treatments have been applied in cases of eosinophilic granuloma, reflecting the lack of any one uniformly successful treatment, and the unsatisfactory outcome of treatment in many patients. It would seem that the most successful approach is a four to six week course of the steroid prednisolone.
Our last cat had that a few times, and the suspected cause was a food allergy, which can develop at any time.
 
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molly120382

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Thanks for the info! I wouldn't be surprised if it was a food allergy, he seems to be sensitive to grains and gluten, which have been removed from his diet. If it looks the same or worse by Monday I'll give the vet a call.
 

petcrazy76

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My cat Peanut has that problem. The first thing I was told was to get rid of any plastic food bowls. Apparently cats with allergies have problems with something in the plastic. So if you use plastic I'd suggest switching his bowls right away. Helped Peanut a lot.
 

2littlerascals

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Tinker has this and it looks exactly the same as in the pics on here , i phoned the vet yesterday because i think she was stung by a bee , they advised to keep an eye on it and made an appointment this morning at 10, so will post back with the result .

She is eating and doing everything normal , i am wondering if fleas are causing it too as i had them both treated last month with frontline and another one for Tinker as she is small, frontline killed all the fleas on wellington but tinker still has them and i am treating the house using salt which has always worked for us.

So i will get more flea treatment today from the vet and see what he thinks to her mouth . 
 

2littlerascals

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Been to the vet this morning and Tinker has an allergy to fleas so she has had a steroid injection and also had some Stronghold flea spot on applied, i also got Stronghold for Wellington and a spray for the whole house which has been done already .

Wellington was not amused he was growling in a corner for about half hour lol , but i am already seeing dead fleas so something is working and the swelling on Tinker's mouth has already started to reduce so all good news once again x
 

2littlerascals

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Thank you she is already improved today and we bought some spray for the house which has worked and it keeps fleas away for 12 months it is highly recommended . 
 

slykat12

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Whoa, glad I found this! Just this morning I noticed Whitney my 1 yr old cat had a swollen pink bottom lip with 3 smaller bumps on the pink patch that looked sort of like pimples (with some pus forming). She eats out of stainless steel which is changed every day. She is on a no grain high quality canned diet focusing on chicken and turkey. She does not have any fleas that I know of as she is indoors. I do give her unhealthy treats w grain-Temptations each day for training/reward purposes.

Looks like ECG to me or eosinophilic granuloma complex.

The only new thing in her life is the new cat tree which I reviewed on this site and a new ficus tree. Whitney shows her affection and desire for food by licking people so things on my skin could have caused it. Hmm. But since allergies can form at any time we are at a loss.

We have a vet appt for Thursday that  is the fastest we could get in. She is eating fine and does not appear to be in any pain and is not itchy. Hmmmmm

I wonder if it is the grain treats?-Those will be the first to go!
 

slykat12

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Interesting development I wanted to share with the cat group. Whitney vomited up a rubber band.

Now she ate that band last night as I know exactly where it came from.

In the AM she had eosinophilic granuloma complex on her chin and 8 hours after I saw the sore BARF !

I wonder if that was the cause? I wonder if the sore will go away now that the band is out or I still have to go to the vet on Thursday. hmmmm
 
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stephlra25

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We think we have it narrowed down to brewers rice. My cat just developed this since we bought "Tumblers" for treats. The only difference in ingredients between the new and old treats is the brewers rice and brewers yeast.
 

razorooni

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Hi, my cat Zombie has this too. Ive tried to de-flea her and ive changed her plastic bowl. I have also changed the food flavour to fish as her chicken was sold out. Could she possibly have an allergic reaction to fish?
 

goholistic

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Hi, my cat Zombie has this too. Ive tried to de-flea her and ive changed her plastic bowl. I have also changed the food flavour to fish as her chicken was sold out. Could she possibly have an allergic reaction to fish?
It's possible!
 

siold

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[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]Go to the vet. This once happened to Effie. She ended up being severely allergic to the plastic bowl I was feeding her out of. Once Dream tried to eat a bee and this happened to her, too. Tami’s face will swell up if only one flea bites her. I hope everything goes well. I’m glad to hear things are getting better. This is a great thread. Thank you for sharing with us. Tamia gets a swollen face if she eats rice. She is highly allergic to it. The vet has never seen anything like it before. Weird, right?
 

omomkhawass

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i want to ask how i can manage cat lip swelling >>>and if there will be permanent scar for this or not ?? 
 

slykat12

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Whits EGC went away after two weeks with no scar. Hers was on the bottom lip. I hear those on the top lip are much more serious and cat def scar-it is actually a diff disease if on the top lip.
 
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summertpets

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Thank you for posting this thread.  My female black cat developed this swelling on her lower lip for a few weeks and I realized I had switched the cats to a mostly (high quality brand) canned fish diet, and I think she was allergic.  Her brother just started developing this swelling, too, and I took them off the fish completely and they healed up within a few days.  After a week it was totally gone.   (My mother always warned me off feeding cats fish, she said the ash in it was bad for them. That might be a tall tale but they definitely seemed to have an allergy)
 
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