Dryness

[Clawsout]

My cat last week had an issue with Revolution flea medicine she was itchy at the spot of application to the point where she scratched off all her fur there. I bathed her and she has been fine but she still has a bald spot from scratching at the medication. Now it has become dry and flakey. It looks like big chunks of dandruff. Is there any type of moisturizer that can help her skin stop being irritated? She is starting to itch again because of the dry skin and I don't want to stop the new hair growth.

 

[Margret]

Oh, the poor baby! She must have been miserable.

I think I would try some vitamin E. Ask your vet to be sure, but E is excellent for dryness, and ingesting a bit shouldn't be harmful. And she's unlikely to ingest very much of it because the location is specifically designed to make it hard for a cat to lick that area.

You can either buy gelcaps of vitamin E and pierce them with a pin (this is the way to go if you normally take vitamin E supplements), or go to just about any Kroger's supermarket (Kroger's goes under different names in different parts of the country) and get their Kroger brand "pure vitamin E body oil" in a one ounce bottle. If you're only going to use it on skin this is both cheaper and more convenient.

Note: My current bottle is rather old now; there's a chance that the brand name has changed to "Home Sense," which is Kroger's other store brand.

Buying vitamin E oil at other stores (Walgreens springs to mind) will actually get you vegetable oil with some vitamin E added -- you want the pure stuff, which is more viscous than vegetable oil. If you tip the bottle and the oil moves easily, like water, it's not pure vitamin E.

I get the one ounce bottle, because I use a lot of it for dry skin, scars, and any time my ear piercings hurt (first making sure that they aren't infected, which they never have been). I was turned onto topical vitamin E by a veterinarian friend after my gall bladder surgery gave me a very itchy 6 inch scar, back in the '80s.

Margret

 

[Clawsout]

Thank you so much! I tried that and it worked like a charm her hair is starting to grow back in. Now I need to find a new flea treatment.