Hi all, just signed up here to see if anybody has experienced anything similar with their kitties.
Ginger showed up in our backyard several years ago, already a full-sized adult cat, and would eat our outdoor cats' leftover food after they had finished eating. She seemed to be tame with a sweet disposition, and allowed us to pet her, just not on the head (she'd duck to avoid it). Our one concern was a gash on her neck which we figured was the result of a fight. The gash eventually healed and we eventually let her venture indoors (our cats are all in/out at their leisure).
Months later, we hear a very loud THWAP-THWAP-THWAP-THWAP when she's inside and it turns out to be Ginger scratching her neck harder than I've ever seen a cat scratch herself in my life. Eyes practically rolling to the back of her head, fur flying everywhere and voila, another gash on her neck. She stopped before we could get to her. As this continued happening and whenever we could get to her fast enough, we would hold her scratching paw to shield her neck and avoid her gashing herself further, but holding the paw does not stop the movement. Many times she will cry out when we're holding her like this. We have seen her get into one of these scratching fits, roll off the bed and fall to the floor, all without stopping the scratching motion. The scratching will happen for several seconds (like 15 to 20 seconds maybe) before she'll stop. We described it to our vet to whom we showed one of the gashes but he said he'd never seen or heard of such a thing.
Another unusual thing about Ginger is that the two middle claws on both her back paws are crazy long and thick. We call them her Excaliburs. I know cats normally tug on their claws with their teeth while grooming, but Ginger does it like she's trying to rip these claws right out of her paws.
Ginger is your typical lazy cat, loves being around people, and is so unbelievably civilized and domesticated that it's hard to believe she was once a stray. We always get our "new" cats fixed as soon as we are able to befriend them. There are toms in our neighborhood but when we saw that she never got pregnant during those first several months that she shyly lived in our backyard, we figured she'd already been spayed. Now, years later, we're sure she was spayed or is otherwise sterile. Over the past few months, she has transformed into a mostly indoor cat. She'll venture outside maybe once every two weeks or so and usually only for a few minutes at a time. I don't think this is significant, since she's had these fits since she first adopted us, but thought I'd mention it anyway.
This scratching and the resulting gashing happens in phases. She will completely heal and seem like a totally normal cat (aside from those claws!) for months on end and then suddenly out of nowhere she will scratch herself another gash. The more times she scratches, the bigger the gash gets. It looks awful, raw and bloody when this happens. We normally treat it with antibiotic ointment which seems to help a lot, and when it's severe we will put an E-collar on her which also seems to keep her from this trance-like self-mutilation. In the last couple of weeks, she started again but this time the gash got bigger than ever, faster than ever. Ointment and E-collar treatment already in progress, but we'd really like to know what this is and if it is possible to stop it or at least curb it.
We've been scouring the interwebz trying to figure this out. It almost seems like hyperesthesia, but her skin doesn't ripple and her thing is scratching, not licking. We sometimes think it's some sort of seizure from the way she gets trance-like and can't seem to stop scratching. Even though we are against declawing, we've considered having her Excaliburs surgically removed in order to diminish the damage she causes herself when she goes through these phases.
If anybody out there has experienced anything even remotely similar, I would love to hear about it. Any insight will be deeply appreciated!
Ginger showed up in our backyard several years ago, already a full-sized adult cat, and would eat our outdoor cats' leftover food after they had finished eating. She seemed to be tame with a sweet disposition, and allowed us to pet her, just not on the head (she'd duck to avoid it). Our one concern was a gash on her neck which we figured was the result of a fight. The gash eventually healed and we eventually let her venture indoors (our cats are all in/out at their leisure).
Months later, we hear a very loud THWAP-THWAP-THWAP-THWAP when she's inside and it turns out to be Ginger scratching her neck harder than I've ever seen a cat scratch herself in my life. Eyes practically rolling to the back of her head, fur flying everywhere and voila, another gash on her neck. She stopped before we could get to her. As this continued happening and whenever we could get to her fast enough, we would hold her scratching paw to shield her neck and avoid her gashing herself further, but holding the paw does not stop the movement. Many times she will cry out when we're holding her like this. We have seen her get into one of these scratching fits, roll off the bed and fall to the floor, all without stopping the scratching motion. The scratching will happen for several seconds (like 15 to 20 seconds maybe) before she'll stop. We described it to our vet to whom we showed one of the gashes but he said he'd never seen or heard of such a thing.
Another unusual thing about Ginger is that the two middle claws on both her back paws are crazy long and thick. We call them her Excaliburs. I know cats normally tug on their claws with their teeth while grooming, but Ginger does it like she's trying to rip these claws right out of her paws.
Ginger is your typical lazy cat, loves being around people, and is so unbelievably civilized and domesticated that it's hard to believe she was once a stray. We always get our "new" cats fixed as soon as we are able to befriend them. There are toms in our neighborhood but when we saw that she never got pregnant during those first several months that she shyly lived in our backyard, we figured she'd already been spayed. Now, years later, we're sure she was spayed or is otherwise sterile. Over the past few months, she has transformed into a mostly indoor cat. She'll venture outside maybe once every two weeks or so and usually only for a few minutes at a time. I don't think this is significant, since she's had these fits since she first adopted us, but thought I'd mention it anyway.
This scratching and the resulting gashing happens in phases. She will completely heal and seem like a totally normal cat (aside from those claws!) for months on end and then suddenly out of nowhere she will scratch herself another gash. The more times she scratches, the bigger the gash gets. It looks awful, raw and bloody when this happens. We normally treat it with antibiotic ointment which seems to help a lot, and when it's severe we will put an E-collar on her which also seems to keep her from this trance-like self-mutilation. In the last couple of weeks, she started again but this time the gash got bigger than ever, faster than ever. Ointment and E-collar treatment already in progress, but we'd really like to know what this is and if it is possible to stop it or at least curb it.
We've been scouring the interwebz trying to figure this out. It almost seems like hyperesthesia, but her skin doesn't ripple and her thing is scratching, not licking. We sometimes think it's some sort of seizure from the way she gets trance-like and can't seem to stop scratching. Even though we are against declawing, we've considered having her Excaliburs surgically removed in order to diminish the damage she causes herself when she goes through these phases.
If anybody out there has experienced anything even remotely similar, I would love to hear about it. Any insight will be deeply appreciated!
