Chronic skin disease in a six year old cat

Pearl first presented with skin disease in Nov 2011. She is a desexed female domestic shorthair cat.

She was out in the yard and the owner noticed that her left eye was weeping and it was swollen around that eye. Later, the same day, she was itching all over. There is some general skin irritation around the left eye and temple/forehead areas today.

In the past, Pearl has had some soft stools at times with mucus and some blood. She had vomited once in the last week. She does cough up hair balls at times. Her coat is slightly dull.

She is a reserved cat who does not wander off from home. Her owner has recently gone back to work. She is mainly an indoor cat as she has been in cat fights when outside.

Some strangers she will be very friendly with and others not.

She prefers mainly dry food and usually this is Hill’s Oral Care.

For the first treatment, she is given Natrium muriaticum 200C in one dose at the surgery.

The rash improved quickly, however, it returned six weeks later, so she was given Nat mur LM1 to take daily for two weeks. Once again, this fixed the skin within a few days.

She returned with a deeper, more moist, irritated skin rash in February 2012, which is 2 months later. There was an ichorous discharge from the

wound this time. She had also become more anxious, especially in thunderstorms. This time, I changed the remedy to Calcium carbonicum 200C in 1 dose and also gave some Rhus tox in a 6C potency to use at home. (Rhus t is the only remedy in ichorous discharge from face eruption). She improved quickly again was well for nine months.

Again, I repeated Calc carb 200 in 1 dose. This time, there was no change, however, so the owner started Rhus tox 6C but with no improvement.

Over the next four months, several remedies were given, all with no great improvement in the rash. At times, the rash moved from this original area to underneath the neck and became quite deep until bleeding as she would rip into the skin with her paw and would also rub it on the furniture.

After three months, the irritation changed to the right side as well. Remedies used in this time were Psorinum, Sepia, Mezereum, Graphites and Sulphur.

In June 2013, the owner reports that Moko has become very distant and reserved. She no longer wants to sleep on the bed or interact with them. The wound has become quite thickened in places.

I now go back to one dose of Nat mur 1M and things begin to improve quite quickly. For the first couple of days, it was as though she was drugged, then she got her ‘mojo’ back.

In August, there was still some reactive skin, so I put her back on Nat mur LM1 daily. After this, she slowly returns to normal. She begins to sleep on the owners’ bed again and become friendly and interactive again.

She then got some small eruptions on the point of both hocks, as the disease moved downwards and outwards. She was put on Nat mur LM 1 for two months: the skin has now been perfect for the last nine months.

If the originally selected Nat mur had been given in a higher strength earlier, we may have avoided the scramble of remedies from February to June 2013. I had changed to Calc carb because she seemed more anxious, and because the remedy was not holding for a good period of time. In retrospect, I came to understand that the owner was also under quite some stress at that time, and this cat was very close to her.

Photos: Henry Stephenson