How To Treat Feline Acne

I'd had cats for years and for the most part they were always healthy, which is why I'd never heard of feline acne (heck, I thought it was something I had to worry about, not my cats!)

Cat lovers often have big hearts when it comes to their furry pets and this can be a wonderful thing, but it can also lead to trouble. My friend owns two lovely cats that are very well taken care of by their owner. They are kept indoors and they visit their vet on a regular basis. My friend opened her home to a stray cat who introduced feline acne to her two cats and it has wreaked havoc on her home as well as her checkbook.

My dear friend found a stray cat wondering around her neighborhood. She lives in a relatively secluded area, but traffic tends to travel a little fast. She has seen a lot of road kill on her serpentine street and she couldn’t bear the idea of finding the cat among the victims of the traffic. Little did she know, the poor cat had feline acne. She brought the skin condition home with her stray.

She did have the presence of mind to keep the found kitty in a separate area. The cat stayed in the basement in its own section of the home that was not typically visited by the other cats. My friend found a home for the kitty in about a month. The new owner took the cat straight to the vet because my friend warned her that it had what looked like flea dirt under its chin.

Once the new cat was out of the house, my friend opened the stray cat’s area to her other kitties. She soon found the same black spots on her cats. Her first thought was that the cats had fleas, and immediately coated them with flea powder, but the problem didn't go away, and she wondered if maybe they had feline acne.

When she took the kitties to the vet, she learned that there are two other conditions that look like feline acne. The first is ringworm. She was pleased to find that the cats did not have ringworm. Demodecosis is the other condition that mimics feline acne and this, unfortunately was the culprit.

Feline acne is treatable with topical ointments but demodecosis (which is contagious among cats) is treated with a nasty lime sulfur dip that is just as painful for the owner as it is uncomfortable for the cat. It took two biopsies and a few thousand dollars to take care of the situation. Hopefully, the stray was given treatment eventually as well.