# bald spot on my cat's paw?



## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

I have 2 female cats. I can't say they are the best friends, but they generally get along well. Once I came home in the evening and found one of them with a small bloody wound on the inside of her left front paw. It looked like a small bite and the fur was missing around it, but the cat didn't seem to be bothered by it much, so I figured it should go away soon. However, even the time passed and the wound seemed to heal, her fur didn't seem to be growing back! I think it was 3 weeks ago or more, now her skin where the wound was looks smooth, just a little dark spot there is left where the cut has been, but the area around it is still bald! The cat doesn't seem to be bothered by it, she doesn't lick it more than other part of her body, it doesn't hurt when I touch it, the cat behaves totally normally and there's no other bald spots appeared (if it was ringworm, I guess we all would have been sick by now!  ) I don't know what to do - should I take her to the vet? What can it be? How long does it usually take for the cat hair to grow back?

This cat is a long-haired persian, usually her fur grows pretty quickly. I feed her boiled meat with some vegetables and grains. She is generally a sweet and happy cat, no particular behavior problems or anything. No stress, no different food, no vet visits or any other discomfort recently that may cause her feeling unhappy, so I have no idea why the bald spot?


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Welcome to Cat Forum. 
I think if you want to know what it is/was, I would take the cat to the vet and find out for certain. Myself, if it isn't causing the cat any immediate problems, I don't worry about it. I do think it is odd that her fur hasn't grown back in, especially since you said this happened a good bit of time ago. I think it would be consistent with a scar, but then I also think something leaving a scar that big would have presented with much more problems than just a bit of missing hair and a scratch.
I'm sorry, I don't seem to be much help...  
Heidi =^..^=


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

Thank you. I don't see a scar there, just smooth skin, and it's kind of grayish in color, is it a normal cat skin color? I don't know... I'm going to take the cat to the vet this week...


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Well, I'm saying 'scar' but I guess that isn't a very good description of what I mean. Some cats don't scar like we do; with a pucker of skin, an indentation or discoloration. Some just have a patch of smooth skin. Cats who are light in color usually have white/pink skin while darker cats have skin that is more of a gray-ish color. Our LuckyDuck(Louie) has scars like these. Louie arrived into our household dehydrated and almost dead from a HUGE abcess that was infected and preventing him from hunting for nourishment. My husband found him at work and brought him home to me, where I took him to the vet. 
Lou needed about 8" of stitches. 
His abcess was under his neck/throat and about the size of a tennis ball. Louie was about 10mo old so his abcess was almost the same size as his head. The vet had to cut away a lot of that stretched flap of skin after draining his abcess and his stitches were in a "Y" shape running from ear-to-ear and then down the left side of his neck and into his chest-front. He also had a drain inserted kind of under his ear and on the side of his neck. His scar/skin is smooth and white, or a gray-ish white because he is black-based in color. He also has a line of white hair. My husband says it is what is left of his "bib", but I don't remember him having any white markings...so I think it is just white scar-hair. So in addition to having that long line of a scar, he has two little scar-spots that have no hair from the entry and exit of the drain that was inserted into his neck.
_...see how I came to think most scars are from something traumatic?_ That's not to say they can happen with minor wounds...its just Louie was my first cat where I had to really deal with wounds and scars.

Would you let us know what the vet says? I would be very interested to know what they thought...
h


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

Wow, what a story! :yikes My cat is white, but her "wound area" was much smaller that her bald spot... actually, her wound was really small, maybe a quarter of an inch, while a bald spot is about 3/4"... I've never thought a scar can be smooth, but probably it makes sense in cats...

I'll probably take her to the vet Friday and I'll write about it here.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

I didn't realize her 'spot' was that big. 8O A 1/4" wound and then a 3/4" circle is huge. I would have guessed a bug-bite and reaction, but you saw the wound, scratch(?). Wow, yes, I would love to hear what the vet says. I'm stumped! :lol:


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

Her wound looked like a deep straight cut, not a round bite or something. It looked like a deep cut on a human finger, maybe a deep paper cut, where you can see the edges of a skin part and then get back together when it heals. It formed a crust, then she licked it off, then it was all gone, just a smooth skin with a little dark spot. And all of it is surrounded with a bald spot...


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

It just sounds crazy (to have such hair-loss for an insignificant wound) and I am baffled. :?: 

btw...I can see your two beauties in your avatar, sitting on a quilt. They look gorgeous. 
Is one a lynx point? 
Is the other a silver?
...got any larger pics so we can see them? :mrgreen: They really do look lovely.
h


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

Thank you, these are my girls. The one with a bald spot is in front, she is not fat, just very fluffy. Actually, they are both pretty small (around 7 pounds). This one is a chincilla persian, and the other one is a ragdoll, and yes, she is a lynx point. They sit on a little throw rug. I have more pics at home, but now I'm at work. I guess I can post them in the other topic, where everybody are posting their pics...


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Oh yes, please do! I only recently looked up Chinchilla kitties to see what they looked like and they are GORGEOUS!


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

Yes, they are very pretty... not typical persians with flat faces, just with big eyes...

I'm sorry, I tired to post pictures but it's telling me "board's attachments limit has been reached"...


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Oh! Yeah... The server space dedicated to photos here at Cat Forum has been filled and not addressed, yet. Most members upload and store their photos at PhotoBucket. I like it because it is simple and free. Did I mention it was easy? 
I am so computer illiterate, I *must* have easy/simple, and PB works very well for me.
heidi


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

For the last couple of days the cat seemed to lick the bald spot kind of aggressively, and today we took her to the vet. They did x-rays and found some infection under the skin and told me that even the original wound has healed, some infection was probably still left underneath, so that's why she was licking it, and it was probably bothering her. It seemed she licked it till blood was coming out again. They gave her an antibiotic shot, a painkiller shot, cleaned her wound, put a surgical staple onto it, bandaged it, and gave me more painkillers to give her at home. They also put a soft collar on her and told me to bring her back in 10 days to have her staple removed. And till this time she is supposed to wear the collar, poor creature. When we brought her home, my other cat didn't recognize her, probably because she smelled like other cats, all these vet clinic smells. And maybe because of the collar. So we have to separate them till the evening, because my other cat doesn't like other cats. She is still looking at her with big round eyes, like at some kind of alien, and walks in the opposite end of the room when she is present. Now, my poor sick cat can barely walk because they bandaged her paw kind of straight and she can't step on it, but they told me to remove her bandage tomorrow, so I hope she will be able to walk normally. She didn't lose her appetite though, and happily ate her food and half of other cat's food.  However, I'm kind of concerned about her using a littler box wearing a collar, and also about not being able to groom herself for more than a week - will her fur matt because of it? I'm going to brush her every day to prevent it...


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Well, I think the wrapped-straight paw would give her more problems in the litterbox than a soft collar. Can you "turn the collar down"? It would still prevent access to the wound, but she could see a lot better, which could help her with the litterbox and food/water. The grooming issue, I think if you are able to keep up with brushing that she should be fine. Give special attention to her 'mustn't-touch-it' area and her feet (litterbox issues) in addition to just brushing out the rest of her long coat. You could also remove the collar for short periods where you are there to supervise her the entire time the collar is off, to prevent her from ruining the bandage and irritating the wound. It is pretty common for cats to get wounds and have the skin heal quickly over the wound and infection remains beneath. This is what usually causes abcesses.


Here is a pic of a 'turned-down' fabric/quilted collar I made when one of my foster kittens came back from the spay appt and was bothering her incision area.


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

My collar is pretty similar to this one, only it's made out of padded, kind of vinyl-ly fabric. I put her bowl with food on top of a thick book, so it is easier for her to eat (hey, sometimes you need an encyclopedia in the house!  ) Yesterday night she got out of her collar and jumped into our bed, and I had to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning, look around the house to find her collar, and put it back on. Today me and my husband removed her bandages. It was very hard because the bandage tape was very sticky, and it hurt her when we tried to undo it. I read on the internet it helps to make bandages wet to remove them, so we put her leg in a plastic cup with warm water for a minute, and then we were able to cut them off without hurting her. She seemed to be adjusting to the collar, she used her litter box OK, and she eats well, so we hope she'll be OK. I hope the water didn't hurt her wound, it's not bleeding or anything, and her antibiotic shot is supposed to last for 2 weeks, so we hope her wound will heal soon.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Oh, I'm sure if you patted her leg mostly dry it should be okay. The antibiotics would do a good job even if it did manage to get water-contaminated. If it didn't bleed, I'd say that was okay...
Do keep us posted, I'm interested in how she does.
h


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## mrvmrvmrv (Jul 15, 2009)

Thank you, I will. 

Here she is, my poor baby (yesterdays' photo):


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