Urticaria, a nasty rash that can be caused by your cat! (Animal Allergies in General)

Member Name: essjay

Product:	Animal Allergies in General
Date:	13/03/03 (1090 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It wasn't fleas

Disadvantages: I no longer have cats

Let me take you back about two years to start this story. I had three cats, two which I had as kittens and a third which I had adopted from our local animal shelter.

We all lived happily, but not ever after. About this time I fell pregnant, this was excellent news and couldn't wait for baby to arrive to complete the household. It was about this time of year, when Winter is turning into Spring and the days are getting a bit warmer. This is also the time of year when the dreaded flea population awakes, breeds itself into a frenzy, and inhabits the fur and fluff on your animals.

No surprises then when a few 'bites' appeared on my ankles. I had never had to de-flea the cats over the Winter as regulaly as the Summertime and thought a trip to the local vets was in order to purchase some Frontline Spot on. This had proved an excellent flea killer in the past.

The cats were de flea'd.

The 'bites' continued.

The cats were de flea'd again.

The 'bites' continued.

I bought some powder to do the house, and some more frontline for the cats.

Still 'biting'

By this time my ankles and arms were red raw, itching and were spattered with what I can only describe as similar to a stinging nettle sting. They were a red patch with a small raised bite bump in the middle.

This continued for about 18 months, the cats were checked for fleas, but none found. Still I kept up frantically de fleaing the animals and house upto and after baby arrived. During this time is struck me as a bit strange (or unlucky for me) that neither my other half or baby were getting bitten.

About the time I went back to work part time I was chatting to a new friend, the subject got onto cats (she has 2). She was telling me about her allergy to them and how she has to keep them pretty much outside because of it. She said she didn't get the usual sniffy nose and runny eyes
we all think of when you talk about pet allergies, she got a rash. She showed me the rash on her arm and I nearly fell over. It looked exactly the same as the 'flea bites' I had been getting.

I started looking into the subject and had a browse on the internet for some more information. The NHS Direct website was really usefull and had pictures alongside the information on Urticaria, a hives/nettle type rash associated with pet allergies, among other things. What I thought was the bite bump in the middle was in fact a small blister (which more often than not, was missed because it was scratched)

At this time I didn't know what to do, all along I had been consistantly and methodically cleaning and de-fleaing the house and cats thinking it just must have been a really bad year for them. (Also feeling a bit yucky and disgusting for having such a bad flea problem)

A plan was hatched, in our house we are able to shut off the kitchen so that the cats could come in there but not access the rest of the house. They wouldn't have to stay out in the cold at night, but we could uncover the real identity of the cause of my itchy blotches.

As anyone who has animals knows they do pick up fleas and bring them into the house, but if the animal is unwell or not there they attack the next best thing (ie me). So if I ended up bitten to shreds, we had fleas, if I didn't and didn't get any more 'bites' it was an allergy.

What a nightmare situation, on the one hand you really don't want to discover you are infested with blood sucking inscects, on the other hand if it was an allergy what next.

Plan put into action, we waited. Almost immediatley there were no more 'bites'. We waited a few more days and nothing, not even a little itch.

After another few days and much heartwrenching discussion I decided it wasn't really an option to keep the cats locked outside all the time. They we
re used to being able to roam the house freely and didn't really understand what was going on now they were not. I spoke with a really lovely lady at one of our local animal shelters, dedicated mainly to cats. She told me that it was actually pretty common to become allergic to things whilst you are pregnant (which is when it all started). This usually goes away once you have the baby, unfortunatley mine didn't.

She said she could take my cats and re-home them somewhere really nice and that they could go together if possible, if not the two who were most fond of each other would not be split.

The day came, it was very sad, I don't really want to say much more than that.

I have learned something new, which I thought I'd pass on. Pet allergies are not always weepy eyes and runny noses, sneezing and coughing. I had none of these, just a nasty itchy rash on my ankles (they used to be constantly rubbing round them) and my arms where I used to rest them on the arm of the sofa next to a sleeping cat.

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