Cat rubbing cheek - open sore

Hi all,

wondering if any of the vet-types can help ... one of my cats has been obsessed with rubbing his cheek scent gland (just one) to the point of open sore. He doesn't scratch it, just rubs it. I have no idea why ... thought it was healing but it isn't, it's about the size of a 1c piece ...

I'm going to take him to the vet tomorrow, wondering if there are any questions I should ask etc or any ideas as to why this would happen?

The googling I've done suggest its an allergy, but its just on the one side of the face only, and he's not scratching it with claws as if it was itching. So I'm thinking it's more behavioual for my little man.

mayb fleas?? or a tick? have u had a close look? has the cat been in long grass latley?? also may just be a habit it has picked up.

He's an inside cat. Too much wildlife for him to hurt outside!

hrmmmmm odd. mayb its an attention thing? has anything changed in the household? are u paying less attention to him?? It really could have been anything.. a spider bite.. just anything really. But u need to stop him from rubbing it.. like putting a cone around his neck? i know it looks sad but u dont want it getting infected. Let me know what the vet doc says.

aww :( poor kitty.
If it's behavioural they can give him kitty prozac to help him get over it.

Hey Kaz,
if you get no joy from the vets around here (and I'd recommend heading straight to Narre Nth's WoofPurNay!!), then there's always Carol Freeman in Narre Nth (around the corner from WPN off Heatherton Rd), who is an animal naturopath type. If you want to hear about her success rate, the lady at Belgrave Pet Supplies (in Tecoma...guess it was too hard to change her name when she moved!), can tell you about Carol's work on her Old English Sheepdogs (she breeds and shows), even though she's a self-confessed sceptic (former physics lecturer, amongst other things) and can't figure out how she does it using her 'hocus pocus'! She also has Carol's business card.
My own anecdote is with my big dog. This time last year he looked absolutely rotten - open sores that had holes underneath them (press them for blood to come bubbling out sort of thing), bare patches all over him his formerly beautiful short Shepherd coat (he's a Dane x Alsatian x) and was visibly miserable and STINKY! Round after round after round of bigger and bigger doses of cortisone and we gave up. Even the fantastic vets at Narre Nth said they couldn't figure it out that he wasn't responding to the demodectic mange treatment, not even a bit. And they didn't object at all when we mentioned a naturopath - they said sometimes Carol fixes what they just can't scientifically figure out.
Well, weren't they impressed when we took him back for immunisations and he was his former beautiful but MUCH visibly happier self!
Carol worked on various fronts to get the physical aspect right. Whatever she did, and sent me home with (ALL for $50, including the follow up session!) just started to work within a fortnight.
Food for thought :)
I hope it stops, it's so distressing to see a pet tear themselves apart, literally :(

Thanks Mayaness - I usually see Peter down at Belgrave South, he was wonderful when my old dog had cancer, but although he can give potions to heal the wounds, he (the cat) keeps causing them again.

Will pop into the pet store tomorrow

If its not fleas, tick or anything else that could be irritating him. I think it might be a behavioural issue. My cat went through a weird phase of spending hours licking his belly it got to the point where he was completely bald on his belly. We though he had fleas or an irritation took him to the vet and he just said that it seems that hes obsessed with cleaning himself. Because he would spend hours licking he would have horrible fur balls and would throw up his food. He started to lose weight. We rubbed some stuff on his belly to stop him licking and he ended up licking above his tail bald. That was about 4 years ago and now he seems to be alright now. He sometimes has his weird days and we kinda knock him so he stops doing it.

I hope you figure out whats wrong with your kitty :)

Yep, Odin's issue was a 'behavioural' one. He hadn't ever quite recovered from having pneumonia as a pup (he was about 9 weeks old and nearly didn't it through the night at the vet down the hill) and his liver and kidneys had been working inefficiently ever since - hence his body dealt with toxins by releasing them through the skin instead of the waste system. That was just one of the conclusions the 'hocus pocus' came up with, along with the emotional trauma of both leaving his litter (born in a shelter, one of 10) and then the upheaval of my son being born (which I KNOW upset him, he didn't look me in the eye for AGES), then, less than a year later we get a new dog. So, it all kind of fit in for me in an unquantifiable way, the way a skin swab couldn't detect.
Once we dealt with the physiological things we could also work with the other things and he is a much more confident dog ever since - his bark even changed and he's not intimidated by DS anymore, or even of the little dog.
And no more hacking away at himself. We still supplement his feeds with the things that keep his insides healthy.
So, yes, 'behavioural', but not just out of nowhere - we treated him holistically instead of symptomatically after just going for the symptoms like we had been.

My cat has/had the same thing - hers was on her cheek and near her ears on both sides originally. The vet said ear mites - which in the end it wasn't when I went to a different vet. It was an allergy - she got cortisone tablets and put on a low allergy diet. One side is completely healed, the other has a tiny spot still getting there. It has taken months and months, simply because it's such an easy place to scratch.
The first vet got her in an elizabethan collar which she hated and had on for months - poor girl. As soon as it came off, she'd re open the scar again!
Good luck

Yeah - those collars are good for temporary things like injuries. Odin had his on for months because he'd just keep hacking when it came off :(

Azzy still rubs his cheek by getting against corners of things which fit "inside" the collar.

Thanks for your help ladies :)