“Our cat Oscar, who we rescued nearly 4 years ago, has developed a bad acne problem…At first we had no idea it was even acne…We saw things on his hin, and assumed he had gotten into a cat fight..But no; its acne..We have popped several of the zits: and wash his chin with soap….We also use Stridex acne pads…and last Thursday we took him to the veterinarian’s, and she prescribed Panalog Ointment..It’s an anti-bacterial cream…plus she popped 4 zits at that time…She told us to keep the zits popped: but that isn’t easy to do for us..I hate causing Oscar pain..We changed over to glass food bowls..Washing Oscar’s chin is very difficult..my hubby and I get scratched a lot! Any other ideas: oh, we put an Epson/Water solution rag on his chin for 5 minutes a day..that draws out the pus, we have heard..Any other ideas? It isn’t getting better even with all we’ve been doing for Oscar. We feed Oscar Iams cat food.”
Alison
Hi Alison,
Cat acne is a systemic problem. It is an act of the body enlisting a secondary avenue for the elimination of wastes, because the primary organs of elimination can’t keep up with all the waste being produced (primarily) by the indigestible food the cat is being fed (Iams). If the cat has acne, s/he likely has other issues, too, and it would be very easy for you to remove the cause of them.
It couldn’t be more painfully obvious that vets don’t have a clue about how to keep cats healthy when one of them advises you to break open the skin and administer toxic pharmaceuticals onto the open injury. Doing so not only causes more unnecessary stress and suffering for the cat but allows this medication that is meant to be used topically to more efficiently enter the bloodstream. The worst part is that it complicates and impedes something the body is doing deliberately, in response to a greater problem. It’s bad enough that a cat has acne, but to follow this advice would make it so much worse. If there was any sanity in the world at all, this kind of negligence would be punished. Instead, it is rewarded.
Why not try to figure out WHY the cat has acne in the first place, and stop whatever is causing it? Is it so much of a mental task to figure out that nothing in a cat’s long biological history would prepare him/her to subsist on rendered body parts, cooked and re-cooked, mixed with various other indigestible substances and agents whose only purpose is to disguise the harmfulness of the food so the cat will eat it? The vet industry has side-stepped the task of identifying causes with their umbrella ‘theory’ (it doesn’t even qualify as a real theory) that bacteria, viruses or other microscopic organisms cause disease. The idea that an appropriate response to cat acne would be to kill the bacteria on the surface of the skin or switch to glass bowls is nothing short of ignorant voodoo quackery, similar to blaming disease on evil spirits. Doing these things will have no effect on the symptom. The body will eventually clear it up, just as it would if nothing had been done, and it will re-occur later, ensuring more income for your vet. That it will also ensure more suffering for your cat is not something your vet has the luxury of concerning himself (or herself) with. He was not trained to seek out and remove the cause of disease. He was trained to believe that what he’s doing is best for animals AND for his industry. Only we on the outside of that system can recognize that it isn’t possible to serve both masters at the same time.
It is extremely cheap and easy to raw feed cats. Meats and poultry can be had nowadays for pennies per pound, if you wait for the sales and stock up. I’ve never done a calculation comparing a food like Iams to raw food but with the attendant periodic vet visit thrown in, you’d be ahead money to feed raw. All it takes is one serious illness, which strikes most kibble fed animals regularly, and you’re WAY ahead. There’s a reason why Iams is a vet-approved food. It (and all commercial pet food) keeps vets in business.
Cats can be difficult to transition, as I’ve mentioned before. They don’t like change, so improvements have to be made very slowly and gradually. However, dietarily speaking they are pretty one-dimensional once they are transitioned. If you’re interested in transitioning your cat to a natural diet, there are some strategies that are very effective in getting them to accept the new foods. I’ve made a short list of them and would be happy to send them to anyone who emails me privately.
Best wishes, Nora