sensitive cat ears

moco

We have a white cat, she's about 15 yrs old now. In the last year or so her ears are bleeding all the time. We took her to the vet and she said that because she's white her skin is very sensitive and that she gets sunburnt which causes her ears to bleed. The vet said to either keep her inside all the time, put suncream on her ears or that she could cut her ears off, but no matter how short she cut them the same thing would happen.

We tried keeping her inside but she just goes mental and is really unhappy as she's an outside cat. We put on suncream, but she licks it straight off. Her ears are really bad now, they're just a bloody mess cos she keeps picking the scab off. She looks awful and a bit of her ear actually came off with the scab yesterday.

Any ideas on what to do?

seamus

There's not a whole lot you can do. My fiance's cat has the exact same problem, being albino.

For a long time, her ears had little or no fur on them at the tips. She'd scratch the whole time and whenever she got some sun, they'd look like cooked bacon. Same problems as you describe - she'd hate people touching her ears and suncream was useless.

They went to one vet who recommended removing the entire ear, but another vet said that she could remove only the hairless bits and round off the edge - folding some of the good "furry" skin over the new tip. So they went with that - the cat looks more like a teddy bear now with her little rounded ears, but she doesn't look like a complete freak
The ears are still a bit senstive and she stills scratches from time to time, but the ends still have fur on them, so she doesn't suffer even remotely as much as she used to.

It was a female vet in Terenure, the name escapes me, but I can find out if you want.

Toulouse

Yeah, go see another vet! How has this never happened before in all her 15 years and remember last year was one of the worst summers we had in that time.

moco

Well we live in the north so I'll suggest the teddy bear ears thing to our vet and see if she can do it.

I really don’t know why it hasn't happened her before. Maybe her constant scratching any picking at them has just never allowed it to heal up. It could have been a problem for a while but we mightn't have noticed when she wasn't bleeding. Even her nose is starting now, she looks miserable, poor thing.

I was gonna try and make her an ear-muff contraption but I can't see her agreeing to wear it.:o

cotton

Suncream does work on the ears. I've a 19yr old white cat who's ears were in a right state when we got her. She's indoors but sits at the glass doors & bakes herself during the day.:) I've used a sunblock spray on her ears for years & her ears are perfect. The spray absords more quickly & is well worth giving a go. I'd try to let the ears heal up first though.

AntiVirus

We used to have an old cat with the same problem as your's. The vet cut the ears down alot and once they had healed the cat was much happier than before.

The cat looked a lot more like a ferret after the operation!

moco

AntiVirus wrote: »

We used to have an old cat with the same problem as your's. The vet cut the ears down alot and once they had healed the cat was much happier than before.

The cat looked a lot more like a ferret after the operation!

Did the tops not burn again?

moco

seamus wrote: »

There's not a whole lot you can do. My fiance's cat has the exact same problem, being albino.

For a long time, her ears had little or no fur on them at the tips. She'd scratch the whole time and whenever she got some sun, they'd look like cooked bacon. Same problems as you describe - she'd hate people touching her ears and suncream was useless.

They went to one vet who recommended removing the entire ear, but another vet said that she could remove only the hairless bits and round off the edge - folding some of the good "furry" skin over the new tip. So they went with that - the cat looks more like a teddy bear now with her little rounded ears, but she doesn't look like a complete freak
The ears are still a bit senstive and she stills scratches from time to time, but the ends still have fur on them, so she doesn't suffer even remotely as much as she used to.

It was a female vet in Terenure, the name escapes me, but I can find out if you want.

Do you know how much it cost to have this done? We're gonna check if our vet can do it but if not we might bring Scraggy down here.

AntiVirus

moco wrote: »

Did the tops not burn again?

No the ears were trimmed down alot, he never had a problem after that.

moco

Our cat had to be put down today My mum brought it to the vet to see if she could give her the teddy bear ears but she examined her and said she had cancer in her ears, nose and mouth. RIP scraggy.:(

MsFifers

So sorry to hear that. It must be very upsetting to lose a pet you've had for so long.
At least she had a good ol' long & happy life.