Does your cat have allergies?

What Are Allergies?
When a cat has allergies, her immune system is overly sensitive to certain everyday substances and begins to identify them as dangerous. Even though these substances—or allergens—are usually common in most environments and harmless to most animals, a cat with allergies will have an extreme reaction to them. As her body tries to rid itself of these substances, she may show a variety of symptoms.

What Are the General Symptoms of Allergies in Cats?
Sneezing, coughing (if the cat has asthma), wheezing
Itchy skin/increased scratching
Itchy, runny eyes
Itchy back or base of tail (most commonly seen in flea allergies)
Itchy ears and ear infections
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Snoring caused by an inflamed throat
Paw chewing/swollen paws

Can Cats Be Allergic to Food?

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Vaccine could cure cat allergies, study suggests

Sniffly-nosed kitten-lovers rejoice: A new vaccine could soon banish allergies to cats.

The vaccine isn't ready for prime time yet, but a new study finds that the shots are safe, researchers reported March 31 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. They're also effective at reducing allergic reactions, the researchers reported.

About 10 percent of people are allergic to cats. Currently, the only solutions are to stay far away from felines or to get multiple injections of kitty allergens to help the body build up a tolerance. But that process can take years, wrote McMaster University immunologist and study researcher Mark Larche.

Larche and his colleagues developed the vaccine by isolating the protein shed by cats that causes the most allergic reactions. They then used blood samples from people with cat allergies to determine which segment of the cat protein binds to and activates immune cells. (An allergic reaction occurs when the immune system interprets benign substances, such as cat dander, as invaders and launches an attack.)


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