I had a doctor’s appointment about my migraines this afternoon. This was the reschedule of the one from 2 weeks ago, when my car wouldn’t start. Everything went pretty much as I figured it would. They’re going to schedule me for a MRI to see if anything shows up. I should find out sometime tomorrow my MRI appointment time. They also gave me a prescription to help prevent them, instead of just treating them after they start. We’ll see how well that works. I’m on the meds for a month before going back to see how I’m doing.
After my appointment, I had to head home and pick up my cat, Mali, for her doctor visit. She will yowl like crazy as soon as she’s put in her crate, all the way until she gets to the vet’s office. But, oddly, once she’s there, her personality shifts. The yowling stops, she allows strangers to pet/touch her, and doesn’t try to hide. If we were at home, she wouldn’t let a stranger get within 5 feet of her. But, that is beside the point. For the past 10 months or so, Mali has been chewing off her own fur. It started with a small patch on her stomach, and has grown. Her entire lower abdomen, the underside of her tail, and the inside of her hind legs are all nearly bald. She added two new stripes down the outside of her back legs while I was out of town this weekend.
She’s had a couple of vet visits about this before. The first time around, she was on allergy medication for a month. That didn’t help much at all. Second round, she had a steroid shot. It only slightly helped, but the behavior didn’t go away. The vet has diagnosed her with psychogenic neurodermatitis (very similiar to psychogenic alopecia) – a behavior done out of anxiety/stress. Just our luck, Siamese and other Oriental breeds are more prone to this condition. Our next course of action is to give her an anti-anxiety medication (amitriptyline) twice a day for at least a month. If that helps, then she’ll stay on the meds, I think. If not, we’re on to potentially painful testing to try and figure out what’s going on. I really don’t want to put her through any of that, so I’m hoping the meds work.