How to Treat Cat Acne

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about how to treat cat acne or feline acne. Feline acne is actually poorly understood as far as there are multiple ways that they think it forms. Essentially it is on the chin and it's basically pustules, pimples if you will, from irritation. And there are a lot of things that we think could cause feline acne and again, it's kind of poorly understood. Poor grooming habits, allergic types of causes, irritants, things like that have all been suggested as types of causes to feline acne. It can be troublesome because it can be painful and long term. Cats can actually get feline acne and once it's treated it can come back later. There always needs to be a diagnosis from your veterinarian clinic first because there can be other things going on with the chin that may not be feline acne. Typical ways to deal with feline acne are to keep the chin clean, eliminate anything that you think could be an irritant and one culprit for years has been plastic food bowls. Now plastic can be an allergic type of source to a lot of animals and cause irritation on the chin and face and so going to a ceramic or metal bowl would be the best way to go for that. Secondly, after a diagnosis is made, your clinic may prescribe oral antibiotics because this is essentially an infection or a topical anti-inflammatory and antibiotics as well. But check with your clinic first. The feline acne usually manifests itself on the chin and you can have large pustules all over the chin with black discharge and this is usually very irritating and you can't squeeze these pustules out and get rid of them that way, you have to treat this with some sort of topical and so check with your veterinarian clinic first to get a diagnosis and they can help you through the process of treatment."