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Why is my cat scratching, acting strange, and caterwauling at night?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Cat | Mixed Breed | Female | 5 months and 18 days old

I think my cat has a feline miliary dermatitis and she keeps on acting weird because of it. She lays and scratches her back onto the floor. And at night, she keeps on caterwauling too. What can I do about this aside from bringing her to the vet?

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Dr. Massimo Orioles, DVM, Cert AVP, MRCVS

Veterinarian

Published on December 29th, 2018

Hi, and thanks for your question. This could be due to an allergy, although it could also be infection or mites. The treatment would depend on the underlying cause. First of all, in order to rule out skin parasites, you will need to treat with a high quality flea treatment, then ask the vet to perform a skin scrape - this might reveal an infection or a mite infestation. If all of those came back negative, the next step is to treat the allergy symptomatically and try to discover the cause of the allergy. Three main type of allergies are usually affecting pets: food allergies, flea and parasite related ones and environmental type (allergens coming from trees, pollens, dust etc etc). Some medications can be given by the vet in order to repair any possible skin lesions (like steroids and antibiotics). Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further. If this answer was helpful please let us know, this will be used to improve our service!

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