I asked for advice on here a while back about my cat who wouldnt stop scratching and had cuts.

The vet removed a tick, and gave us antibioticsfor th cuts to heal. She also gave us Frontline in case he had fleas, although she hadnt found any on him.

For the past few weeks he has been fne, but we went on holiday last week, and while we were away my mum looked after him and his sister.

He's been scratching non stop since we got back, so yesterday I applied more flea stuff, and groomed him, but didnt find any fleas. He has little scabs on his side that he keeps licking.

However last night he came for a cuddle that lasted 6 hours, and didnt scratch once! Surely if he had fleas he would have scratched during that period?He has been scratching and nibbling again today, but has been sat on my lap for past hour and not scratched.

Ay ideas why he is hurtn himself??

i fostered a cat for cats protection a few years ago that over groomed/sctrached when he was upset. Triggered usually by being on his own/not enough attention. When he was alone, he'd overgroom - Its something to do with phermones realised when they groom (maybe not quite the same as your cats scratching). I'd speak to the vet about it - we ended up with plug in's for the cat i had, which calmed him down.

Thanks for the quick reply. It's strange because we've had him for two years now, and he gets loads of attention bless him!

It might not be attention, think things can just set cats off sometimes! They're funny creatures - My cats wont leave you alone some nights, then others have no interest in you whatsoever!

Some cats self-harm as a reaction to trauma, but then there are others who just need to be bored to set themselves up for it and my old lad Arthur doesn't deliberately self-harm but he DOES actively enjoy scratching himself until he bleeds (and then scratching the healing wounds until he opens them up again, and again, and again).

After excluding lots of things we decided (that's the vet and me) that he's not doing himself any major harm by having a scratch so apart from keeping his claws clipped short so minimising any damage that he does I just apply Fuciderm to the sores twice every day. Fuciderm has an antibiotic and an antifungal in it and also a steroid to prevent inflammation and stop the itching of a healing wound as well.

All it does is to keep the healing wound clean and stops it itching long enough that it heals and once it's got clear skin on he leaves it alone- until something makes him open up another patch in a week or two.

There are times when he goes weeks and weeks without opening up any wounds, but then he goes months without having scabs all over himself too.

My first cat used to do herself serious damage (concussion, deep puncture wounds etc) when she self-harmed. She was very disturbed and her situation was altogether more worrying. That was a trauma reaction, due to the stress of her home situation before she went into the Shelter, and it took 6 months before she stopped doing it to herself.

I felt like it was much more important that she stopped than with Arthur- he's not really hurting himself as long as the wounds are kept clean and heal again.

In all honesty there are only so many things that one can do to remove the potential causes of this sort of behaviour- if your cat is happy in himself then his self-harming could be rooted in anything from separation anxiety to boredom. If you do your best to provide him with a happy and healthy home and relieve boredom then there's not a lot else you can do (apart from treating any wounds of course).