: How to locate trigger of atopic dermatitis If you know that a cat has atopic dermatits (diagnosed by veterinarian), how can you know what triggers it? How can you know if the trigger is inside or outside, in the food or something

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One of my cats has this, and my vet suggested (a) trial and error and (b) if that didn't work, allergy testing.

Often the problem is food. In this case, you move the cat to an exclusive diet of a new protein (like rabbit or duck -- there are prescription diets for this) for several weeks. If the symptoms get better then there's a food allergy involved; at this point you can re-introduce one prior food type (chicken, beef, etc) and see what happens. If the symptoms don't return you can just stick with that food type; if they do return, you have to iterate. (You could just stick with the prescription food, but it's usually a lot more expensive than regular food so you probably don't want to.) According to this answer, the most common food allergies in cats are chicken, fish, corn, wheat, and soy. If it does turn out to be a food reaction, you have to be careful with food mixes, treats, and anything your cat might find outdoors if you let it outside.

If it doesn't seem to be a food reaction, or if you just don't want to go through all that, vets can do an allergy test. I don't know if this test actually tells you what the cat is allergic to; in my case it was recommended as a prelude to formulating an allergy medication. We used a different medicine instead, one that doesn't have to be customized for the cat, so I don't have experience with this test.