I just wanted to share my experiences with kitty skin allergies, in case it is helpful for others who are dealing with this frustrating issue.

About 5 years ago Meko who has beautiful long silky grey fur (rescued pedigree Nebelung) started itching and licking it off. The familiar baldness pattern of tummy, legs, ass, paws, sides - anywhere he could reach he would lick lick like crazy. My ex husband had just left in a divorce and he had also started eating Pro-plan dry food.

The best vet in Milwaukee referred us to Dr McKeaver - the specialist in kitty behaviour for Minnesota and Wisconsin.
McKeaver put Meko on medication - which made him uncommunicatve and unhappy. Meko seemed zombiefied.
We hated seeing him like that so he was only on it for a few weeks.

Next it was suggested to be a food allergy. McKeever said there was no point testing for the allergy cos that wasn't v successful (needle in a haystack scenarios) unless we wanted to spend lots of money. (thou's prob)

So Meko went on Hill's z/d diet. After 6 months he was still licking like crazy.

Next I moved to healthier catfood as I was becoming enlightened thanks to the teachings of "That woman" and others on this tribe.
We tried various foods and settled on Natural Balance allergy formula. It was recalled a month ago and I had been having issues with the wet food (cans exploding, being contaminated, probably due to improper storage etc) so i started making catfood and moved the cats onto
innova evo grain free (to avoid melamine risk altogether) and addiction's brushtail possum. Right now, I'm supplementing the canned with the homemade, but the cats are loving the food. They still get dry food at night (Innova Evo grain free) which keeps them happy.

Above all, for the first time in years, Meko's fur is growing back! He's still a bit licky but he looks so handsome and his fur looks great!

My presumption is that he had grain allergies OR that the supplementary food has higher doses of Omega 3/6's from the wild salmon oil I put in it. It's one or the other (or both).

Thanks loads to everyone here who helped. (and no thanks to the vets who took my money and failed to cure Meko)
Even the recall was fortuitous in that it pushed me to try making catfood and onto grain free foods.

I'll post some pics soon so you can see his fuzzy butt!

Beast wishes,
Mekachu