Black stuff around cat's mouth

IMPORTANT: If your cat is in any distress or discomfort, please consult your own vet as your first priority.
Epsom-cat-lady
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Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2021 7:36 pm
No. of cats in household: 1
Location: Epsom

Re: Black stuff around cat's mouth

Post by Epsom-cat-lady »

Sorry I should have said it’s brown from her saliva licking the water off her paw.
She doesn’t always do it so the colour comes & goes.
Malcolms Dad
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Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:53 pm

Re: Black stuff around cat's mouth

Post by Malcolms Dad »

In our case we found this black or dark brown crust around the mouth was caused by a particular litter.

A sort of low grade occurrence of mouth crust started when we added some LuvSome (Kroger/Fred Meyer house brand, I believe) litter to the one of our 4 litter boxes. We tried removing all possible allergens (except the litter) in the house and visited the vet multiple times. All the while keeping about one quarter LuSome and three quarters Tidy Cats. We treated him with antibiotics and antihistamines to no avail. When the store ran out of our regular litter during a winter storm, the delivery folks substituted lightweight luvSome litter and his mouth soon got very bad. Our vet said the next step would be a specialist who was booked out for two weeks, so we tied OTC wipes (we had previously tried the prescription ones) and soaking with warm, wet cotton pads. The warm water did a good job of getting the crust off but the irritation remained and he was not happy with us.

THEN I got smart and noted the correlation between introducing the lightweight litter and his mouth getting extra crusty. I removed the box with the offending litter and his mouth cleared up in two days. Today he has no crusties.

It is worth noting that two of our cats responded a few years ago to Arm nd Hammer Zero Dust litter with asthma-like symptoms.
Aquarius13075
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Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2022 7:30 am

Re: Black stuff around cat's mouth

Post by Aquarius13075 »

Hello, I know this is an old post, but thought I'd share my experience with this black tar like substance around my orange cats (Big Boy's) mouth.
Big Boy is the newest cat in my 4 cat(total) home.
He is the only one with these symptoms.
Big Boy was a stray until I brought him in 1.5 years ago. He has been a frequent visitor to our vet. After seeing a lot of inflammation in his mouth and gums. And a dental cleaning did not fix this. He was diagnosed last year with stomatitis. We went to a dental vet/oral surgeon to be evaluated. It was best for him to have all his teeth and roots surgically removed. This in most cases will resolved the stomatitis.
However, this did not cure his problems. He continued to have the inflammation, drooling, sore mouth. Because of this he has now been diagnosed as having refractory stomatitis. He is on a few meds; Cyclosporine and Gabapentin, and will soon be put on metronidazole to try to help resolved or reduce his inflammation.
He is on a soft/wet food diet only and surprisingly enough, eats very well. He is approximately 11 years old, but stomatitis can happen at any age.
I wipe his mouth a few times daily. And due to his slobbers he gets on his coat(tail, paws, body) from curled up sleeping, I wipe those areas with cat wipes and warm wash cloth, then brush him. This helps with his fur hardening to where it would hurt if I tried to brush it.
Anyway, I hope this helps. But this black tar could be caused by him having stomatitis and salivating a lot. Hoping and praying my Big Boy gets to feeling better soon.
Best of care to all your fur-babies too!!
SaFeCoCl
New Cat Chatter
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Joined: Sat May 21, 2022 2:59 am

Re: Black stuff around cat's mouth

Post by SaFeCoCl »

Oh no! I am sorry for all that you are going through - it is most difficult to see our loved ones suffer. I also have a big boy, Sampson, who just had an operation to remove a bunch of bladder stones. He just got home yesterday afternoon and is not being good about taking one of his meds- the other I apply to his ear for absorption, best way ever to deliver medicine. IF anyone has any tricks that work in getting a capsule delivered- tried dissolving and adding to tuna, that's about it.

My big boy has black - tar like whiskers on both sides of his mouth and right at his chin. I pulled a few 'flakes' of it off- and used a warm washcloth to
hopefully loosen it and remove it. His cystoblatomy yesterday has him in a very solitary mood-I bought a bunch of puppy pads as he is still urinating on soft materials- beds, towels, clothing (esp. clean clothing!). Anyone else have their cat have this operation? I hope he is better soon.
Louiedeweyandfrannie
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Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 6:05 pm
No. of cats in household: 3

Re: Black stuff around cat's mouth

Post by Louiedeweyandfrannie »

Hi everyone. Thanks for your helpful posts! I just took my cat to the dermatologist vet for the same issue and wanted to share what I learned… my cat has really bad environmental allergies and so she started atopica and a steroid (prednisolone) about 5 weeks ago. The atopica is an oil based med and she drools a ton after getting it. Apparently the oily meds were staying around her lips and caused acne/blackheads all the way around her lower lips/corner of her mouth. We got some medicated wipes to use once daily and she got an antibiotic shot that should help! Hope this helps someone & everyone’s kitties start feeling better :)
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