Thanks for the replies.
Haven't long been back from the vets to pick up Blackie's latest blood + urine results and had a word with her about how much Blackie gets stressed by this treatment. A shrug of her shoulders and a look on her face was enough to tell me that though she understood/sympathised, the treatment has to continue. She said the main aim of the spray was to minimise the skin inflammation in an effort to stop him breaking the skin with the tiny barbs that are on a cat's tongue. She understands what a stressy and difficult cat he is but again said she doesn't want to give him any internal steroid treatment.
When she first prescribed this spray she did suggest putting it on some lint and dabbing his skin with it as he might not like the sound of the spray. We tried that the first time - but there are so many patches underneath and at the top of his hind legs that needed dabbing, it took longer than Blackie would stay still for - in the end my OH was struggling to keep him still and upright, and Blackie managed to get away before I'd finished.
So we gave that idea up and decided to spray him because its quicker. Even then he's a real handful. Perhaps I'll have another go with the lint- though I suspect its more to do with the fact that Blackie hates being handled.
Anyway - this apart, the best news was about his blood/urine results. While I was expecting Blackie's urine/protein levels to be worse than 3 months ago (when he was borderline proteinuric), there's now very little protein in his urine - well within the normal range. I think the vet was as pleased with the results as I was. Everything else was in the normal range except the usg at 1.025 which she says may not be 100% accurate as he has so much added water to his wet food. No need to change his diet - and no need (yet anyway) to feed him food that has low protein. Feed whatever he likes as long as its got Ipakitine added with it.
I could have picked Blackie up and given him a kiss when I got home ... except he'd have hated it
