There are also some types of "benign" skin 
growths that can cause itchiness (although 
usually ferrets are more suseptible to those 
types). But as was mentioned in the previous 
post, you *DO* want to find out what this is and 
not just chalk it up to stress. If nothing has 
changed in the environment or lifestlye and 
suddenly you have a cat licking itself bald, 
chances are good something *ELSE*, not stress, is 
the root cause.

Sorry to be off topic too, but I'm a vet tech for 
a VERY good vet who flatly refuses to see any 
given symptom broken down to just one thing. Good 
veterinary medicine, like good human medicine, 
necessitates thinking of everything, not just the
"usually".I encourage you to get a second opinion 
on your poor little kitty, Evil. Like people, 
pets don't just get stressed for no reason, no 
matter what their age. If your cat is doing as 
you say, it's uncomfortable and you should try to 
find some way of helping it.

And just so you know, I would walk straight out 
the door of any vet who told me that the solution 
to my pet's problem was to drug it to the point 
that it's brain didn't register there was a 
problem. That's lunacy. Perhaps sedate a pet if 
there is a temporary situation that only needs 
some time to clear up (like an itchy surgical 
incision, or a "hotspot" that needs only to be 
left alone for a couple days to heal), but sedate 
it for it's whole life so you don't have to 
figure out what's really going on? A vet 
suggesting that should be fired.

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac