Kitty Stressed Out

Apparently Car is stressed out. This sounds like a bad joke, really. How the hell can my CAT be stressed out? All she does is sit around and wrestle The Wiz. I brought her to the vet today because she has lost a ton of hair on her backside. She's got big bald patches on her back and her butt and her hind legs. I thought maybe it was fleas or a skin parasite or something. She's looking really mangey.

The vet looked both kitties over and saw no signs of fleas, and he did some other tests and found no other parasites or anything. From the looks of it, he said, she is just working her own hair off. And then from constantly licking at her fur, she got infection in her hair folicles, so now she's got some itchy scabs on her skin. Poor kitty! He said "I notice she's pretty high-strung" and suggested that we might consider giving her valium if the problem continues. For now, though, we're supposed to keep her a little bit hungry (so she can direct her attention to an external worry--food), and he prescribed her some codeine that we're supposed to give her twice a day. The codeine is supposed to alleviate the itching. Anyone know a good kitty therapist?

Update: I had the medications messed up. The vet prescribed her a hydrocortizone pill, and another pill, Clavamox, to treat the infections. No codeine. My bad.