icarus | (no subject)

(no subject)

Help.

Kitty has fleas. Bad. We got him this stuff called Frontline. Followed the directions and put it on his shoulders today like you're supposed to.

For a bit he seemed to relax, and for about two hours his scratching went way down.

Now he's acting like the biting is worse than ever. He's scratching the top of his head and his chin and mouth, and he's been panicky, racing around.

Now he's panting and very unhappy, licking and scratching his extremities: face, legs, tail. It's really driving him nuts.

Is there anything we can do?

ETA:

wildernessguru is going to give him a bath with a mild soap, in hopes that will get the immediate fleas off. I've told him to protect his eyes, mouth, ears, nose with petroleum jelly first.

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Topspot treatments like Advantix and Frontline take 72 hours to take full effect. The best way to use it is to bathe the pet, wait two days for natural oils to return, and then apply the treatment. You're not really supposed to bathe them right after giving the treatment, but I understand that your baby is suffering.

wildernessguru may want to wear gloves while bathing the cat so that the treatment doesn't soak into his skin.

Also, this may seem like a dumb question but I've seen it happen before, are you sure you got feline Frontline? Canine Frontline can cause serious nerve damage in cats.

wildernessguru says "Thank you." Just hearing a concerned voice helps, and he says it makes sense that it would take 72 hours to take effect.

We've definitely got the Frontline for cats. *calms racing heart*

My theory is the fleas are "making a break for it" by going to the extremities - the sensitive head, mouth, nose, legs. And biting there. I put the petroleum jelly around his nose and mouth et al for his bath, but I think that's what's helping him most at the moment. I seriously doubt the bath did any good at all.

It's 2:30am here, but he looks a little better.

Boy. Watching him pant and race around was really rough.

Icarus

Can you call a vet to ask if the reaction is cause for any particular action on your part?

I'll ask WG to do that. It's 2:30 in the morning now, so unless they have a 24-hour vet nearby....

Icarus

Oh, good luck *hugs*. It's horrible feeling so panicky and 'useless' when your loved one is distressed. What you're doing sounds good.

WG sends his best wishes to Chooky in his new home. *sniff* We understand.

Icarus

Thanks ::sniff:: I woke up this morning wondering how he is. I suppose I'd better start cleaning up my backyard now.

Well, I don't know Frontline by myself but I have seen cats reacting allergic to a product. So either you can try another product or a collar against fleas.
When you bath him, check his fur not only for living fleas but also for nests.
If his reaction doesn't get better after the bath you may go to the veterinarian to check if he's alright and what could be done.

Hope your kitty get's well soon. It's really heartbreaking when they're suffering.

Thank you. His reaction doesn't follow any of the patterns of allergies listed, but that's definitely something to look out for. He was jumping up and racing around like he was being bitten, and the panting seemed to be from running.

I'm actually not so wrung out, or I normally wouldn't be without WG freaking out and wanting to fix everything for him. There are worse thing in life than the discomfort of fleas. I understand. I had virulent poison ivy that was so bad, I walked through it one weekend, and I itched for nearly 30 days. I poured near-boiling hot water to kill the itching for two hours at a time. Calamine made it worse, actually, even with Benedryl. But it would pass.

wildernessguru on the other hand was panicky and frantic and wanted me to solve everything for him. *sigh* Sometimes I forget he's never had a kitty before, not one he was responsible for anyway. He's really as stressed as the kitty is I think.

No. I think WG's in worse shape than the kitty.

Icarus

Yeah, I can absolutely understand that. I don't have a cat at the moment but when I had one I was nearly the same when it was sick or something else. And my partner's not better than me, just worse.
But although it's really scary (but in some special way also a bit funny) to see someone freak out when you'd thought he's the calm one. Especially when it's such a trivial thing.

Wish you luck with calming them both down.

The low-tech flea control method: take one fine-toothed comb, and a basin of soapy water. (Water must be soapy, since in plain water the fleas tend to float and escape.) Comb cat. Pick the fleas out of the comb and drown them. Keep doing this until the number of fleas on cat decreases significantly.

Vacuum/sweep your floors, a lot. Assume flea eggs are everywhere.

Try something that makes the fleas infertile. Program (http://www.petwellness.com/cat_program_about.asp) works.

(Based on experience with my-cat-before-Bestia. She was such a flea magnet.)

Ditto on the Program. Frontline only kills the adults - Program keeps them from reproducing.

On a side note, Program is also effective against chronic ringworm when used for a few months in a row (but its use for that is offlabel).

Oh, I thought Frontline kept them from reproducing. Shoot.

Well, it turned out he was allergic to Frontline, so now I think my chief flea control is going to be brutal baths and the ever-popular vaccuum cleaner. Because I'm really scared of giving him any kind of poison now.

Icarus

Program is really, really, really nontoxic, liquid and can be squeezed into a fatty meal (like a can of food) once every month or so - after about 6 months you should be able to stop. That would be a good option to try - adverse event database for Frontline is much bigger than the adverse event database for Program (I'm looking at them right now).

Frequent, harsh bathing is only going to dry out his skin and coat and make him itchy, and it doesn't get rid of fleas. Bathing with flea shampoo is only effective because the toxins stay on the skin and hair and kill the fleas - they hang on to the skin and aren't washed away by water. Regular shampoo doesn't kill them. Poor fellow - I feel so bad for them when they have fleas!

You know what we used to do for our barn cats, we used to add garlic and brewer's yeast supplements to their food. Allegedly it makes the blood taste ucky and the fleas diminish. Come to think of it I first noticed fleas again on my dog this year when I stopped giving her the garlic/yeast tablets as treats because she smelled like an italian kitchen :)

It turned out that Monte-kitty was allergic to the Frontline. He's just recovering now after a rough week. I'm a little nervous about trying another poison on him. *shudders*

Icarus

Lots and lots of bathes for kitty. You'll probably want to wash any bedding, clothing, etc kitty has been on and vacum real good. If you have flea powder shake it around on the carept too.

You might also want to buy a flea collar to put in your vacuum if it's the bag kind. That way you won't have fleas making their escape from there. My vet suggested taking the bit of the collar that you snip off for size and putting it in the vacuum every time I change the collar.

A little trick for immediate relief from fleas: Fill a bucket with warm water and place it in the bath tub. Submerge the cat up to the neck (you may need two people for this... or more, depending on your cat's level of water hysteria) and keep him there for 15 minutes. The fleas will all drown or run for his face, where you can pick them off and drown/crush them. This won't get the eggs, but it will give him a rest from the bites until you sort out his medication. It does sound as though he's had an allergic reaction, either to the fleas or the medication or both, so you may want to consult your vet. Eggs get everywhere, so you'll want to wash anything the cat has access to and vaccuum the carpets with some flea-control powder.

The chin is the worst. Try, if you can, to get the eggs off his chin with one of those special flea combs.

I'm sorry, I don't have any advice or methods for getting rid of fleas. I had a cat when I was a kid though, but I don't remember what we did to get rid of fleas.

I really hope your kitty feels better now, sounds like torture.

The best way to manually kill fleas when you see them is to squish them between your thumbnails. They make a satisfying little "pop". I'm sorry if that sound gruesome. I say satisfying only because I know I help my cat when she has fleas. And flea combs are you best friend while you wait for meds. Too many baths are bad because they remove natural oils. (Which they need- a lot. They can get dry skin really bad.)

PS Dont worry, they dont actually bleed like that when you squish them. I was just being weird while drawing- sorry.

PPS Read this (http://cat-box.net/cats/fleas.html). There's a holistic approach section. :)

Um. Yeah. I think the karma's a hell of a lot worse if you go out and kill them yourself, just because of the mental attitude it generates.

I've been quietly cringing at the helpful suggestions such as "drown them" "have them drawn and quartered" "evisceration is the best method" -- I don't like killing them at all. I'm interested in this Program thing because it seems to sterilize them, which means you end up killing fewer fleas, which is the goal.

Icarus

http://www.fleafree.co.uk/index2.html

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