(no subject)

[icarus]

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.

Comments

[mctabby.livejournal.com]

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.)

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

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).

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

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

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

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 :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

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