To think expensive flea treatment should actually kill fleas?

[Alanisadick]

Some of you may remember my threads about Alan the cat pissing in shopping bags and infesting my house with rodents.

This time, it’s not exactly his fault, but he and his sister Hattie are bloody riddled with fleas. I diligently apply advocate to them every month from the vets, at just over £20 a month, and as far as I can tell it does absolutely fuck all. DD1 seems to be susceptible to flea bites and always has scabby ankles, for some reason they don’t seem to bite me and dd2. Have indorexed the house and hoovered, but the key problem as far as I can tell is that the flea stuff doesn’t actually kill the fleas on the cats.

I bought a flea comb a couple of weeks ago and I am doing daily ‘nit checks’ on the cats, and finding many live fleas on them each day, despite the fact that in theory they should still be covered by the advocate.

The vet nurse suggested trying the tablets which apparently 90% of cats will just eat like a treat. Well guess what, mine are both in the 10% that won’t go anywhere near them, so they ended up going in the bin. Alan sulks with me for 2 days after I put the spot on on him, honestly I don’t think I could bring myself to wrestle with him to get a tablet down his neck (I use spot on wormer too). And driving them both to the vets every month to get them to administer the tablets would be mightily inconvenient as well as distressing for them (they are not fans of the vets).

They are both hairy as fuck which I feel could be part of the problem, maybe if they were short haired the fleas wouldn’t have so many places to hide?

Any ideas? Feel like I might as chuck 20 quid in the bin each month for all the good the advocate does.

Fleas can develop a resistance to the main ingredient so its pointless them telling you to use the tablets, you need to try a different product.

You need a different product. In some areas the fleas are resistant to treatment and your vet should be aware of this.

I found wrapping tablets inside a small bit of ham, with a little primula cheesespread was a foolproof way of getting meds down a fussy eater.

We tried nearly every product on the market and nothing worked until we tried Itch Pet. 3 cats all riddled and the fleas were gone within 2 weeks after using it. Combined with Indorex house spray worked a treat. We have the subscription now with Itch Pet and no problems since, this was 1.5 years ago

Front line is what our pets get never seen a flea yet. And as for tablet just hold your cat,open it's mouth, pop in and they swallow them. Most cats won't voluntarily swallow meds just like humans. You need to get them sorted it will not only be a nuisance to you but real bad health wise for them. For a whole house you would probably need pest control to actually rid them if it's that bed. Sprays are good for small areas and furniture but not 100 percent good for under skirting boards,crevices etc where fleas love to hide

It sounds as though you are doing so much to try to get rid of the fleas, how frustrating for you. Unfortunately they are not fussy and are biting you all (not just DD1)- it’s just she is the only one allergic. I agree trying a different product eg. Stronghold. A few other trouble shooting points… Are you definitely getting the spot on liquid right down onto the skin and not just putting it on the fur? (It’s only absorbed through the skin, not the fur)

do you have any other furry pets eg. Rabbits? They could be harbouring the fleas.

Sometimes with break through flea issues it’s also worth treating at the 3 week mark rather than waiting the full 4 weeks.

good luck

Johnson's spot on is the only thing that clears them with mine. At this point I'd recommend you get the house sprayed by the council too. Indorex doesn't work.

Program injection , it’s 6 monthly and sterilises the fleas that bite the cat , so in theory if you get your house clear you won’t get anymore .

Thanks will look into the suggestions.

No other animals in the house, and it is tricky getting it right onto the skin as their coats are so thick that it’s difficult to part them enough to reveal a bit of skin! I do my best but I’m sure at least half of it is just going on their fur.

Bowl of soapy water. Light shining on it (lamp) place near where cats sleep.

Another vote for the six month injection. We had flea problems up until last year. The injection is fantastic and we didn't have any problems at all.

The Program injection will do the job as a long term solution. You just need to to get rid of the adults first (perhaps a few more consecutive days of the oral Capstar if you can hide it in their food?) and then start the injections every six months. As pp said, Program injection doesn’t kill the adults but does break the life cycle and so prevents infestation- and means you don’t have to worry about the spot ons being applied properly.

Fleas live in your soft furnishings more than on the cat so if the cats are hopping, your house is too - sorry.

You may have a local resistance to indorex and advocate - please do NOT buy over the counter flea treatments though, they come off POM/SQP and go to OT when they've been around so long theres wide spread resistance, but the ingredients in many are more likely to finish off your cat than the fleas!

Capstar kills fleas ON the cat within 20 minutes. You will need to wrap cat, butter pill and fire it down their neck though (or use a pill delivery jobby, does the same thing).

Then use whatever your vet recommends currently that kills both fleas and tapeworm longer term.

Use a pest controller if Indorex isn't working but do check you're following instructions, treating the WHOLE house not just where you think the cats go - all the nooks and crannies between carpets and skirting boards, under sofas, between floor boards if any are exposed, under mattress and sofa cushions.

Once dry you need to hoover everywhere, daily, for 7 days.

If your cats are still going out to wherever they're picking up fleas though, you will still see fleas - so where are they going? Or are they staying in, just you're not actually getting rid of fleas that are living/reproducing off the cat?

You are defleaing the cats but what about your house?

It sounds to me like the house is infested and that means the cats are getting reinfested.

Fleas can live about 8 months, in carpets, bedding, the gap between floor boards.

You can get a spray to treat hard surfaces and wash everything on a hot setting.

We have never had fleas but went with Program because our Siamese wouldn’t leave each other alone long enough to put the spot on on and let it dry . We get is as part of the monthly vet plan @Alanisadick , which may be worth considering as it spreads the cost of flea , worm and vaccinations across the year .

Soresto flea collars work amazingly well if you can get your cats to wear them, mine won’t but my dog does and my cats have had fleas recently and the dog was flea free….when we had a bad infestation before my vet gave me tablets to give all the animals and it worked in 24 hours, you could see dead fleas dropping off them. I think maybe it was Bravecto?

Ours all recently had fleas after years on frontline. We’ve changed to Advantage and they’re flea free again.

Bravecto. My vet said they had stopped selling Advantage and Frontline due to resistance.

You do also need to de-flea your house. I used about a whole can of Indorex per room which is a lot more than it says on the can, but if you are spraying curtains, carpets, rugs, skirting boards etc it ends up being a lot of spray.

We hadn't seen any fleas in the house except for on the cat, but on spraying a disturbing number of fleas were seen jumping up and dying.

Bravecto is the only thing that's worked for mine - once every 3 months, the spot on as the cats won't take tablets. One of our cats was riddled and I was losing sleep over it because I was hoovering all the time, spraying, treating them with whatever was suggested to me in Pets At Home but he just couldn't shake them - the other two seemed fine, weirdly.

But Bravecto cleared it up and less than 3 months later I haven't seen a single flea or any flea dirt anywhere.

Bloody horrible though, I sympathise.

Another vote for the 6 monthly Program injections. They've worked brilliantly for us, I wouldn't use anything else

You need to hoover and wash everything for several weeks. Hoover everywhere. Empty the hoover outside, straight into a plastic bag.

Put out flea traps at night.

And as for tablet just hold your cat,open it's mouth, pop in and they swallow them.

😂😂😂

My cats have Stronghold Plus now. It seems to do the job.

My vet actually doesn't recommend monthly flea dosing. We don't use flea treatments at all, and I have to say, flea infestations only occur occasionally, at which point we use the flea comb and drown the buggers. I don't like putting chemicals on my moggies. We live in a semi-rural area so it's not a case of them not going out into the wild.

Our vet also said (when one of ours got a heavy infestation but the other had none) that they can get them by going into rabbit/mole holes. That made sense as the infested cat killed a couple of moles, whereas his bro didn't hunt those at all.

The tablets really work, but you do need to wrestle them a bit.

We only treat our cats when they have an infestation. None of this monthly nonsense. Hasn't anyone learned from the resistance bacteria are now getting from the routine use of antibiotics? Bacteria and fleas have a very short life-cycle and soon get used to any chemicals in their environment.