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.

Hi following this thread with interest.
I'd not heard of the 6 monthly injections you can use for fleas on cats - this would be much easier to administer as one of my cats hates the spot on.
Does anyone know of worm treatments that can be given as injections. Currently using Droncet spot on but 3 monthly.
TIA

This thread has been very informative! I'm about to treat my house with indorex tomorrow and the cats with stronghold. One of my cats has very long fur....would it be worth trying to shave the back of his neck to make sure the treatment goes on his skin? Also the bravecto...is that a spot on? Considering asking for that if the stronghold doesn't work 😬

I know others had suggested Bravecto, but I didn’t know that was an option as I had phoned my vets MANY times to ask them for a different kind of flea treatment as the advocate wasn’t working, and they kept telling me that that was the only option unless I went for the tablets, which my cats wouldn’t eat. Mind you, that was speaking to reception rather than an actual vet. Maybe they’ve only just started getting Bravecto in…not sure but either way I am so happy that the problem is finally solved.

My little tabby cat had started to develop a flea allergy, and had scabs/sores all over her (that was after 2 months of using Itch Pet - wouldn’t recommend!), and she has never been a particularly affectionate cat. But she had an almost immediate and dramatic personality change after the Bravecto, and is now super cuddly, I think she must just be feeling a lot happier in herself.

Do not try to shave your cat! You can just press the little vial through the fur to the skin.

@Alanisadick glad you've finally found the right solution!

we had to call pest control because absolutely nothing was working! was about £200 and not one flea since (about 9 months) but I am still on a look out, it was absolutely horrible! Good luck getting rod of them

@Alanisadick make sure you review the Itchpet online as it may influence other people and save them wasting their money . Glad your cat is feeling better . WRT tablets and cats there is a product called Hairball paste made by Beapher which lots of cats find extremely tasty and you can give them tablets in it if you struggle to give them normally .

My cat has to have a full groom which involves shaving him every so often as he's getting old and can't groom himself like he used to. The groomers won't accept him with fleas though so I need to get rid before I can take him 😬