Advocate flea treatment seems to have caused a bald patch

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Been using Advocate on my pets for years and applied it to my cats last week. One of them now has a bald patch on the back of his neck exactly where the Advocate went. The skin doesn't look red or irritated in any way but the hair has completely gone.

Anyone any experience of anything similar

No experience of that exactly. But it could be a coincidence that it's there and it's actually ringworm, which causes bald patches. Let's hope not as that's a pain in the neck to get rid of. If the patch grows, or if another one appears, take him to the vet.

I have also used Advocate on my cats for some years, and in the last year my British Shorthair/Siamese cross who has very sensitive skin and also a flea allergy has developed a bald patch due to the Advocate. This has been confirmed by the vet, but we have to carry on due to the flea allergy, I am thinking of trying some new tablets for fleas the vets are about to start offering.

When we adopted our cat this time last year the rescue told us she appeared to have had a reaction to Advantage flea treatment (same active ingredient as Advocate I think), so we use Stronghold (tried Effipro first but it didn't work). She had a scabby patch on her neck, which healed quickly. She has subsequently had several occasions of bald neck patches (once with scabs) but none have been after flea treatment and all have cleared quickly of their own accord. We have assumed she has a flea allergy and is scuffing herself bald through itching. However there is definitely a question mark against Advantage / Advocate for us.

I had this before but it was caused by Frontline Combo & we swapped to Advocate instead. The vet told me that it can sometimes happen with flea treatments and recommended we try the Advocate instead of Frontline. Your vet should be able to suggest another treatment you can use.

Our old cat, many years ago when she was about 8, had a massive reaction to a flea collar. We took it off immediately but it was too late and she ended up with bare skin and scabs where she'd scratched and scratched. When they healed, she was left with a perfect ring of white skin amongst all the black fur. It never regrew and we never used flea collars again! I used some Frontline combo on the new cats last month and Moonkitten started losing fur. I was rather worried! But it's stopped now, phew. So yes, it does happen...