Awful Reaction to Worm Tablet

[Icequeen01]

I wormed all three of my cats on Monday evening. I get my worm treatment from my vet. One of them had this in tablet form as she had a horrible reaction to the spot on treatment previously where it burnt all her neck and was really sore and weepy. Because of this I asked the vet for the tablet version and I gave her this around 6pm on Monday night.

When we got up yesterday morning I noticed Little Cat was staggering around and looked to be in some distress. Her back legs kept collapsing under her and she tried to go upstairs and clawed her way up two stairs before falling backwards. It was horrible.

I called the emergency vet and got an appointment yesterday morning. The vet did a really thorough examination. She was pretty sure it was a neurological reaction to the worm tablet and she would return to normal within a couple of days. Sure enough she appears as right as rain today.

In the 40 years I have had cats I have never had this before. Has anyone else had this happen to their cat?

Not with worming but yes, with a flea treatment

That's interesting as my vet has now advised me to stop using the preventive flea treatment on her and also to only vaccinate her against cat flu every 3 years now and drop the Feline Leukemia jab altogether.

Our cat had a terrible reaction to a flea treatment which was given on the neck - he's a white cat and the vet did say white cats are more sensitive? Hope everything ok now

God that’s awful! What if she gets fleas though?

I apparently have to contact my vet who will give me something to kill the fleas. I think it's about avoiding the preventative treatments. The vet said my cat could become immunosuppressed if we keep giving her these treatments so we have to go with the lesser of the evils of treating worms/fleas only if she has them.

If it reassures you at all, I've never flea-treated or wormed any of my pets and we've never once had an any issues with fleas.

Poor cat. Sounds like your vet is on the ball though.
One of my cats had a reaction to flea treatment when younger but a switch to a different brand helped. I try and leave a small gap between treatments but one of mine has a flea allergy and pulls out her fur if she gets a flea bite, do unfortunately I do have to keep on it.

I was really impressed with my vet. I usually see the other vet who is also excellent but this one was new and really took her time checking everything and talked me through what she was checking for. She was also so sweet to my cat and was very tolerant of my complete panic 🤣

Sorry to hear this. It must have been very worrying for you and little cat.
I gave my cat a Milbevet worm tablet a few weeks ago and he was so sick it was alarming. First time as a tablet. The vet normally gives a spot on, as he won't let me near him
He's a former feral street cat and is never sick.

One of ours had a reaction to cat jabs as a kitten and we almost lost her , she had a weak immune system , after that we also treated the house with a flea killer but tried to avoid treating her directly unless she actually caught fleas , we also couldn’t give her annual jabs , which meant no comprehensive insurance , so had to self insure . Some cats immune systems just don’t tolerate all the medications.

Does this not give pause for thought about what is actually in these preparations? Mostly they are making massive amounts of money for the pharmaceutical industry and vets are tied into selling the stuff for money too. It cannot be good for animals to be pumped full of chemicals , often quite unnecessarily.

My elderly cat had an awful reaction to a 'new' spot on wormer - she was neurotic for a couple of hours. Couldn't settle, racing around, upstairs, downstairs, inside, out. Almost terrified in her actions. Shouldn't have but used it twice after which I vowed never again. She didn't have any issues with spot on flea treatment.

I assume the wormer was for the correct weight of cat? Tbh I only rarely give a flea or worm treatment now. The worm tablet makes him really drowsy. Once I got rid of fleas he had when I got him from the shelter (which took quite a while - a number of treatments and combing) they’ve never been back. Keep a check on fleas using a flea comb. The effective flea treatments are really powerful insecticides and they are neurotoxic. He also doesn’t have the Feline leukaemia vaccine any longer after a reaction.