Anyone else have indestructible fleas this year??

[OnTheRunWithMannyMontana]

Hi fellow cat people.

The fleas this year just will not be killed!! We have 3 lovely babies and our eldest has flea allergic dermatitis. She is ripping out her fur in clumps and so uncomfortable.

She has been treated religiously with advantage and frontline plus alternatively every 4 weeks as we are nice responsible pet owners and know even one flea can set her off. She has had 2 steroid injections, Stronger flea treatment from the vets and we have used indorex on carpets and all soft furnishings plus vacuuming daily.

Is there anything we are missing??

Hi @OnTheRunWithMannyMontana - I was chatting to our vet a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned that the only effective treatment she'd seen recently is Advocate and the likes of Frontline, Advantage etc. weren't working anymore; have you tried that one?

Yep I put advocate on all 3 at the weekend. Just hope it works as we found a live flea on Ivy (the allergic one) and Alfie (the baby) before we put it on

That doesn't make sense @RedPandaFluff as the active ingredient for fleas in Advantage and Advocate is the same!

Have you tried to work out how they're getting repeatedly reinfested @OnTheRunWithMannyMontana? Do they visit someone or play with another cat with fleas? Have you followed the Indorex instructions to the letter?

All 3 play with neighbouring cats, there's a few they are quite friendly with which is nice!

Yep following the directions to the letter.

Myself and a friend were talking about this last night. Months of hoovering, hot washes, sprays, every tablet and treatment known and they are still coming back. Someone else posted about this a few weeks ago so somethings going on.
With all the bedbugs in Paris its making me paranoid. Are the parasites taking over? Warmer weather doesnt help.

We had this this year except with dogs and had to go get some prescription strength does and tic stuff from the vet. It was eye watering lot expensive but it worked very very quickly!

I do my cat with one of those steel nit combs we had for the kids.

He really loves it and it gets the little buggers out of his fur, and all the loose fur which would otherwise decorate my house!

I would have totally agreed with you, @Scampuss until last May. My two were infested and i I was religiously popping on the Advantage. But for some reason, it just didn't work. They got into a terrible state, I got bitten too. They lost weight and everything. I got the Advocate and I have two glossy, but slightly thin, cats. Unbelievable.

Our indoor(!) cats had a massive flea problem earlier this year. Treated the house 3 times with indorex and the flea treatment just wasn't working. A week later they'd have fleas again.

In the end we paid £40 per cat for Bravecto triple (flea tick and worm) and we've never had a problem since. A lot of fleas are getting resistant to treatments.

I treat mine with advantage but find almost daily combs with a flea comb work well. Get a jug with soapy water to drown them in. The cat jumps into the sink and demands to be combed now every evening. She loves it. Most days I get two or three flees out of her despite advantage every four weeks.

Flea extermination has dominated my summer - 30+ years of owning cats and I've never known anything like it. If my cats have had them before it's been the odd one that has managed to evade the regular treatments and has been quickly resolved, but this year it's like they're invincible.

We're using the tablets as one of our cats has very thick fur and I wasn't confident that all the drops were reaching her skin. We're spraying Indorex around like air freshener, and hoovering every day. I'm hoping that her next tablet treatment this week will finally see the worst of it over. I haven't been bitten for about a week 🤞

They are different but I can't remember how... Advocate is Vet only whereas Advantage can be bought anywhere.

this reminds me that I need to pin down my cats for treatment.

Like@BeforetheFlood , we've used tablets as Spoton wasn't working on one of our cats (he has a LOT of fur compared with his half-brother!), in addition to treating the house with foam spray. Seems to have done the trick. No scratching from them for the past few days, and no sign of any living fleas, only dead fleas!
This is the first time we've had fleas as they were both strictly house cats, but we decided to try them in the garden this year (they are Ragdolls so not a very outdoorsy breed). So they got them from our garden😮‍💨

The ones you can buy anywhere have never been any good. We had dogs years ago and only ever used advocate.

I had to get stronghold plus from my vets this summer for my cats and dogs as these jumping horrid little feckers were not responding to any other treatment.

I have indorex spray but apparently the stronghold plus also kills off fleas in the household environment.

I can only assume fleas are like head lice and evolve past common treatments

Yeah we are having a flea problem this year. Normally, I only de-flea if I see signs of fleas, but due to next door neighbours not flea treating their cats, I’m having to do it monthly as standard.

It’s horrible and annoying. Poor cat has scabs all on her head. Luckily, she isn’t too irritated but I am.

Yep @SoupDragon the advocate is stronger than advantage and is prescription only.

Re the combing, ivy (the allergic one) will tolerate it and we groom her most days but the other two just scream at me as soon as they see the comb or brush! Could actually lose an arm brushing Betsy.

Bravecto usually works well

You need Bravecto. My vet has stopped prescribing anything else as they weren't working.

Have just started a thread about this!

My 9yo cat has never had fleas and I normally just use advocate a couple of times a year.

She's now lousy, pulling her fur out and the advocate hasn't done anything 😩

I'll talk to the vets tomorrow about bravecto, annoying though as I have a stash of advocate!!

Yes, we've been having the same issue for a while. Advantage, Advocate, Stronghold, Endectrid have all stopped working in many cases. The only two treatments we now use in our clinic/rescue are Bravecto and a new, bloody brilliant one called Nexgard. Both are prescription only and fairly expensive, but do the job. Nexgard is a combined flea and worm treatment.

I spoke to the vet who said bravecto is 'stronger' but I can't put anything else on my cat for at least 3 weeks and we're still finding fleas on her. Have taken to going over with the nit comb to hand remove as many as I can!

I'm finding bites on me daily aa well 😩

So annoying.

just to say I'd stop using Advantage personally if i were you. I foster for a cat charity and the vet has told us the fleas have built up a resistance now to Advantage and Frontline too. Now we all use Bravecto & Nexgard etc. I'm still using Advocate on my own cats as I've some left in my cupboard but I've enclosed my garden so I don't think they really encounter fleas now. Good luck! It's a huge problem this year.

That's so frustrating. Don't forget you might need to treat your house now with a spray sadly if you're getting bitten too it probably means they're in your carpet/soft furnishings 😪😪