Found a flea on my cat tonight despite giving her flea treatment 2 weeks ago

[Catcrazy85]

My kitten is 4 months old and she's an indoor cat, i gave her a flea treatment on Xmas eve, one that the vet had given me. The last couple of days I noticed her scratching and decided to comb her with a flea comb tonight and found one flea. I couldn't find any others but tbh she hates getting combed so it's hard to keep her still.
Why does she have a flea if she got flea treatment? Can I give her another treatment tomorrow?

Did you also treat her bedding, carpet, soft furnishings?

Adult fleas emerge from pupas in your home, hop onto the treated kitten, bite, and die. It's likely that the flea you found was dying.

What was the flea treatment called?

Which flea treatment was it? It might be that it's one that has sprung up from the carpet and has yet to bite the treated cat. Have you treated the house for fleas? Indorex spray is very good. Speak to your vet before giving any other flea treatments, most treatments need at least 30 days between doses, others as much as 3 months.

Did you Indorex the house as well as treating the cat? And did you use vet or high street treatment - the fleas are generally resistant to high street treatment.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate it was actually a live flea, I almost had a heart attack! Thought I would find more on her but I didn't.
I did buy indorex before and sprayed it everywhere but that was about 3 weeks ago

I forget the actual name of the flea treatment but it was one that the vet gave me

Which flea treatment is best? I can't always afford the monthly vet one as they charge £11 for one treatment.

It was actually Stronghold treatment the vet gave me

What did the vet give you to put on the cat? What was it called? You answered that whilst I was still typing.

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-life-cycle-cat-flea-vector-illustration-spread-infection-diseases-fleas-animals-stages-development-image70053723 is a diagram showing the flea lifecycle. It's a lot like the butterfly lifecycle, except with bloodsucking and no pretty wings.

The eggs, larvae (like a maggot or caterpillar), and pupae (aka chrysalis) are not on your kitten but in your carpets and soft furnishings. 90% of the fleas in a typical home are eggs, larvae, and pupae and do not die when you treat your kitten.

(Latin: one larva, two larvae; one pupa, two pupae.)

Indorex and flea foggers kill the eggs and larvae and also contain a hormone that prevents larvae from pupating.

The flea treatment from the vet should kill the adults when they hop onto your kitten. I say "should", because many flea treatments no longer work.

The pupae are pretty much indestructible and have to be allowed to hatch out and hop onto the treated kitten. So what did you put on your kitten?

@selffellatingouroborosofhate it was actually the Stronghold treatment, just tried to buy it online there but it won't let me without a vet prescription.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate so does it mean the Stronghold treatment that I put on her at Christmas didn't work?
I have combed her before and never found an actual live flea on her before. But she did have fleas present a couple of months ago which is why the vet gave me the Stronghold treatment. This is her second treatment.

I didn't know she had fleas, the vet noticed some flea stuff on her that hinted that she had fleas

Vet nurse- 95% of the flea problem is in the cats environment not on the cat.
Assuming you mean Stronghold plus then you have used a very efficient product.
When the flea is in the pupae stage there is no product that kills them so you will see the odd live flea for a while ,once those fleas bite the cat they will die and the flea burden will greatly reduce.
Then continue with the Stronghold plus following the manufacturers protocol to the letter.
Keep hoovering ,more than you usually would as not only are you sucking them up but the vibration from the hoover speeds up the developing pupae.
Indorex application lasts for 12months , i would also spray it in the hoover bag/cylinder and in your car.
As Stronghold plus is a prescription only medicine other than direct from vet you can buy a written prescription from your vet and get it much cheaper from an online vet drug supplier.
Or look into joining your vets health club where you spread the cost of preventative treatments throughout the year rather than paying a lot out at once.

@tsmainsqueeze thank you so much. So just because I found a live flea on her it doesn't mean the Stronghold treatment didn't work?
Also with the Indorex treatment , how often should I spray that on carpets, soft furnishings?
Looks like this is going to have to be a maintenance thing. It's so frustrating as she is an indoor cat and I don't have any other pets, so not sure why she still has fleas.

Stronghold contains selamectin. A quick trawl through search engine results doesn't return any reports of resistance. However, pharmaceutical companies don't go around shouting about it when their products stop working, nor do they commission research that might show that they have stopped working, so absence of evidence of resistance doesn't prove that the product still works.

When you next see your vet, ask for a different flea treatment with a different active ingredient. This will rule out or confirm selamectin resistance.

What your vet found on your kitten is flea dirt. Basically, adult fleas hop onto the cat, suck blood, lay eggs, and poo out flea dirt. The flea dirt and the eggs fall off into your house. When the eggs hatch into larvae, the larvae eat the flea dirt.

Your house can have pupae in it without you knowing, because pupae can stay dormant for years, waiting for a cat or dog moves in. Are you new to the house? Did you have a cat prior to your kitten?

Adult fleas can also come in on your clothes.

Or look into joining your vets health club where you spread the cost of preventative treatments throughout the year rather than paying a lot out at once.

I did this for CatOfHate. I pay out around £20 each month and get Bravecto flea killer, which only has to go on four times per year 😻😍, Droncit wormer twice per year, two health checks per year, and his annual boosters.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate thank you. Yes I've just moved into the house 2 months ago, it's a new build so no one lived there before me.
I didn't have a cat before my kitten. I got my kitten at age 8 weeks from a family and they had a dog. Then I took her and have had her since. She's had no interaction with any pets since and I keep her inside.