Stop regular flea treatment?

[WalkingAroundHere]

We normally treat DCat with Bravecto flea treatment on the back of the neck once every three months. He's an outdoor cat.
We've done it for years and never really questioned it, I presume the vet recommended it?

I've recently listened to the BBC podcast "Toxic!" about forever chemicals, and it talks about how these kind of flea treatments are very damaging to the environment and are hugely overused. It suggests you only need to be using flea treatment if your cat actually has fleas - otherwise you should stop the regular applications when the cat does not have fleas.

Has anyone else stopped regular flea treatment for this reason? Do cats really need continuous flea treatment for their whole lives?

What about similar worming treatment? I presume that is more important to do regularly for an outdoor cat?

Milbevet is the worm tablet and credelio is the flea tablet which is chewable and apparently meat flavoured. My cat is an allergy cat and when we first got her she had hardly any fur on her hind legs with bald weeping patches elsewhere. She used to visit us before she became ours and she was always worse in the summer so it’s possible the fleas of summer made her allergy worse. The fleas would end up in our house and we’d get bitten too.

Our vet told us that most cats have worms and that they aren’t always visible so it’s important to treat them even if there’s no evidence of worms in faeces.

I never treat my cats or dog unless I see something. In 30+ years of cats that’s been maybe twice and never had to with the dog of 3 years. All my animals spend a lot of time outside.

it suits the vetinarary pharma companies well to have you all using their products 4 times a year rather than once every 10 years….

We used to use the spot on stuff but my cat would go crazy when we tried to put it on. Now I have the tablets in the cupboard and use when he has symptoms.
I only let him in the kitchen dining room as he's outside alot and it's all hard surfaces so if he does get fleas the house won't need hit hard as it can be a full time job otherwise.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/over-the-counter-pet-flea-treatments-could-be-banned-under-new-uk-rules

I give our cat frontline plus once a month. I also comb him with a nit comb (he loves this 😻) every few days. I’m still combing out a couple of fleas when I do and some dead ones. He’s taken to sleeping under the hedge at night so I’m thinking he’s just picking up a couple of live ones?? Or do I need to re think the frontline plus??

Just to give an update to this thread, the vet has recommended credelio tablets for fleas, to be given once a month and milprazon tablets for worms to be given once every 3 months. We will see how it goes!

Never treated my outdoor 10 year old cat, never got fleas. Maybes he resilient to them, who knows.

We have one cat on Bravecto every 3 months but he's allergic to fleas and gets very scabby if he picks up even a single flea. The others we use Advantage and do them 2 - 3 times a year. Will be doing them this weekend, July and September and find that's enough.

Of course they did. They make a good margin if you buy from them.

Are you saying those arn't the best options?
Or that the vet will be making a fat mark up on any medication they prescribe?
I will most likely get a prescription and buy online as that has always been cheaper for me.

We use these.

https://www.petsathome.com/product/johnsons-4fleas-tablets-for-cats-and-kittens-6-tablets/

With a pill dispenser.