Flea and Worming treatments

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Suzynick
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Flea and Worming treatments

Post by Suzynick »

Hi
I've just recently got one of my cats a prescription to Advocate as he had possible ear mites. I don't believe he did although we don't know what the issue was but it was treated with drops and they don't irritate him anymore, but I didn't realise that advocate was the only treatment available for ear mites and liked that it also covered fleas and worms. However I can see from their website it doesn't cover tapeworm, and that the only treatment available for lice is frontline. Confused.com! Does anyone use more than one treatment to make sure everything is covered?
Thanks
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Ruth B
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Re: Flea and Worming treatments

Post by Ruth B »

Unfortunately there are a lot of different spot on treatments that treat different things.

Broadline treats roundworm, tapeworm, fleas and ticks
Stronghold treats roundworm, hookworm, heartworm, lice, fleas mange and earmites,
Advocat treats fleas, roundworm, lungworm, heartworm and earmites.

I believe all three are only available by prescription from a vet but can then be bought online using the prescription (I'm not sure how that works I always buy from the vets)

You then have the over the counter ones such as Frontline (a more limited variant of Broadline) which only treats only fleas and ticks. Some of the other over the counter ones have had problems in the past so i would always recommend going with a vet prescribed one. There is also some evidence that some fleas in some parts of the country are becoming resistant to the insecticide in Frontline and Broadline. We normally use Stronghold but as it is the most expensive decided to try Broadline at one point, but noticed that all our cats were still scratching like made after a couple of months on it, we changed back and within a few days the scratching had gone.

One of mine has also had earmites in the past even though she is on Stronghold, the vet said that when the ears get waxy it can protect the mites from the Stronghold and needs a course of eardrops to clear it up as well as cleaning the ears well. We have kept them at bay since but she does seem to be susceptible to ear problems and her current respiratory infection is obviously irritating them even though the vet could see nothing wrong.

I believe that there are also tablets and injections available these days for cats that react to spot on treatments, but hopefully someone else can tell you about them as I have no experience with them.
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MarySkater
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Re: Flea and Worming treatments

Post by MarySkater »

My cats are not at high risk from parasites, as I have a garden enclosure and they can't make direct contact with neighbourhood cats. But other cats hang out in the unenclosed part of my garden, or walk around on top of the fence, so there is a possibility of transfer. I flea-treat them, but not monthly as usually advised, and so far they've never had fleas.

Last time they were treated, I used Bravecto, a spot-on treatment that claims to be effective for 3 months, but only protects against fleas and ticks. They were done 4 months ago, but as I don't think risk of infection is high in winter, I won't do them again until February or March. At that point, I'll ask my vet what else they should have, to protect against worms.
Suzynick
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Re: Flea and Worming treatments

Post by Suzynick »

Thanks both - Advocate had a handy chart where you could compare their product to others, I've not used Frontline for years as I'd heard it wasn't very effective anymore so had been using Advantage. One of cats is indoors and goes out for walkies in the garden, but the other is free to roam. More research needed I think!
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