Fleas
 

I can’t keep dealing with the fleas. Rosarita Chula gets bathed almost daily with Dawn dish soap. I gave her capstar a couple of times and a Program ampules of oral medicine. She goes a day or two without fleas and then they come back with a vengeance. Help????? I am treating my other cats. The kitten is indoors. I have not seen any fleas in my home. I posted an adorable video of the kitten playing with Nick and dh pointed out that you can see fleas crawling on her. I want to cry.


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Re: Fleas
 

Fleas are absolutely awful. I'm so sorry. If she's an indoor cat, and she has fleas, there are very likely flea eggs in your house (especially in carpet or rugs) :hugheart We had an indoor cat who got fleas growing up, and we had to take drastic steps to rid the house of them :( It's time consuming and stressful. It really stinks.

I'm not super familiar with Capstar, but it looks like it only kills the adult fleas that are on your cat, thus disrupting their life cycle and giving another product time to start working-- does that sound accurate?


Is she getting combed daily?
Have you treated your upholstery and rugs with anything?
Vacuuming and then emptying the canisters into plastic bags and taking them outside immediately?
Is using Advantage an option?

Re: Fleas
 

We have tried evey.thing.natural and flea meds with our dogs and nothing helps but wiping coats down with vinegar water and frequent flea combing. The meds can help break the cycle if they are confined to a yard with no other animals but squirrels abound out here so they carry fleas in :(

Re: Fleas
 

I think that she may still be too young for Advantage. Capstar kills adults and Program kills eggs and larvae. I have been using vinegar to clean the floors (hard floors), paying special attention to the baseboards and corners. We have leather couches, I will try cleaning those with vinegar as well. My friend suggested salt on the carpets.


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Re: Fleas
 

We put DE food grade on our floors/carpets over night and then vaccumed when we were infested. (If you aren't careful it will clog your air filters and ruin your vacuum.) You can lightly dust your kitty with the DE and it will act as a wormer. (DE was the only thing that helped us clean up the problem.) You can also get one of those sticky papered lint rollers at the $ store and run it over her and the other cats...........you might be able to catch a few fleas this way. Make sure to take all of the dust you vacuum or lint roll out of the house or it just keeps the cycle going.

Re: Fleas
 

Do you flea comb?

Re: Fleas
 

Should I use the metal bristled one or the small plastic one?


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Re: Fleas
 

The metal flea comb works so much better than the plastic one. I discovered something that I was doing incorrectly when bathing her. I should be leaving the soap on her longer.


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Re: Fleas
 

What broke the cycle for us was treating the cat with Advantage II, DE and borax on carpet and upholstery, and daily vacuuming of furniture, carpet and wherever the cat spent lots of time lying (while having fleas he mostly chose hard surfaces and they were full of flea eggs:sick). It was a tough time and so much work. So many hugs. :hugheart

Re: Fleas
 

I bathed 4 cats today and let the flea shampoo sit on them for 10 minutes before rinsing. I washed the cloths that are on chairs where my kitties tend to sit and vacuumed. Fingers crossed.


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---------- Post added at 09:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 PM ----------

What do flea eggs look like? I am very familiar with flea dust.


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Re: Fleas
 

I think the eggs are the salt looking part of the telltale salt and pepper looking stuff fleas leave. But don't quote me on that. :shifty

Re: Fleas
 

Shudder. How do I tell the difference between flea eggs and sand? Off to google. At any rate, Rosarita Chula only had a couple of fleas on her, instead of dozens of them this morning. I am not in the clear yet, but it was encouraging to not see an infestation of them on her.


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Re: Fleas
 

I combed 2 of my cats and didn’t find too much on them as far as flea dust goes. Crossing my fingers.


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Re: Fleas
 

I hope you are through the worst of it. :pray4

Re: Fleas
 

Me too.


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Re: Fleas
 

We have also put a little smear of Dawn on the flea comb so in case there were any fleas that jump that they would get caught on the comb and we had a small bowl of dawn water to put htem in so they didn't hop into the room.

It sounds like you are finally making progress.

Re: Fleas
 

I hope so. The only one who didn’t get treated was His Royal Highness Elmo who believes that he is the mayor over all the cats in San Diego. That cat only got one bath, that was 4 years ago when he was 10 months old. He fought me so hard, it took 4 of us to try to bathe him. Never again.


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---------- Post added at 12:21 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 AM ----------

All the others I bathed from the time that they were tiny. Even Ginger would grudgingly allow me to bathe her, trim her nails, bind her wounds, etc.


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Fleas
 

She still has fleas, but not as many. In the morning, I try to watch her when she uses the litter box to see if she has worms. Every couple of weeks, I see worms in her poop, one or two segments of a worm. I am going to try the diatomaceous earth. Do I spread it on her for the fleas daily or how often? If I read correctly, I can put it in her food for worms, 1/2 teaspoon. I have phone numbers for a veterinarian, she is now old enough for vaccines (8 weeks) I think, and the feline leukemia/feline aids test when she is 3 months. With Ginger’s kittens, I didn’t know any better, and I didn’t get them vaccines until they were closer to 4 months old, just before I had them spayed and neutered.


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Re: Fleas
 

Should I apply diatomaceous earth to her fur daily until the fleas are gone? If I skip even one day bathing her, the fleas come back with a vengeance.


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Re: Fleas
 

I'm hoping you have successfully evicted the fleas. :pray4

Re: Fleas
 

No wise words, just want to send hugs as I know how frustrating these things can be.

Re: Fleas
 

We cant bathe our dogs daily but using a flea comb dipped into vinegar water or wiping them down with vinegar water dampened cloth helps a lot

Re: Fleas
 

She hasn’t taken a bath for 3-4 days. I plan to bathe her and all of the cats this week and give them their medicine. I have kind of been slacking off on the flea patrol.


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Re: Fleas
 

I don't blame you; it is such hard work. I'm glad you could take a break. :hugheart

Re: Fleas
 

Getting people ready for back to school took precedence over Chula’s fleas. ;)


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Re: Fleas
 

Definitely. :yes

Re: Fleas
 

We may have a flea free kitty. Fingers crossed. Cat is out of the bag...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fb463ea24b.jpg https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2bac33ff3c.jpg


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Re: Fleas
 

:woohoo Oh my goodness, those kitties are cute.

Fleas
 

You will probably want to worm them with a wormer specific to tapeworms now that you have the fleas under control. Tapeworms are transmitted by eating the host flea, rather than by actual exposure to the worms so flea infestations and tapeworms go hand in hand since cats groom themselves a lot. Better to treat proactively as long as they are old enough and not sick because it’s super gross when they just start coming out. :shiver https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-p...ection-in-cats

Glad you have finally gotten it under control. When my older cats used to go out I had to be diligent about treating with a once a month or it would just go on endlessly. Even with indoor only cats now, we live in the country so fleas can jump on you outdoors and get brought in that way. I usually have to treat 2 months in a row during the spring and that’s it. It’s a huge factor in not allowing these newer cats outside because it’s just so much money and hassle to deal with the fleas and worms. I like revolution but my cats got too large (over 15 lbs) for it so I use cheristin now which works really well for all weights over 2 lbs.


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Re: Fleas
 

Good to know. I had not heard of cheristin. I did see worms coming out of her a couple of times. It’s gross, but every time that she does her business in the morning, I watch to see if anything comes out in her droppings. I had wondered about tapeworms because of all the fleas.


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---------- Post added at 10:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 AM ----------

Oh ew. I have not seen anything that looks like sesame seeds or rice in her droppings. But I will keep my eyes open for it.


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Re: Fleas
 

Never mind. She has tapeworms. And a bunch of fleas came off with her bath.


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Re: Fleas
 

Oh no. :hugheart