OT Eleanor Fleas

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Julie and Eleanor (GA)

Julie and Eleanor (GA)

Member Since 2012
I'm covered in flea bites so obviously, we have fleas. I've used Front linePlus on the cats in the past, but Eleanor was in better health. I'm really nervous about using it on her now. She apparently has Pancreatitis and IBD as well as the diabetes. Does anyone here have experience with using flea meds on cats with health problems, other than diabetes? I was reading not to use the topicals on cats who are very old or debilitated, but read elsewhere Front line is safe because it is not systemic.
I don't know what to do. I also read to be careful if cat is on medications, but the only reference I can find to what meds make it dangerous are other flea treatments. I'm giving Eleanor Cerenia, B12, Ondansetron, Bupranorphine, Slippery Elm Bark.
The vets tell me its safe to use on her. But I don't trust vets.
Thank you!
 
Hi Julie,
I don't know about the conflict in meds, but I sympathize with your predicament. Fleas are terrible, and the good thing about Front Line Plus is that you only have to apply it once a month. It's the one we use (in the warmer months, as a preventative). Rusty has never had a reaction to it, if that's any comfort to you. But I'm always glad when the colder weather arrives and we don't have to use it any more!
Years ago our cat, Alice, had a bad case of fleas. We had flea eggs in our bed, even. This was in the days before FrontLine and we had to use flea powder, a flea collar, and even had her "dipped". We vacuumed every day for months to get the fleas and their eggs out of the house. It was a nightmare (but our house was really clean)! So if you caught it before the fleas laid their eggs, you are very lucky.
My niece, who got flea bites when they moved into a flea-infested house, wore flea collars on her ankles.

Good luck!

Hugs and scritches,
 
I used revolution on my diabetic/pancreatitis 13.5yr old cat all this summer, no adverse effects at all. At the time, she was on insulin (for the first part of the summer) and B12 shots, but no other meds, so the situation isn't entirely comparable to yours.

If I were you, though, I'd just go ahead and do one of these on-the-spot treatments-- if the infestation is that bad, you have to worry about anemia as well as rare (but awful) flea-carried diseases, and as others have said, getting rid of the fleas once they settle in your house is an absolute nightmare.
 
The fleas in our neck of the woods seem to be resistant to Frontline (fipronil) so I've used Advantage II (imidacloprid and pyriproxyfen) and Capstar (nitenpyram) on Leda, neither with any adverse effects and both were effective against the fleas. Advantage is a topical like Frontline and Capstar is a fast acting but not long lasting pill which can be used at the same time or separately. I used the Capstar to give him immediate relief from the fleas and then followed up in a day or two with Advantage II to keep the fleas off, after a few months of this he's been pretty flea free for the last three months and I've been able to skip applying Advantage.

Hope you and Eleanor beat the fleas!
 
Oh my, fleas....
Years ago when the tribe were indoor/outdoor and much younger, I used topical Advantage, dosed once a month during spring and summer. That was more then ten years ago and don't know anything about how the chemical products are now. Except that I stay away from them.

Some natural ways to tackle fleas that I've found helpful:
1. Add a bit of nutritional yeast to food daily. Fleas are repelled by that odor once it begins to emit from the body (imperceptible to human olefactories)
2. ACV (apple cider vinegar) add a bit (a drop or two) to drinking water daily.
3. ACV rinse, either as a "spritz and comb in" or during bath. I use plain Castile soap for washing. About a teaspoon or so of ACV in about a quart of warm water. Keep it dilute and away from eyes. You may have to repeat spritz sessions but it's all part of brush and comb routines.
3. Ya still gotta vacuum the house etc to complete the eradication.

I've had good luck with these alternative methods.

ETA: one of aspects of Advantage (and I don't know if it still applies or is part of Advantage II) was that the flea and/or flea egg killing properties sloughed off with the dander, e.g., the Advantage continued to work beyond being on the cat.
 
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I got a nasty run of them a year or so ago. If you stomped the carpet in their room you could see the fleas jump on you. A 2 pronged approach did wonders. First was an outside barrier, we used Termidor SC outside the house creating barrier which also protected their screen porch.

Inside the house we used diatomaceous earth. This scratches the fleas wax coating and causes them to die from moisture loss. It took a little time, as we had to let the eggs hatch and then die, but was very effective. It is a very fine powder made from diatom shells, so it is all natural. Heck, I think some people use it as a supplement and eat the stuff....
 
Oh NO! Fleas. Aaahhhh! Another parasite. We were taking about lice on Osha's condo today. Parasites freak me out.

I don't have any advice. Sorry, just wanted to say hi and hope you both are doing well (as well as you can be with fleas :eek:).
 
I can so relate to this as we had an issue a few years ago We used diatomaceous earth around the foundation of our house but make sure it is food grade and I also put it in their food. This year, I did find one flea on Forest and use Revolution only one time on both cats. I hate using these poison because they are just that, nerve poisons.. If I don't see any fleas I use a natural product called Natural Defense by Sargent and it is all natural oils that repel fleas but do not kill eggs. We start off every flea season with that and if we find a flea we go to Revolution. After one month with the Revolution if I don't see any more fleas ( I flea comb them daily ) I stop it. I hate using these products but they are so necessary....... a double edge sword.
 
I'm so sorry Julie !!
Fleas are such nasty little things.
I have had lots of experience with flea products having a grooming salon.

There is cap star which is a pill and is in and out of the system quickly. However, it only kills what is on the pet and has no residual.
You can give it frequently tho.

Frontline plus is in my opinion the best of the worst because it does not go into the bloodstream. It stays in the top layer of the skin and when a flea bites it dies.
It is also probably the most time tested with minimal reactions.

I have seen 1 reaction in many years and it was on a dog who now gets 1/2 a dose and he is fine.
Good luck !!
 
LizzieInTexas said:
Really? Interesting. What does that do?
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Supposedly when it is ingested it acts like glass and shreds the fleas internally. But and a big BUT make sure the diatomaceous earth that you use is food safe. There is a lower grade that peeps use in their swimming pools. I also used the food grade when I sprinkled it around the foundation of my house. After all kitties get it on their paws and clean themselves, right? It is very cheap to get the food grade. I get a huge bag, 40 lbs? at a local feed mill place but I am sure you can get it on line as well.
 
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:bighug::bighug::bighug::bighug: never had to treat a kitty with other issues... just Hemi when she was an outside stray still before she decided indoor living would be ok.. and she had them so bad she had pulled out all her hair from the base of her tail to way up her back... poor girl was missing so much fur... used Revolution at the time but again she had no other issues that we knew of... good luck :bighug::bighug:
 
I have tried almost all the topical "spot-on" flea products and the only one that ever worked for me was Revolution. I keep it on hand all year, now. I am in a very rural area and maybe the fleas are worse out here in the country, I don't know, but when we used to get them they were horrendous and almost impossible to get rid of! SInce I started using Revolution I have not had any fleas at all - going on 5 years, now!
 
Hmm, I've used the diatomaceous earth around my house and also on my cats. I've never heard that it was full of carcinogens. DE is crushed diatoms, little critters, and they have sharp edges so when fleas travel through them, it cuts through the waxy coating of their body. The flea dehydrates and dies. I bought it at a garden store - it is inexpensive. I bought one maybe 10lb bag years ago and still have the same bag.

I've also used Advantage and Revolution. Our fleas (Willamette Valley) are resistant to Frontline.

If you are really worried, you can do a flea comb and pull out fleas and drop them in soapy water to drown them. One drop of liquid soap in the water is important so they don't climb back out. You could do DE within your house.

Good luck! I hate fleas!
 
Revolution. Been using it since 2009. When I got Smokey in 2014, I was told by 3 vets it was the only safe one for diabetics. Don't know how true it is, but none have ever had a reaction. It's the only one vet will use on PJ and if I want to change it I should wait until she is 1 yr. I didn't question this as I won't be changing it.
 
Squalliesmom said:
I have tried almost all the topical "spot-on" flea products and the only one that ever worked for me was Revolution. I keep it on hand all year, now. I am in a very rural area and maybe the fleas are worse out here in the country, I don't know, but when we used to get them they were horrendous and almost impossible to get rid of! SInce I started using Revolution I have not had any fleas at all - going on 5 years, now!
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Yes, year round. No interruption. If you have a vacuum with a bag. Put a piece of flea collar in the bag.
 
julie & punkin (ga) said:
Hmm, I've used the diatomaceous earth around my house and also on my cats. I've never heard that it was full of carcinogens. DE is crushed diatoms, little critters, and they have sharp edges so when fleas travel through them, it cuts through the waxy coating of their body. The flea dehydrates and dies. I bought it at a garden store - it is inexpensive. I bought one maybe 10lb bag years ago and still have the same bag.

I've also used Advantage and Revolution. Our fleas (Willamette Valley) are resistant to Frontline.

If you are really worried, you can do a flea comb and pull out fleas and drop them in soapy water to drown them. One drop of liquid soap in the water is important so they don't climb back out. You could do DE within your house.

Good luck! I hate fleas!
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Yeah, Julie, if you are putting in on the cats or in their food like I used to do, it has to be Food Grade not the stuff that you would use in your swimming pool filter. The food grade is a little bit more money than the non-food grade but still very cheap.
 
Thanks so much everyone!
I cannot find any fleas or flea dirt on Eleanor or Tulip. I flea comb Eleanor a few times a day regularly to pull out as much loose fur as I can to keep her from swallowing it.
In the past when we had fleas I always caught them running around on the cats.
I have new bites today!
I'm treating the outside cats with Frontline and holding off with Eleanor and
Tulip...I'm not sure what to do. I do have a jug of DE, it didn't help a couple
years ago with fleas, but I'm going to go ahead and spread it around, it might
work this time since the infestation isn't too bad. Or I guess it isn't.
I'm not sure what to do....I'm very paranoid because a few years ago one of my
cats had a bad reaction to Advantage, labored breathing, rapid heartbeat,
lethargic. Vet treated him with IV fluid and prednisone and told me to use Frontline on the other cats. He said I could use slightly more than half the recommended dose, which I do.
 
Ella & Rusty & Stuff (GA) said:
Hi again, Julie,
If you can't find any fleas on the cats and only you have bites, maybe they're not flea bites? What other types of biting insects do you have where you life? Are they active in winter??

Good luck!!
Click to expand...

I'm wondering about this too. They sure look like flea bites.
Mosquito's are bad now and they love me as much as fleas do, but the bites are too small. Bed bugs? Oh horrors, I'd rather have fleas! I've searched for Bed bugs and can't find any. I'm beginning to think I have phantom bugs.
 
Or how about? ;);)
IMG_1566.GIF
 
Julie and Eleanor said:
I'm wondering about this too. They sure look like flea bites.
Mosquito's are bad now and they love me as much as fleas do, but the bites are too small. Bed bugs? Oh horrors, I'd rather have fleas! I've searched for Bed bugs and can't find any. I'm beginning to think I have phantom bugs.
Click to expand...
Spider bits imitate flea bites. And they are in 3's. The dermatologist call the little three pods : breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
 
FWIW, I used revolution on three of my four cats through their final illnesses, exception was Sasha, because she had radiation therapy and her skin was tender in the area behind her head. None of them ever had a bad reaction.

I hope you get this figured out and nipped in the bud. When we first moved to CA, we had a small apartment. The cats were staying at my in-laws' house in So. CA. Mark and I moved in and spent a couple of nights there with no furniture, so we sat and slept on the carpet. We both started itching and couldn't figure out what it was (never experienced fleas before). We went and picked up the cats, and a few days later when Nemi was drinking out of the sink I noticed little drops of blood in the sink. I totally freaked out and took her to the vet, who told me it was flea dust. The apartment had been pre-infested! We had to wash all the bedding, etc. and the cats, treat all the carpet (especially under the feet of the furniture) and furniture. It was a nightmare. Ever since then I've used either Advantage Multi or Revolution. Have you tried rubbing the cats over a damp sink (assuming it's a white sink) and see if little drops of blood appear?
 
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