Over the counter worm medication and other questions...

Ok I have to admit, I knew very little to nothing about worms until today. My Mutty was always an indoor cat and never had any of those problems...but I think she might have something now. She's been vomitting on and off for a couple of weeks so I tried reading what it could be and then I realized that if Sophie or Lily came to us with worms, then Mutty could have caught them. This is true, correct?

Now Lily was outside for a few months of her life so it's a good bet she had them......Sophie never showed any signs of worms, but I'm afraid now.

Now I guess I'm asking these questions because I'd like to be more informed before making any decisions, with Sophie's neuter and Lily's spay coming up (sophie in a couple of weeks!), all their vet exams, ANDDDD Lily just had four kittens that we are going to take care of until they can be adopted, we are spending a fortune already.

Would it be ok to just treat Sophie and Mutty for the worms while Lily and her kittens are still confined in one room???(I'm assuming it would be smart to wait on Lily until she is done nursing the babies) Could we use OTC medications? There are tons at the pet store.

And finally, Lily's babies are really chubby. They're 4 days old, could they have worms or am I over analyzinng the situation?

I guess I'm a little horrified. We have a lot of expenses coming up and I never equated worms into everything. I don't want Sophie to get checked out when he goes to get fixed and then catch worms when he comes back.

I'm really not well informed on this and would really like opinions.

IMO you should never use the over the counter (OTC) worm medicine. Unless you are a vet, you don't know what kind (if any) they really have. Its best to take the suspect cat to the vet with a stool sample and find out what they might have and get appropriate medicine.

Talk to your vet about what you should do regarding the other cats in the house and the kittens.

So is it safe to wait for when Sophie goes in for his pre-neuter check up??? (my vet likes two weeks before the neuter so we're taking him in next week)

Should be ok, IMO its not an emergency, but get them checked out as soon as you can.

The happy news is worms are relatively common and usually inexpensive to treat if you catch it right away. Worming is typically a regular part of the process when kittens go in for their initial shots and is included in the price.