Does anyone know if Frontline Plus will help with ear mites? Im not positive my cat has them, but I am seeing some dark bits of waxy substance in her ears. I just recently went through a very long battle with fleas. My sister brought her cats into my home with fleas, after telling me and swearing up and down they don't have them. Now that that is under control,(and her and her cats are out of my home) I'm now wondering if they might have ear mites from my sisters cats as well.. I just finally put frontline on both my cats three days ago, I was able to afford it finally, phew! I'm guessing it doesn't help with ear mites.. any advice? I can't afford to bring them to the vet for at least another 3 weeks..
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Ear Mites?
- Thread starter laidrien
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Hello and welcome to you and Sammy and Sophie! It could be a yeast infection rather than ear mites, only the vet can tell for sure. Though judging by what you said about your sister's cats it may be mites...on the other hand yeast is contagious too.
Or just dirty ears.
Is there any odor?
Let me see if I can find out about frontline plus.
Or just dirty ears.
Is there any odor?
Let me see if I can find out about frontline plus.
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After a lot of searching, I don't think the frontline plus kills mites.
Ear mites can cause serious infections and permanent damage if left too long though, so you might want to try to get them in sooner, or at least call and ask your vet if three weeks is too long to wait.
And just as a caution, please don't ever use any kind of over the counter parasite medications in your cats. I'm not saying you planned to, but if you were thinking about it don't. They are not effective and most of them are not safe.
Ear mites can cause serious infections and permanent damage if left too long though, so you might want to try to get them in sooner, or at least call and ask your vet if three weeks is too long to wait.
And just as a caution, please don't ever use any kind of over the counter parasite medications in your cats. I'm not saying you planned to, but if you were thinking about it don't. They are not effective and most of them are not safe.
I don't think any flea medication kills ear mites.
You can clean her ears by putting a little mineral oil into the ear canal, massaging for 1 minute then wiping clean with a soft cloth/toilet paper/etc. BE WARNED if you let you cat run around with all the oil in the ears it will end up EVERYWHERE - trust me!!
That will both drown the mite & help to release all the dirt from their ears.
However, if the ear mite infection is bad you should see a vet.
You can clean her ears by putting a little mineral oil into the ear canal, massaging for 1 minute then wiping clean with a soft cloth/toilet paper/etc. BE WARNED if you let you cat run around with all the oil in the ears it will end up EVERYWHERE - trust me!!
That will both drown the mite & help to release all the dirt from their ears.
However, if the ear mite infection is bad you should see a vet.
Revolution also kills ear mites. You need to get it from your vet; I don't know if your vet wil make you take the cats in for a check-up first. My vet will just sell it to me any time I ask.
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Great thank you for the input guys, I am not noticing a odor, and the amount of ear crud isn't hugely abundant.. I just got nervous when I saw that it was black in color. I don't have a lot of experience cleaning my cats ears so i'm not sure what color their ear wax is normally. And I would never use some store bought stuff to treat my kitties. Vet approved only. I have read about some horror stories from things such as HEARTZ brand. That stuff needs to be taken off the shelves!I do have some mineral oil, maybe I will try that real carefully. In a few weeks I have some money coming in from my student loans and I plan to buy some good text books on cat health and treatment, their biology, the works. It all fascinates me and I hate feeling helpless when something seems wrong with my animal. Plus maybe I could offer some educated help on here. I know the vet is always there but I want to know too. Anyways! I'll let you know what I end up finding out about this hopefully its nothing at all and i'm just being paranoid as I usually am with my cats. God bless you if you read all of this haha!
Revolution and Advantage multi. As someone else suggested, you can clean the ears with a few eye droppers of mineral oil and make cotton ball bits ( tear up cotton balls)... wedgethem down into the ear canal and clean. Try not to use Q tips b/c you can damage the ear drum. Cats ear canals are also L shaped and to see into the horizontal part you really need a vet to look with an otoscope.
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- #9
I gently cleaned both of my cats ears tonight with a mixture of water and cider vinegar, I put a little on a cotton ball and cleaned them out! I didn't let any drip down into their ears. It seemed to work pretty well. Sophie's Left ear is really clean, and her right ear had a couple little dark specs i cleaned out, i'm going to keep a eye on it in hopes that it is not ear mites.
I just brought Luci and Sushi to the vet today because Luci has an ear infection while Sushi has ear mites. Sushi didn't have tons of gunk in his ears either, Luci had wet brown ear wax.
After seeing Sushi scratch at his ear I used a q -tip to get some black gunk out(only the parts I could see). I put in it in a plastic bag and I saw ear mites, tiny white things, crawling around in the bag.
Today the vet looked at their ears first and said it was ear wax. Then he put some ear gunk on a slide, looked at it under a microscope. Luci didn't have any ear mites but Sushi did.
Since they already had Frontline Plus on them he gave them MilbeMite, a one time treatment. It would have been awful if I had to give them ear drops for 3 weeks.
After seeing Sushi scratch at his ear I used a q -tip to get some black gunk out(only the parts I could see). I put in it in a plastic bag and I saw ear mites, tiny white things, crawling around in the bag.
Today the vet looked at their ears first and said it was ear wax. Then he put some ear gunk on a slide, looked at it under a microscope. Luci didn't have any ear mites but Sushi did.
Since they already had Frontline Plus on them he gave them MilbeMite, a one time treatment. It would have been awful if I had to give them ear drops for 3 weeks.
