URGENT question: Profender given for possible skin mites?

Hi All,

I posted a few days about my old girl Cleo who's losing fur. It was just on 2 spots around her left shoulder, yesterday I took off her little infant sleeper and was sad to see the same spot of missing fur to her right shoulder. It's not from grooming because she can't access these ears with the shirt on. She's had bloodwork, negative for hyperthyroidism. I'm giving her Omega 3 Derm Caps every 2nd day. She does seem to groom herself all over a fair bit. I was going to try her on a hypoallergenic diet but talked to my Vet tonight and asked about the possibility of it being due to mites. He said it could be. He has been pushing big time to give DepoMedrol and DepoProvera (he thinks it's hormone related, estrogen-related). I am trying to rule out everything else.

He sent me home with 5 doses of PROFENDER; so all of my 5 strictly indoor cats can be treated in the event that it's mites. When I was at the clinic, I noticed on the packet for the Profender it said "dewormer" and I asked the Tech about this. She said it's for use with mites.

I got home here and am reading up on Profender..don't like to give anything to my cats without knowing about it first, side effects, etc.

I cannot find ANYTHING online that indicates it's used for anything OTHER THAN worms.

I called back to the Vet and told him this. He told me that it's used "off label" for skin mites in cats. I would feel so much better if I could find SOMETHING online to verify this. I don't want to give this stuff to my cats if it will be for nothing.

Does anyone know anything about Profender?

Even the package insert info on it mentions nothing about it being used for the treatment of mites (skin mites, not ear mites).

I don't know what to do.

HELP!

When we dropped off a feral we'd trapped to be spayed tonight, the owner of the hospital was there. We don't normally see him (these days - when we first started TNRing he was just a vet there and he was our vet for all our cats the first year or so), and we chatted for a bit.

I specifically asked him about Profender, because even though I talked on the phone with the vet we're seeing now, I wanted to ask again. SUPPOSEDLY it requires just one dose for the internal parasites. Everything else needs to be administered in three weeks, because nothing kills the larvae or eggs. A number of us have had conflicting information on when to use the stuff. He explained. (The answer is it really should be administered again, because even it can't guarantee it kills the EGGS). But he went on to say that it also kills ear mites in addition to the internal parasites.

I don't know about skin mites... but if they've basically the same physiology, it seems to me it would kill them too.

OK - I looked up the difference between skin mites and ear mites. Apparently there are two primary skin type of mites, and treatment for the difficult-to-diagnose one is with Ivermectin (we know this treatment because it's used to kill lung worm, a problem out here). Profender is an ivermectin derivative.

Here you can read up on the mite vs. allergy issue: http://www.thepetcenter.com/exa/mites.html

You may want to chat with your vet about whether you should try Profender or Ivermectin to eliminate mites as a cause. But it does seem they should be eliminated as a cause.

!!!

Profender is a fantastic new wormer that will kill ear mites. I agree with LDG and her vet saying you must repeat in three weeks just in case all the eggs were not killed. For what you are describing, hair loss on the body, I would treat with Revolution instead. Revolution(selamectin) will kill mites and mange. I had a barn cat with mange or mites (not sure which it was, as i never did a skin scraping on this cat) and after two doses of Revolution three weeks apart, the hair started to come back immediately. It worked great and I was amazed how quickly it helped this cat. Did the vet do a skin scraping and have a look under a microscope? I would just call your vet before you give the Profender and ask some more questions and check if he thinks the Revolution would be more beneficial since it will take care of skin mites and mange at the same time.

I just checked the label on my profender and it definitely says treatment for worms and ear mites !

  Good luck with your kitties.... have you considered that the loss of fur could be related to stress?  maybe a change of food or simply a new cat/dog in the neighbourhood.  When this happened to my alpha male, i got 3 days worth *cat antidepressant tabs*  he zoned out for a few days and got over it.