How the heck can inside cats get worms??

I just found two white disgusting crawling things in Zoey's stool Course the vets closed for the weekend so I will call them Monday. I hope I dont have to bring her in and they can just give me some medicine. This is just fantastic.. she just finished taking antibiotics and now this!!

Well the good news is she just needs a pill from you vet called Drontal and one application is all she needs. They base it on weight. If they are tapes, she could have found a mouse when she got outside your apartment that one time and ate it, or she could have fleas. Fleas are coming inside this time of year- on your clothes and shoes, on visitors who come to your place. Once she gets treated, wash your litter pans out really good with bleach and water and let them air dry, and keep her and Saki flea-treated with Advantage or frontline

I just checked them both, they dont have fleas. And when she got out she was just in the hallway, enclosed.. there are no mice here.

I have advantage, guess its time to re-apply. I didnt think I needed to since I dont see fleas on them and they dont go outside *sigh*

You or visitors might have tracked things in on your shoes, or maybe Saki brought them with him from the shelter. It's important to worm both cats, and to sterilize the litterboxes. I can sympathize. Years ago we adopted a dog from a shelter, and he infected our three other dogs with tapeworm, although the shelter assured us he had been wormed, and the first thing we did was worm him again. That was fun - multiple trips to the vet's with four dogs, none of which weighed under 60 lbs., pooperscoopering immediately and pouring bleach on the spots - our yard was completely "bleached" within a week, and it was a big yard! Poor Zoey, and poor you!

Saki was wormed before he came here. And there are no worms in his poop because I always check both of their poops before I throw them out.

Now Zoey is scratching her neck and licking her foot!! ugh. She must feel the wetness. I've put Advantage on her before and dont remember her doing this.

What kinds of other 'things' can be tracked in to cause worms besides fleas?

And can worms be transferred between cats or just the fleas? Am I going to have to de-worm Saki too?

I would Sicy, and you don't usually see the worms, it is when they start venturing outside, or the cat (excuse me being graphic) heaves them up that the infestation is bad and they need treatment. You can have the fleas build up a resistance to the Advantage, it is a good idea to switch out every few months to another safe brand.

Ok thank you. Switch from Advantage to something else, is that what you're saying?

Well at least I have 2 more tubes for Zoey and I just found the Orange ones for Saki online for only $25.

Right, switch out from Advantage to Frontline, then back to Advantage. just keep those fleas guessing

This is just SO odd because I dont see any fleas or eggs on either of them.

I found a flea on me this morning. I haven't seen any on the cats for a couple of months now. I had to have picked it up from the outside walking in.

Drontal is made for tapes, and a lot of the deworming meds at vets are targeting round and hooks (like the yellow stuff called Stongoid).

I always tape deworm the entire household at a time, but only 3 days after their monthly advantage/frontline treatment and vacuuming up any remaining fleas. It doesn't help to fight the tapes if the fleas are still in hiding. They'll just come back the next month.

My vet charges about $8 per tablet for Drontal - you will probably need 1-1/2 tabs for Saki and Zoey (1 for Zoey and 1/2 for Saki).

Sicy , all what your cat had to do was licking one flea and swallow it . Thats how they get the worms from . At least that is my understanding .

All the above are true. In fact, when I first got Kayla, I noticed that her poop was a little soft, with a little mucus. Of course, worrywart that I was, immediately rushed her to the vet where they took a fecal sample, and pronounced her parasite-free, and said it must be the food. But wormed her anyway.

One month later, poop still soft, still a little mucus, no worms I could see. Indoor only at the time. Back into the vet. Another sample, no parasites. So they alarmed me by saying that she could have all kinds of horrible things, etc. and drew up a $300 testing program to figure out what was wrong. Didn't sound right to me, so I took her home to think about it and do some more research.

One hour back from the vets, Kayla shoves her butt in my face, and there's white thingies wriggling around. Of course, much reading up on worms, and their life cycles, which are persistent. So depending on the life cycle, it may take a while to rid your cats of them.

Ack! I'm sorry to hear about the worm problem. My cats have been tested in the past and came up negative, now I'm going to be paranoid

It's definately tapeworms I did some research. They were like 1/2 inch long, white, and moving.. it was so gross Well by the time they get the de-wormer it will be a couple days after putting on Advantage on them. It's bothering me that Zoey keeps scratching at her neck. This stuff takes soo long to dry. Her skin doesnt look irritated and she's acting fine but I'm going to watch her closely (like I dont anyway).

superkitty that's a crazy story. I wonder then how do you tell they're gone? Just keep checking the stool? Are they going to start coming out dead? I have no idea

The vet (I went to another one) gave all 3 cats injections of Drontal. It didn't take long (less than a mth?) after that that second treatment things looked normal (her poops looked firm and no more mucus).

But I told my current vet about the injection treatment, and he said that stuff was nasty and painful for the cats. Tablets were the way to go in the future. Lesson learned.

Yeah, talk about confused, especially since they were indoor and had already had 2 dewormings (one treating the tapes, the 2nd not, Strongid). Are you kidding? I was both sooo grossed out and SO relieved that it was just worms.

I can sympathise Sicy - my neighbours dog got inside one day and gave my boys fleas and it was worse for Kahu because hes allergic to them - his skin looked so awful. Then after I had treated them for the fleas, I found the sesame seed looking things and told the vet, and he gave them drontal and they have (hopefully) been wormfree since. I still check their bums all the time It really is not a nice thing to find! *shudder*
I have to be extra vigilant when it comes to fleas because of Kahu's allergy.

Well that was fun

So I had to give one and a half pills of Drontal to Zoey and one pill to Saki. So I decided to give Zoey both at once because I didnt want to put her through that twice in one evening. At first she kept trying to spit them out but finally I got them both down. Saki was a little easier. But I figured out what I was doing wrong. I have to get the pill to the back of their throat. Otherwise they can just spit them out with their tongue. I bought a piller but this thing sucked so bad. I tested it out first, and it was so cheap, the pill just flops out over the top. I expected it to "shoot" it out but no. Takin that thing back to the store.

So one more dose in 2 weeks and that's it.

I guess I'm going to start seeing more worms now? Dead ones?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Now my boys have worms again! Got a vet appt on Friday and taking in their poo samples.

Oh no!!! Did you see them? How frustrating. Even with Advantage on them??