anyone using topical flea drops while doing sub-q's?

our cat is 17.  he's strictly an indoor cat and he's been on subcutaneous fluids for a couple years to help with his feline kidney disease.  he recently developed a flea infestation either from a hitchhiker flea or maybe he picked one up at his last trip to the vet.  our vet has suggested that we use a topical flea treatment like frontline or advantage 2 (actually i believe his office uses revolution).  he felt it was very safe, but after talking to the manufacturers of the first two, they're not convinced it's a good idea to use these drops with a cat getting sub-q fluids and they have never done any tests i was told.  i'm going to talk with the manufacturer of revolution when i wake up.

we considered treating the condo instead of the cat with a spray or diatomaceous earth, but having hardwood floors and very little fabric furniture, i'm not sure what we'd treat.  we've been vacuuming daily for the past few days and throwing away the vacuum cleaner bags right afterward.  i comb him several times a day, and are still getting about 40 fleas off of him every 24 hours, which is weird because we haven't found any spot in the house where live fleas jump on us.  obviously there's something we're not finding.

anyway, hoping to hear from others who used flea topicals on older cats getting sub-q's or am open to suggestions.

thanks!

how often do you do the sub fluids?

can you put the sub fluids lower down the back away from the neck area? I would see why they don't recommend as they don't want the medicine to be pushed into the skin by the needle. the revolution is alcohol based and evaporates faster so this would be one I would use instead. I also would space out the fluids and flea stuff 12 to 24 hours. you can put the flea stuff higher up on the head-kind of in the back of the head which is not where the sub fluids go. that would give about 3 to 4 inches of area away from each other. you will have to treat those fleas otherwise you will never get ahead of it.

the other option is a flea shampoo for cats-but again they just crawl up on your babies head. I would do the DE around your house anyways. it wont hurt your cat or you.

have you called the vet and asked about this?  they may have you give the sub fluids lower in the back down by the hips for a day. I would give them a buzz and maybe bath the cat in the meantime. but if you do spot treatment you don't want to put it on fresh bathed skin. so either way you will need to wait a day or so and that would mean more annoying fleas!!

have you washed the beds he sleeps in? I assume yes?

I use Capstar if I see any fleas. It kills all the fleas on them and kills all the fleas that jump on them for the next 24 hours. You get 6 pills for like $20 on Amazon. Walmart has the generic version of it too, for the same price. Oh, and these pills are very, very tiny.

I love Capstar. The topicals never worked for me. They've always been a disappointment. This Capstar pill is completely safe for cats and works within minutes. It's amazing!

foxxycat said:

 
how often do you do the sub fluids?

can you put the sub fluids lower down the back away from the neck area? I would see why they don't recommend as they don't want the medicine to be pushed into the skin by the needle. the revolution is alcohol based and evaporates faster so this would be one I would use instead. I also would space out the fluids and flea stuff 12 to 24 hours. you can put the flea stuff higher up on the head-kind of in the back of the head which is not where the sub fluids go. that would give about 3 to 4 inches of area away from each other. you will have to treat those fleas otherwise you will never get ahead of it.

the other option is a flea shampoo for cats-but again they just crawl up on your babies head. I would do the DE around your house anyways. it wont hurt your cat or you.

have you called the vet and asked about this?  they may have you give the sub fluids lower in the back down by the hips for a day. I would give them a buzz and maybe bath the cat in the meantime. but if you do spot treatment you don't want to put it on fresh bathed skin. so either way you will need to wait a day or so and that would mean more annoying fleas!!

have you washed the beds he sleeps in? I assume yes?

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we do sub fluids 2 days on and 1 day off.

not according to our vet.  the neck is where the loose skin is, and that's where the fluids go. 

hk is aging and very skittish since he's started having some changes due to aging.  i keep wishing we could wash him, but we can't even change his food or do something differently that makes a noise at this point.

i talked to the vet and one of his assistant vets, and while they both feel it's safe, there's no reason to believe it is.  when a cat with feline kidney disease dies - particularly an older one - everyone assumes that's why the cat died, so they don't really know if if could have been something else.  i'm going to ask them about doing the hips. 

he has always chosen to sleep on a hardwood floor and the cracks aren't large and we've been thoroughly vacuumed daily.    i comb him several times a day till he's literally flea free, and can't figure out where the live adult fleas are coming from in such numbers - he sits on a hardwood floor by the wall under a not upholstered chair.  there's have to be hundreds of adult fleas nearby for him to pick up ten at a time every couple hours. 

Lifewith3cats said:

 
I use Capstar if I see any fleas. It kills all the fleas on them and kills all the fleas that jump on them for the next 24 hours. You get 6 pills for like $20 on Amazon. Walmart has the generic version of it too, for the same price. Oh, and these pills are very, very tiny.

I love Capstar. The topicals never worked for me. They've always been a disappointment. This Capstar pill is completely safe for cats and works within minutes. It's amazing!

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hk won't eat pills without trauma but you say they're very tiny.  we could powder them and put them in gravy.  capstar does have poential side effects, the same ones as in most flea products - can cause convulsions, other issues and death in a tiny amount of animals - but we have to do something, so i'm going to call the vet and ask about  this. 

The topical bug protection medicine can be applied on the back of the head and at the base of the head.  I strongly urge you to dose your kitty with Capstar and a proper topical bug protection medicine ASAP.   You should also have your kitty evaluated for Flea Anemia. 

You can use the area of looser skin between your kitty's shoulders for administering sub-Q fluids.  There is also an area just forward of the hip on either side, suitable for sub-Q injection sites.

It does not matter where the fleas come from.  What matters is that they are steadily draining your cat of his blood.

Any treatment has potential side effects. Even a simple Tylenol can destroy a person's liver.

The primary reason people use Capstar is because it IS safer, certainly much safer than a pesticide on your cat's back. The same pesticide, in fact, that homeowners use to kills all sorts of bugs and insects on their shrubs and trees.

Capstar is one ingredient, and that ingredient is only a neuro toxin to the flea, not to the cat.

If you are going to worry about your cat's safety, be much more worried about him being full of tape worms.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

you can also get some food grade Demetrious Earth-google it. Its ground silica that suffocates bugs that breathe through its skin.

I would use caution when you apply it on the floors around the cat=it wont hurt the cat BUT it is very dusty. I usually move the cat to another room and dust the powder on the floor-leave it there for a hour then sweep it up. it only kills living breathing bugs and may kill larvae but its all natural and farmers use DE in their cattle feed to kill weevils. Some vets say to give this powder in food as it also kills worms inside the stomach/intestines. Not all vets know about this but anyone who has been farming for generations this is how they cut down on parasites getting into the feed for their animals.

This is one way of killing the fleas without chemicals.

Yes the hip is another area you can administer fluids-in my angel Floey=I moved to a different site each time=we did both sides of her neck and on her hip to keep from the skin getting tough in that area from repeated punctures.

You can try the caster-maybe put the tablet inside a syringe with 1ml of water-let it dissolve-an hour or so=then suck up a bit of tuna juice and give it this way. or you can follow it with baby food or other treat. We don't want the fleas to get anymore blood out of your cat. Yes I agree about blood work to show anemia. Also have them test for that parasite that fleas can give our cats. Haemobartonellosis I believe its called bartonello for short. but its something I would be concerned about. luckily it is treated with antibiotics but maybe DE will help put a stop to these blood suckers. I have put DE on my hands and run them backwards on my cats fur to help get it on the skin around the base of the tail/belly=the fleas like it warm on the body so I have seen this DE kill them fast! it does work.

I got my food grade DE at the local Blue Seal feed store. Any store that has horse food or other farm animal stuff probably has it.

foxxycat said:

 
you can also get some food grade Demetrious Earth-google it. Its ground silica that suffocates bugs that breathe through its skin.

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I believe Foxxycat means diatomaceous earth. Use only the food grade diatomaceous earth.

yes thank you for the spelling-sorry for my bad spelling-the spell checker didn't ding it for spelling.

thank you.

thanks for your replies, all.

while we wanted to use food grade diatomaceous earth, having no carpets there didn't seem to be a way to deal with it easily, and HK already is developing anemia plus an allergy to fleas, so we went with revolution, and applied it a few hours ago.   we applied it higher than the back of the neck - more like the lower back of the head - as per one of his vets, so it wouldn't be too near the site he gets his sub-q's.  so far, so good - i only found one flea on him for the first time in several weeks.

btw, Lifewith3cats - revolution also contains a single ingredient that's an insect (and fish and turle) neuro toxin. 

Just an FYI to anyone reading this who is considering flea treatment. The half life of Capstar in cats is 8 hours. The half life of Revolution in cats is 8 days.

My vet once described it to me like this when I started going to her. My previous vet had my Maine Coon going to him once a month for an injection of long-acting depo medrol for his asthma. My current vet said she didn't like that strong of a medicine in his body for that long. The side effects and the long term affects on his body were a concern for her. For the last 2 years she's given me a short acting pill for him for only when he starts coughing. Sort of like my daughter's inhaler, she uses it only rarely, for when she needs it.

That's the way Capstar is. I can give it to my cats, and along with steam mopping our hard wood floors which rids the house of the eggs (we have no carpet) we can eliminate fleas in our home almost entirely in 24 hours, with no long term medicines roaming around in my cats' bodies. Steam mopping is key, without it those flea eggs would remain and hatch and it would take longer to end the cycle.

our steam mop said not to use on hardwood floors.  how are yours holding up?

My hardwood floors look great. I use the Shark Steam Pocket Mop. It's made for hardwood floors. I couldn't live without it. Period.

thank you SO much - i'm getting one of those and steaming the fleas!  thanks again

well, our stream mop came and we steamed lots of hardwood floor.  hopefully it was hot enough - it didn't seem like the floor got that hot, but if it didn't work, i'll just get a steamer.  steam is much better than chemicals all over the house - i just hadn't thought of it.

btw, capstar made HK queasy, and on a full dose he had a reaction - he kept leaking urine.  i tried him on a quarter dose that made him just a little queasy but no other issues, and that quarter dose killed all the fleas just fine.  hopefully the steam mop did the trick! 

I'm glad you got the steam mop. You're on the right track to killing flea eggs. 

You're supposed to grab the handle and pump up and down on the pole to create extra amounts of steam, wherever you want it. For killing flea eggs, I pump it constantly to make a ton of steam. My cats like to follow around and watch it. Nothing more interesting to them than watching my steam mop go back and forth, without all the wetness (and uselessness for killing flea eggs) that a traditional mop offers.

Keep us updated on how things go. I'm sorry your cat had nausea from the Capstar. I've never heard of that as a side effect. I'm glad it worked though. There's nothing better than to see our cats experience 100% relief from fleas in a matter of hours, without any long-term issues of topical pesticides.