Dewormers and Flea medicine for FIV cat recommendations.

I am giving antibiotics to clear his ear, mouth and skin infections, but need to also give him deworming medicine and flea medicine. 

He was not tested for worms at all at the vet and they wanted to sell me some super expensive meds, so I passed and decided to research this later. 

I would like to give him medicine for all the types of worms that cats may have. Which medicine I can buy OTC or online and for which worms? is there an all in one medicine to get rid of the most common ones?

I gathered that tapeworm, roundworm and heartworm are the most common? 

Also for fleas, something that will keep him protected but is not too toxic for a cat with a compromised immune system already?

Please let me know! I am trying my best to care for this FIV stray that lives at my door looking for love.

Wormer:  Tried and true, very safe, PYRANTEL PAMOATE will get roundworms and hookworms.  There are many preparations of it.  I personally have settled on NEMEX-2 canine antihelmintic suspension. 

It tastes good.  I mix it with their food and they lick the plates clean.  You have to repeat it in 2-3 weeks and for an outside cat, I do it every 3-4 months.

Tapeworms require a different medication, PRAZIQUANTEL.  It comes in little white pills, and you can buy it at Petsmart or other stores as cat tapeworm tablets.  if you have a cat you can handle, put some cream or goats milk in a syringe, give him some to wet his palate, tilt his head back a tad and drop i the pill and then chase it quickly with more liquid.  You don't have to repeat.

If yu have a cat you can't handle, then pill pockets, or a piece of meat cubed and with a little pocket cut into it will do, if he eats raw meat.  This one tastes terrible so you dont want him to taste it. 

If you do them separately, you don't have to hit him with a bunch of meds all in the same day.

Heartworm:  You do NOT worm cats for heartworm, you can kill the cat if the heartworm dies.  Because of the toxicity of the type of drugs used in heartworm prevention, I personally prefer to take my chances with the heartworm, but it is carried by mosquitoes and if he is outside all the time, there's always a chance.  Most of the time heartworms don't survive in cats, not like dogs, who are their natural hosts, but sometimes they do, usuallly just one.  It doesn't bother the cat much while it is alive, but it can wreak havoc when it dies and gets flushed out of the heart and into the arteries and lungs.

My advice to everyone is DO NOT TRY SOMETHING NEW.  Use something that has been used for years, and even if it isn't 100% perfect, it will make your pet more comfortable.   Now that the patents have expired on the old tried and true flea preventatives (fipronil - Frontline, and imadocloprid - Advantage), and the fleas in some area have become more resistant, the companies are putting together new drugs and combos because other companies are now selling generic and less expensive flea preventatives using these older drugs.  However, the older ones are SAFE, so personally I still use Advantage.  I have never had a cat even get sick, much less die, using Advantage.  It is so safe you can use it once a week if you have a heavy flea infestation.  It breaks my heart to read of the problems some animals are have with these new products.  Others do just fine on them. 

When in doubt, find out when the product was first licensed, how long it has been in use, and as best you can find out if any animals are having problems with them by searching on Google "complaints about ___________" -- there are usually complaints about most everything, but if there is a pattern of a number of animals having similar problems, steer clear of whatever it is.  Don't let your vet sell you some wonderful new flea and worm medication that others like but your cat may have a serious reaction to.  Wait and see. 

That being said, your vet has pills for the two drugs above, the pyrantel pamoate and the prazquantel  One pill is called DRONCIT and the other is called DRONTAL.   Droncit contains ONLY the praziquantel and ONLY treats tapeworms.  Drontal contains the pyrantel pamoate and the praziquantel together and will get all the worms at once, but as I said, you may not want to hit your guy with all the medicines at once. 

So those are my recommendations.  Stick to the basics and the well known tried and true remedies and you will be fine.  I know there are others who prefer using a medicine called Revolution for cats and swear by it, but it is not one I would use on my cats.  Some cats have had bad reactions and I will not risk it.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your post with such great detail !!

I already spent around $100 with this stray and can't spend much more on these other treatments and it looks like there is a lot of money to be spent of flea and worm meds. If you don't mind I have researched what you suggested and have some prices. Would you please take a look and let me know where I can save a bit if you have better knowledge of where to source these products or other ideas?

Thanks a lot!!

I have found on Amazon the Nemex-2 Wormer 2oz, for $18, but since it says it is for dogs I wanted to verify with you whether the dosing they recommend of 5ml per 10lb of weight is safe for cats. Especially since this cat is taking a super high dose of 250mg once a day of Cephalexin antibiotic for his skin, ear and mouth infections (BUT the manufacturer suggest 10mg per pound of weight every 12 hrs which would be 120mg each time instead of the 250mg at once I am giving him. This worries me a bit since it may be too strong)

The cat tapeworm tablets from Bayer come in just 3 tablets and cost $24.00. Which is a bit expensive. 

I found Drontal very inexpensive for Cat Allworms, Round and Tap Worm, 4 Tablets. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017VQXQEC/?tag=&tag=thecatsite

This one has Pyrantel Embonate instead of Pamoate and also the Praziquantel and it only costs $14 instead of $24 for just 3 pills of Tapeworm only. 

The only thing is that these pills are for the Thai market, but in the link above shows many people who say it worked very well. What do you think?

As for the heartworm. I live in South florida and here you have mosquitoes everywhere. I have seen them on their noses or flying around them. We even have ZIka now. I hear what you say about this, so maybe I will hold on that until further research?

As for fleas. Amazon has the Bayer Advantage II Flea Control Treatment for Cats for $52 and comes with 6 vials. Expensive stuff, but then I found Advecta which has the same drugs as Advantage II for just $20 and comes with 4 vials, but some reviewers say it does not work as well as Advantage II. So this generic does not work that well. Any suggestions for a generic that works as the original? 

thanks again!!!! 

The pyrantel embonate is the European pharmacopoeia term instead of the US one, but it's the same drug.  It should be just fine.  There's a combo of pyrantel pamoate and praziquantel manufactured in Bulgaria called BIHELDON and it works very well and is very inexpensive.  It's pills and they are rather large, and as I said the praziquantel tastes terrible so you can't mix it in a cat's food (you can with dogs, they wolf it down).  I got some on eBay for around $8.50 which included free shipping, and that was a complete package with English directions and 30 tablets.  I used a couple but gave most to my friend who is fostering a bunch of cats and kittens.  I got it from an authorized seller in Bulgaria.  It worked fine, nobody got sick but the worms.  It is only 1/2 tablet for each cat.  Sellers are selling it all over eBay in lower numbers of tablets (some offer 5 tablets, some offer 10 tablets, etc.) so if you are looking there you might find a cheaper price for a lower number of tablets, but watch out you don't get charged a bunch for shipping.  I found that for my cats, I had to cut up the half tablet and stuff it into a gelatin capsule or else they would taste it going down and get upset.  I'll use it again at the end of the summer to get rid of tapeworms, but generally I will use the liquid

Personally, I buy the extra large dog size of Advantage and use a syringe to measure the cat doses.  Advantage is the same formula for cats and dogs and weight of the animal determines the dosage.  I am treating a large number of cats and could never afford to buy the cat size package.  Each extra large dog tube treats 10 cats.  Normal size cat dose is 0.4 ml.  Since Bayer doesn't sell it by the individual vial, the least one can get is a 4 pack, but stores charge as much for a 4-pack of cat size as they do for a 4-pack of extra large dog size, i.e. you are paying 10 times as much.  Years ago they didn't distinguish as if there was a different formula, and it was only sold by vets.  Our vets told us to buy the extra large dog size and measure doses for everyone because it was the most economical.  We are still doing that.

I forgot to respond to your question on dosing for the Nemex-2, which is pyrantel pamoate suspension at a concentration of 4.54 mg. per 1 ml.   There are other concentrations sold for smaller animals and larger animals.  This is very important because the amounts per dose are tied to the concentration.  There are three different concentrations of pyrantel pamoate commonly marketed, so if you were buying it generically on Amazon or something, it would be very important to know which concentration you were getting.  There is a 2.27 mg./ml concentration for very small animals, there is the 4.54 mg./ml concentration that is commonly used for medium sized animals such as dogs and cats, and there is the 50 mg./ml concentration used for large animals like horses.  When I specify Nemex-2, that automatically specifies the 4.54 mg/ml concentration because it's a specific product. 

Yes, this says Canine, and it is specifically marketed for dogs, but it is fine for cats too.  Cats generally get twice as much as dogs do, which is surprising.  It's a very safe drug, however, so not a lot of danger of overdosing especially at this concentration. 

The price of $18 is a good one.  I pay $16 at my local feed store.  Generic is cheaper but I like this particular preparation because all the cats go for it.

http://www.petmd.com/pet-medication/pyrantel-pamoate

I read that an FIV cat should not be given any drugs like chemicals

Red Top Rescue said:

 
 I found that for my cats, I had to cut up the half tablet and stuff it into a gelatin capsule or else they would taste it going down and get upset.  I'll use it again at the end of the summer to get rid of tapeworms, but generally I will use the liquid

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Hi RedTopRescue, 

I received the Drontal tablets. I have 4 and it is one per 9lb cat. 

How do you get your cats to eat the whole gelatin capsule?

Are these capsule about 3/4 of an inch?.

If so I may use the antibiotic capsule instead of discarding them, since I have been emptying the antibiotic into a hole I dig in a small sausage then covering it up with the same meat I dug out and he has been getting the antibiotic it this way.

I made the mistake of smashing the tablet to dust in a folded printer paper and then mixing it with wet food. He ate a little because he was hungry, but could not finish the rest. I only have 4 pills for now to treat the 3 outside and my inside cat. So I hope that mixing the leftover with some tuna (gotta go get some real quick) will work and more importantly the effect of the drug will still be the same even if the pill was pulverized this way? Or you suggest giving him another dose ?

I cannot address the FIV cat issue.  Ask your vet on that one, I have no experience there.

As for the gelatin capsules, I do pulverize the pill into powder, stuff if all into the smallest capsule I have (yes, an antibiotic capsule, about the size of an amoxicillin 250 mg. capsule, which I save because I mix the amoxi with goat milk and they dont mind it).  then I wipe off any dust that would have the bitter taste.  Then I give the cat a little cream of goat milk to prime the pump, so to speak, so his mouth and through will be wet and slippery and he will not be expecting a bad taste.  Then I dip one end of the capsule into something very slippery like mayonnaise. open the cat's mouth and place the capsule mayo end first in the back of his throad and give a little push to get started and INSTANTLY chase with a whole bunch more of the goat's milk or cream.  He swallows the whole thing, licks his chops, and there is no chance of capsule getting stuck since it is a slippery object going down a very wet throat, and then followed bu a bunch of liquid to make sure it gets all the way down.

My cats are cooperative because I NEVER give them anything that tastes bad in that manner, so they trust me.  And I ALWAYS taste anything that I will be putting in their mouths and asking them to swallow.  If it's yukky, we find another way.  Example -- the antibiotic Clavamox tastes terriblle in the liquid form you get for cats from the vet.  However, the antibiotic Clavamox you get from the vet in tablet form has very little taste at all when crushed.  So I get the tablets, crush them (I have a mortar & pestle but if you don't, you can crush between two spoons) and mix that into something yummy - baby food & a touch of bacon fat works for some, and for those not interested in eating, I mix with the goat's milk and squirt that in too.  My cats usually are eager for anything coming at them in a syringe because it's usually goat's milk (I buy the condensed kind, in cans, you can usally find it in the baking aisle.)  Sometimes I just give them some goats milk in a syringe with no meds in it just so they keep feeling comfy with it.