Problem with Vet - Cat had round worm, now tapeworm

My Murphy (10-month old neutered indoor only male) came from a shelter and I noticed two months ago (he's been with me 3 months now) he threw up a roundworm. So I took him to a new vet extremely close to home. She dosed him and Tigger (12-year-old spayed female) twice and I've been taking in stool samples. With the last stool sample I got a call back saying she found tapeworm egg which blew my mind.

Murphy and Tigger are strictly indoor cats, no other animals come in, they are not scratching, nor have I seen any nits/flea evidence in their grooming. They eat IAMs wet and PetsMart dry food & wet food.

So I call the vet and ask what to do and she says they can get dosed for this or not - it's no big deal if they have tapeworms. HUH?!!! So I said I thought if causes them to overeat and plus it's not a good idea to have parasite worms in my pets. She said if I want I can wait a month and bring in a stool and we can recheck.

Long story short - is this vet insane? Should I find another vet? I think it's odd that Murphy had round worms and now he has a tapeworm but I'm not sure cause I took stool from two litter pans and maybe Tigger has the tapeworm. I guess I'm concerned how they seem to be getting these parasites and that my vet was so nonchalant about it.

I'm not putting down vets - I just need some opinions. Help?!

Just have them wormed for tapeworm.
Tapeworm is easy to get and easy to cure.
Roundworms
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Many kittens get roundworm at birth, from the mother catg.
Older cats can get roundworm from catching eggs on their coats.
Signs of roundworm are usually pot bellied tummy and/or diarrhoea.
In really bad cases the infestation can become so large that the intestines can actually become blocked.
Roundworms are 3-5 inches long,thin like fine string or spaghetti.
They live in the intestine of your cat, and can sometimes be seen in your cats stools/faeces or vomit .
Treatment for roundworm usually requires several treatments before the worms are cleared out totally.
Roundworms can also lay thousands of eggs which can be found in the litterbox and in your pet's bedding or favorite areas like your settee or bed. Because of this you must clean your home to prevent reinfection when any missed eggs can hatch.

Tapeworms
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Tapeworms attach themselves to the intestinal wall inside the cat and look like long flat ribbons as adults. They are most often got by flea infestation but can also be contracted and ingested by segments lying around and being caught on the coat then ingested by grooming.
It is usually 6 inches or more in length as an adult. The length is in segments and it is the segments that are most commonly seen looking like bird seed or small pieces of raw beige or creamy coloured rice around the anus of the dog or cat or in the bedding. The segments that are seen by us is basically a sac of tapeworm eggs.Surprisingly these segments are able to move just like a small maggot then eventually the segment will dry and look more like a sesame seed. The sac breaks and tapeworm eggs are released. Once the eggs are released into the environment then the flea larvae will eat them along with the flea dirt which is dried blood and the tapeworm eggs then grow along with the developing flea. The flea is then ingested by the cat or dog and the tapeworm segment them makes it's way to the small intestine and the whole circle starts all over again. The
complete cycle from start to finish takes approx three weeks..

Symptoms of tapeworm are not very obvious
You may see a cat/dog itching his/her bottom by sliding along the floor.
Incidentaly the same behaviour for blocked anal glands so check the anus to be sure as the worm segments may be at the entrance to it's rectum and the cat/dog can feel it.
If your cat/dog has a tapeworm you may be able to see small eggs,they look like small cream coloured seeds or white raw rice moving in places that your cat/dog likes to rest such as his/her bed,your settee or your bed,in your cat's/dog's faeces, or actually on your cat's/dog's bottom under the tail.

Symptoms to look for
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diarrhoea

Pot-belly appearance

Vomiting

no energy/hanging about

eating like mad/picking or refusing food

Weight loss yet eating like mad

Anemia

dry/stary/non glossy coat appearance

Treatment
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If you suspect that your cat has either of these worms take him/her to the vet.
Your vet will do blood tests, faecal examination and/or other lab tests to decide what type of worm the cat has.

Most worms are fairly easily treated and cleared but you must treat regularly as a prevention of another bug infestation.

Please remember the worms can lay thousands of eggs in your home so make sure to thoroughly clean your house if your cat has been infected.

This will help protect your pet from getting reinfected.

For adults cats most internal worms are got by eating raw meat, infected food, or drinking dirty/contaminated water, and fleas.

With cats it could also be a dirty litterbox. Clean the box daily or oftener of faeces and once a week empty totally and scrub with diluted bleach NEVER anything with phenol in it. Dry the tray refill and off you go again

Make sure your cat eats a healthy balanced diet from a clean bowl and drinks from a clean water bowl at all times.

It's better not to use plastic bowls as they can often hold the smell of the disinfectant needed to clean the bowls. Steel are best as you can puor boiling water and bleach into them then wash rinse dry and you know they are safe.

If you introduce a new cat, especially a kitten, into your home make sure to take him/her to the vet for a full examination first. This way the new cat will not innocently pass any diseases/worms to your present pets.

You should seek the advice of your vet if your pet is ill as only he or she can correctly advise on the diagnosis and recommend the treatment that is most appropriate for your pet.
website...http://manamousiamese.tripod.com/

Hmmm, I'd be worried about a vet that didn't think tapeworm was an issue, especially in a kitten. Perhaps Murphy had both roundworm and tapeworm in the beginning and once the roundworm was treated, the tapeworm flourished. Some worming meds (Nemex for example) only cover roundworm and hookworm, not tapeworm. To treat tapeworm, they will need to have Droncit or Cestex from the vet.

Living in the county within flea central, I have serious issues with tapeworms. My vet's advice is that of all the internal parasites, tapeworms are the least problematic in cats from a health perspective. That is not to say that you shouldn't treat them, as small problems can turn into large problems. It's more like if you find one, you don't have to panic and think you have to rid them of it that day. I typically have to dose my entire household with Drontal once a month during flea season each year. I know that there are weeks that go by when some of them have them, but frankly, I would be dosing them weekly all summer long to stay on top of it. At $8 per pill and I need about 30 pills to do all my cats and dogs, it isn't practical. And, not all of mine will have them, but I still have to treat the entire household. I fight them more with Advantage and lots of vacuuming and bed washing all summer long.

I don't think your vet is insane, perhaps just being practical.

She did give me the option of getting some pill medication. Maybe I'll call her back today and run by and pick them up. I'd really like to get Murphy and Tigger back to status quo with no worms. When Murphy came into the household I did do the flea routine including spraying the house, washing all the linens, vacuuming like a fiend. That was 3 months ago. Like I said I see no flea symptoms. Gosh I hope not - I hate the whole routine. Thanks for your thoughts all.

Well, you can always try another vet if you don't like the one you have. As for tapeworms, you cats probably always had them but the poop tests are only 80 % effective (or so my vet says) so they could have missed the tapeworm when they did the poop test.

Elysiannn:

Round worm can be very difficult to treat. We rescue ferals, and two of them had problems with round worm ONE YEAR after we'd adopted them. They have been treated for round worm regularly - we've been through a plethora of treatments. Some have developed resistance to certain types of medication.

The poison you give your cat to kill the worms only works on the adult worm, not on the larvae. The larvae can exist in cysts elsewhere in the cat's system, and the medications will not work until the larvae develop into worms in your cat's gut. So the medication cannot be given just once - it has to be given over a series of several weeks in order to treat the entire lifecycle of the worms.

For us, the Drontal (a pill) did NOT work on the round worm.

Over-the-counter worming medications do NOT work.

To effectively treat the round worm (and this works for tapeworm too), we used a combination of Panacur and Strongid-T. Both were liquids. I don't remember the dosage, but we first administered one, waited three weeks, administered it again. We administered the other after several weeks, and administered a second dose after three weeks. This worked - after months of treating with Drontal every three weeks off and on for months. After you've administered the series of treatments (discussed with your vet, of course), wait about five or six weeks before taking another stool sample in for a fecal float. This will be plenty of time to determine whether you've adressed the lifecycle - if there aren't worms after this time, there likely won't be more if they're indoor only cats.

Originally Posted by Elysiannn

My Murphy (10-month old neutered indoor only male) came from a shelter and I noticed two months ago (he's been with me 3 months now) he threw up a roundworm. So I took him to a new vet extremely close to home. She dosed him and Tigger (12-year-old spayed female) twice and I've been taking in stool samples. With the last stool sample I got a call back saying she found tapeworm egg which blew my mind.

Murphy and Tigger are strictly indoor cats, no other animals come in, they are not scratching, nor have I seen any nits/flea evidence in their grooming. They eat IAMs wet and PetsMart dry food & wet food.

So I call the vet and ask what to do and she says they can get dosed for this or not - it's no big deal if they have tapeworms. HUH?!!! So I said I thought if causes them to overeat and plus it's not a good idea to have parasite worms in my pets. She said if I want I can wait a month and bring in a stool and we can recheck.

Long story short - is this vet insane? Should I find another vet? I think it's odd that Murphy had round worms and now he has a tapeworm but I'm not sure cause I took stool from two litter pans and maybe Tigger has the tapeworm. I guess I'm concerned how they seem to be getting these parasites and that my vet was so nonchalant about it.

I'm not putting down vets - I just need some opinions. Help?!

Click to expand...

Drontal.

2 doses

2 weeks apart.

Spotz

As I mentioned earlier, Drontal did not work for round worm in two of our cats. For all of the medications, our vet used a three-week follow-up not two weeks, which I understand treats the lifecycle of the round worm more effectively.

From the University of Pennsylvania Vet site:

Round Worm (Toxacara Cati) Life Cycle:

The egg is passed in feces and develops in the environment to the infectious stage. The infectious egg contains a second-stage larva. The cat can be infected in 3 ways. First, if a cat ingests an infective egg, the egg hatches in the stomach, the larvae migrate through the gut wall, pass through the liver to the lungs. In the lungs the larvae breakout into the air spaces, are carried up the trachea and are swallowed. They develop through the 3rd and 4th stages to the adults, which live in the small intestinal lumen. The prepatent period for this route of transmission is 56 days, although the adult worms are present in the small intestine by day 28. The second route of infection is via a paratenic host. If a mouse eats an infective egg the larva hatches and migrates to the tissues (liver) where it arrests. When the cat eats the mouse the larvae are freed and develop in the gut to adults. There is no extra-intestinal migration in this case. The final route of infection is transmammary. The second stage larvae acquired in the milk by the nursing kitten develop in the intestine to adults. Like the case with a paratenic host, no extra-intestinal migration takes place after transmammary transmission. The prepatent period is about 3 weeks when the transmammary or paratenic host routes are utilized.

Pre patent periods from: J.C. Parsons. 1987. Ascarid infections of cats and dogs. The Veterinary Clinics of North America. 17(6):1307-1340. WB Saunders Co. Philadelphia.

Click to expand...

Here's a link to the full discussion of round worm at U Penn: http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/dxendopar/p...ids/tcati.html

Drontal is usually prescribed for tapeworms and doesn't work for roundworms. If you have rid the rounds, you only need the drontal for the tapes. If you still have rounds, you need what Laurie suggested. Strongoid-T usually works for me, but I have not had (knock on wood) any serious round worm infestations so never had to do the combo panacur/strongoid treatment.

GET ANOTHER VET!! 1. I have 22 cats that are in and out, have had cats for over 20 years. I Live in the country and they get tapeworms from fleas on animals they eat or are in the environement. Flea eggs fly through the air and fleas get tapeworms from ingesting the eggs on wild or other infested animals. So you need to treat your pets with REVOLUTION this is a flea, tick, round worm, earmite, heartworm medication used for cats and dogs. It is excellent!!! Much more effective than Advantage or Frontline in cats. Unfortunately you can only purchase from the vet. RX needed. 2. The next thing you do is get tapeworm tabs. If they are indoors than 2 pills wait 2weeks and 2more pills will do the trick. Get the RX version from vet.They will get reinfested if fleas are in the environment because cats will eat the fleas while scratching an itch, and this is how they get digested. TAPE WORM INFESTATIONS COME ONLY FROM THE ANIMAL ACTUALLY DIGESTING THE EGGS FROM FLEAS OR LICKING THEIR HINDPARTS WITH THE SECTIONS OF THE WORM ON THEM OR LICKING OTHER ANIMALS HINDPARTS. THE SECTIONS (RICE LOOKING MOVING THINGS ON BUTT) ARE ACTUALLY EGG PODS AND ARE THROWN BACK INTO THE ENVIRONMENT FOR THE FLEAS AND ANIMALS TO INGEST AND THEN THEY ENTER THE HOST TO GROW. TAPEWORM IS ONE WORM THAT WHEN IT CREATES A HEAD ATTACHES ITSELF TO THE INTESTINE AND SEXUALLY MATURES. IT THEN RELEASES SEGMENTS WHICH IS WHAT YOU SEE ON YOUR ANIMALS BEHIND OR IN THEIR POOP. IT CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT A HOST OR A HEAD SO WHAT IS IN THE ENVIRONMENT WITHOUT THE FLEA OR ANIMAL IS DEAD OR DYING SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT. 3.Next the environment should be treated by washing and vacuuming your floors and linens. After 20 years of cat fleas I have found the most effective flea treatment for the home is KNOCKOUT!! Just spray wait and vacuum. Do this every month. $14.00 per can, but can last 2 months. Spray couches and seams, mattress and seams, and any cracks around baseboards, wash curtains and spray them with knockout. This stuff is great for ants and other insects too. It seems like a lot at first, but after initial treatments of cats and environments you only have to keep flea meds and spray house every 2 months!! Hope this helps.

Because Drontol is not for round worms, but tapeworms ONLY!!  Try a product called REVOLUTION and it will do the trick after 2 doses. (just like advantage between shoulder blades at the base of the neck)  Works on fleas, earmites, heartworms, roundworms, and ticks.  I have 22 ferals and I give it to them while they are eating leftover turkey, soft food, fish, or chicken.  They are so hungry they don't notice me doing it.  Get them acclimated to you watching them eat and after a while they will let you get close enough to dose them between the shoulder.

Tape worm med can be given by spoonfull to each individual cat crushed in pill form.  Just deter others from taking it from the cat and do each individually.  I find this takes time and patience, but is effective as well. 

For indoors KNOCKOUT IS GREAT spray whole house cracks and crevices too as you carry fleas in on your clothes and shoes.  (eggs fly through air and are on squirrels and other animals)

REVOLUTION for fleas, ticks, roundworms, heartworms, earmites. (Vet Rx only)

DRONTAL for tapeworms. (use Vet Rx only)

KNOCKOUT flea spray for home.

ORTHO MAX SPECTRACIDE for yard. 

Foll a routine of this each year and you'll be rid of them.  Guaranteed.

The Drontal we get here does treat both tapes and round worms. I dose my two outdoor/inddor cats every two months or more often if I see any symptoms, the others every 6 months, but we rarely have a problem on that schedule.