Cat threw up worm meds

[dianetavegia]

My new kitten (8 months??) developed a pot belly and I saw a tapeworm on her fur yesterday. We picked up some med from our vet, crushed it and gave it to her last night. About 30 mins. later, I walked through the hallway and found she had vomited in two very small places. I have no idea how much of the med she had retained. Now what???

Diane

 

[hissy]

You need to wait a bit before giving her more, and next time when you go to the vet to get the pills, ask them for a pill gun and give her the meds whole. The pills are nasty to begin with and breaking them up just made the taste and experience worse for her.

 

[dianetavegia]

Thanks hissy! That makes sense. I was afraid she might be 'poisoned' if we rewormed her and she hadn't lost all the meds.

Please see my post about the garbage tie too!

Diane

 

[cirque]

We ended up using a liquid for our second time worming Buddy, mixed in with half a can of sliced or grilled fancy feast flavors.. he loved it.

 

[dianetavegia]

The vet never returned my call and Patches hasn't had a BM today. Her abdomen is quite 'pot bellied'. I was hoping to see some evidence of the worming working......... I'm not even sure what to watch for! I've only had one other cat that had worms and the vet wormed him the same time he 'fixed' him which years ago was a 'hospital stay'.

When should I begin to worry about a blockage?

I'm not 'new' to cats but we've always adopted older cats from the pound. This new cat was to replace our cat that died of old age. We didn't want to experience that grief again in the near future.

 

[hissy]

With tapes the evidence you will see is little pieces of the host worm which is still in the cat. The segments look like pieces of rice.

As the medicine is determined by the weight of the cat, and the cat didn't get much medicine, or vomited most of it up, you may not see dramatic results. It depends on how much the cat actually kept in the system. If you see the grains on the back legs and the rear and they aren't moving, that's a good sign.

The good news is that tapeworms do not do major damage like some other parasites do. But they do rob the cat of nutrition and therefore the cat will be hungrier than usual. They need to be taken care of, but first talk to your vet and find out how best to proceed. This is not a life-threatening situation, as long as you talk to your vet, tell him what happened and he will advise you from there.