Avoiding worm re-infection, how to?

[Renne]

My kitten started throwing up recently, and a lot, and after taking her to the vet I was told she has worm eggs in her poo. However, the vet wasn't very helpful about my re-infection questions. Maybe I'm missing something...

I gave an anti-worm pill to the kitten today, but as far as I understand, it's enough for a cat to lick her butt to eat up some eggs and become infected once again. Or bury her stuff in litter and lick her paws after that. What do people usually do to prevent that? Or is frequent de-worming mandatory for a lifetime once a cat has been infected once?

 

[amethyst]

Do you know if it was a dewormer that kills all life stages or just the adult worms? If it's for all life stages (what most vets give) then just make sure you are really on top of pooper scooping the litter box after she goes for the next couple days until all of the worms are out of her system. If it's one that just kills adult worms though, you do need to give her another dose of dewormer in about 2 weeks to kill any that have hatched before they too start laying eggs. I ended up having to do 3 doses before my kittens where worm free, so not for the rest of their lives, but it can take more then one dose sometimes. The only real way to know for sure she is worm free is to have the vet check her poop again in a few weeks.

Unless you cat is getting poops stuck to her butt when pooping the odds of getting reinfected by cleaning her butt is pretty unlikely (also most of what is coming out is dead anyway). Most cats don't step in their poop or actually touch it if at all possible, they throw litter over it, so as long as you scoop it up before she uses the litter box again and accidentally steps in it you should be fine.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I can't add a thing to that. Yes, reinfections are common, even after a first treatment with an all-stage dewormer. Keep on top of that litter box, and, OF COURSE, wash your hands well!

 

[Renne]

Unfortunately, I don't know if it kills the eggs and can't find any information about it online. The instructions online are a bit vague, they state that it stops a worm invasion 'caused by adult or egg worms', which should technically mean that it kills the eggs, I think?..

Strangely, she didn't poo yesterday (we gave her the pill in the morning), not a single time. Usually she does it twice a day.

With litter, the problem is that she digs a hole in it before pooping until she reaches the floor of the litterbox, and once I take her stuff away I have to throw more litter over the hole than she used to bury her stuff. Which means that litter moves around the litterbox. Maybe I shouldn't do that. And I did see her step into her stuff a couple of times, in fact just a day before yesterday... She's still a clumsy kitten.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

That certainly sounds as if it kills the eggs. Kittens aren't quite as good about keeping their feet out of their "stuff." You could, of course, buy a box of baby wipes, and wipe her feet when she gets out.

 

[Renne]

I've got another question about this: should I be seeing anything in her poo if the pill is working? Sorry if it's a stupid question, but I really don't know and I'm worried.

She threw up the day I gave her the pill, and I suspect that happened either right before or right after. I didn't find any hints of the pill in the food she threw up, but it's possible that the pill got digested a little, lost its shape, and then she lost it without me detecting any visible traces, I think... I phoned the vet and he said to give her another pill in 5 days if we think the first one might've been lost.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

It can take a few days, but if there is a heavy infestation you should be able to see dead worms. If it was a light infestation, they could be "buried" in the poop, and hard to see.