Has anyone gotten worms from their cat? (Picture warning)

Hannah518

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Hello! So I took in a foster kitty this week. I have kept her separate from my resident cat (they’ve seen each other a few times from a distance and smelled each other, but are in different rooms and use different litter boxes.

The foster kitty has worms. I noticed her stool was bloody Thursday and yesterday morning I took in a fecal sample, this morning I saw the worms. Like tiny grains of rice.

I’m calling the vet ASAP when it opens because I’m paranoid for me, my husband, and my other cat. Has anyone caught worms from cats? We’ve only had her five days. Hopefully I can pick up treatment when they open. Should I go ahead and pick up treatment for my other cat? He’s in revolution plus but I’m still scared. Not in my 13 years owning cats have they ever had worms.

And how common is it to get these from your cat? I was my hands after cleaning up from her but or after every single time petting her.

I should also note. My resident cat was given Revolution Plus on this past Monday morning around 930am. We brought home the foster kitty-early afternoon. They have not shared a box,
We have been keeping the foster in our room though and she’s been sleeping in our bed.


freaking out a bit. Sorry!
 

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Norachan

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You can get worms from cats, but it's pretty unlikely that you will. Wash your hands with hot soapy water (I guess we're all doing plenty of that these days anyway) after cleaning the litter box or petting her.

Segments that look like small grains of rice is usually an indicator of tape worm. I think Revolution treats roundworms and hookworms, but not tapeworm. If her fecal sample shows that she does have tapeworm you will need another de-wormer for that.

If your resident cat has just been treated with Revolution ask your vets advice about giving him anything else. Sometimes it's not safe to use two de-worming treatments at the same time or within a few days of each other. I doubt he will have picked anything up if they haven't had close contact with each other.

Don't worry about it too much, if you're following basic hygiene measures the chances of you or your other cat getting worms are really small.
 
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Hannah518

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Thanks! Yeah a lot of hand washing going on for sure. I didn’t know if I could get it from her sleeping on the bed.
 

Qwertum

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Hello. While washing hands after handling pets is a generally good practice, you do not need to worry about getting worms from your cat in this case. The worms you describe, tapeworms, deposit their eggs in dirt, where the eggs are ingested & incubated by an intermediary host. The intermediary host in this case is fleas. The fleas are ingested by larger animals ( the final host), cats, dogs etc, then the immature tapeworms in the fleas hatch & infest the intestine of said animal.
So basically the cat got the worms from eating fleas (usually from grooming as they lick the fleas off). You can't get tapeworms directly from eggs, only from an intermediary host, so unless you're swallowing infested fleas you don't have to worry. Same for your other cat. It can only get the tapeworms from infected fleas not directly from eggs.
A flea treatment of the cats & your home would be the best way to prevent the other cat from getting the tapeworms.
 

di and bob

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I completely agree with the above. You cannot get tapeworm from your cat except like mentioned if you ingest the fleas. Cats often do this eating rodents and rabbits. As mentioned above, as long as you get rid of the fleas you will not have tapeworm. Most worming meds DO NOT include tapeworm. I got a prescription from my vet to get Profender online. It is a topical applied to the back of the neck and does kill tapeworm. If your cats are inside and don't have access to rodents, you won't have any more problems. MOST cats have worms of some type. Almost all cats that are allowed outdoors do unless they are treated.
 
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Hannah518

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Thank you! You’ve put my mind at ease a bit 😅 I just want to get her treated already!
 

FeebysOwner

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If you don't have/find fleas, tapeworms can be gotten from a cat ingesting a mosquito. This happened to Feeby many, many years ago - there were no fleas around.
 
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