Question regarding Cheristin (flea meds)

[katiekat92]

Hi everyone, I'm looking around at flea medicine and figured this would be a good place to ask.

My cats are mostly indoor, but also go out on their elevated catio sometimes. I noticed today that they have fleas. I only found two with a flea comb, but I picked up some medicine today (Cheristin, recommended my by vet). I haven't tried it, but in the past, one of my cats had a terrible reaction to Comfortis (symptoms were sort of like vestibular syndrome) and reading some of the posts about Cheristin on here has me nervous.

For those of you who may have used it/are using it currently, has the formula gotten better? The posts about how awful it is are years old, so just wondering if something may have changed. The reviews for it on Amazon are also mostly positive and my vet uses it on her own cats.

Would love to hear your personal experiences. Thanks!

 

[fluffpaws]

Hi there, I have used it on my cat's and none of them have had a problem with it.
I have no idea if the product has changed,and of course every cat reacts different to different products.A friend of mine will only use Advantage because she feels it is the safest My vet ,also uses Cheristin.

 

[Meowmee]

Hi everyone, I'm looking around at flea medicine and figured this would be a good place to ask.

My cats are mostly indoor, but also go out on their elevated catio sometimes. I noticed today that they have fleas. I only found two with a flea comb, but I picked up some medicine today (Cheristin, recommended my by vet). I haven't tried it, but in the past, one of my cats had a terrible reaction to Comfortis (symptoms were sort of like vestibular syndrome) and reading some of the posts about Cheristin on here has me nervous.

For those of you who may have used it/are using it currently, has the formula gotten better? The posts about how awful it is are years old, so just wondering if something may have changed. The reviews for it on Amazon are also mostly positive and my vet uses it on her own cats.

Would love to hear your personal experiences. Thanks!

Please see this information here on cherestin, it has killed cats and caused severe reactions. It was re-marketed. It was originally under another name on a much higher dose and it caused a lot of deaths then. Then it was re-marketed. But it’s still causing deaths and bad reactions in cats so I certainly don’t recommend it. It’s not FDA approved either. It was approved under pesticide toxicity regulation or something like that. I forgot the name of the agency th regulates that.

I will try to find the other post, you can search it here too. The fact that it is not fda approved means it did not undergo the same testing in cats that would normally be required

It’s a neurotoxin. Advantage is really the safest out of all of the topical flea toxins if you need to use one.

If you go back to Amazon and search the one and two star reviews, you will see the bad reviews that are still being posted there, recent ones with bad reactions and at least one death. I didn’t read all of them. * someone just posted a new review from July 7 that her cat died, and her other two cats are having a reaction, very sad.

If you bathe your cats to kill the fleas, you can use a mild dish soap detergent, and that will kill them along with the water. That’s what people who rescue kittens typically do with young kittens because they can’t be given a topical treatment.

 

[katiekat92]

Please see this information here on cherestin, it has killed cats and caused severe reactions. It was re-marketed. It was originally under another name on a much higher dose and it caused a lot of deaths then. Then it was re-marketed. But it’s still causing deaths and bad reactions and cats so I certainly don’t recommend it. It’s not FDA approved either. It was approved under pesticide toxicity or something like that. I forgot the name of it I will try to find the other post, you can search it here too.
It’s a neurotoxin. Advantage is really the safest out of all of the topical flea toxins if you need to use one.

This is what I was worried about. Thank you, I'll look into advantage then!

 

[Meowmee]

This is what I was worried about. Thank you, I'll look into advantage then!

Yw Here is the post where I put more details recently. Better safe than sorry. I fortunately do not need to use any flea treatments on my cats and I never did for years, even though a lot of them were indoor outdoor. The only time I used them really was when my long hair cat Sybil had them and we had a minor infestation because I guess she couldn’t get them off her. Because my father was getting bites.

She was indoor outdoor then, I used them for maybe two years and I started getting sick and some of my cats got cancer so I stopped and then I just started shaving her each spring. And that took care of he fleas and her mats- she hated being brushed but didn't mind shaving as much.

I always prefer to bathe them vs any topical treatment. But if you have a real infestation, you probably will need to use a topical treatment once or twice for two months, 30 days apart, and then just thoroughly clean everything, vacuum etc. for two months. If you have a really severe infestation you might have to get someone to fumigate, etc.

Many people here use borax powder and dichotomous earth earth instead.

FLEAS in the home. How to treat safely?

Tonight I discovered fleas on my Suki. She has never had fleas before, so I'm kinda freaking out. I noticed she has been scratching lately. I decided to investigate and found them. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had any idea!! I bathed her and killed the fleas that were on her. I'm gonna to get...

thecatsite.com

 

[katiekat92]

Yw Here is the post where I put more details recently. Better safe than sorry. I fortunately do not need to use any flea treatments on my cats and I never did for years, even though a lot of them were indoor outdoor. The only time I use them really was when my long hair cat Sybil had them and we had a minor infestation because I guess she couldn’t get them off her.

She was indoor outdoor then, I used them for maybe two years and I started getting sick and some of my cats got cancer so I stopped and then I just started shaving her.

I always prefer to bathe them vs any topical treatment. But if you have a real infestation, you probably will need to use a topical treatment once or twice for two months apart, and then just thoroughly clean everything, vacumm etc. for two months. If you have a really severe infestation you might have to get someone to fumigate, etc.

many people here use borax powder and d(spelling?) earth instead.

http://[URL]https://thecatsite.com/threads/fleas-in-the-home-how-to-treat-safely.465545/

[/URL]

Thanks so much for the info! My cats were perfectly fine in their catio for months, until some neighborhood strays started visiting. My boy cat loves the company, but I'm afraid that them visiting our yard has brought fleas. We only have a few right now it seems, but my boy cat has very long hair as well. It's difficult to get a good look in some spots. Maybe I'll get him a lion cut for now

 

[Meowmee]

Thanks so much for the info! My cats were perfectly fine in their catio for months, until some neighborhood strays started visiting. My boy cat loves the company, but I'm afraid that them visiting our yard has brought fleas. We only have a few right now it seems, but my boy cat has very long hair as well. It's difficult to get a good look in some spots. Maybe I'll get him a lion cut for now

Just be careful if you don’t do it yourself because if you go to a cat/ dog groomer, some of them are not that great and some of them will even try to sedate your cat to do it. I trained myself to do it for Sybil just by talking to the DVM and watching a few videos. I bought a professional clipper. It’s not hard to do, and your cat will be a lot less stressed out with you doing it than with a stranger.

I’m saying this, especially now because I just watched a video of a dog/ cat groomer who was bathing and then drying a very large Maine coon cat. She also did some trimming of his fur on his paws and his stomach. I don’t think he had any mats, I can’t remember.

I felt so sorry for the cat because he was clearly terrified- even though his owner had bathed him in the past. She put him in a huge drying thing to dry him off because his fur was so full etc. He became terrified and she said he had open mouth breathing so they had to stop. Then she dried him with a blower through a carrier instead.

That should never have happened because you should test the cat with a hairdryer first to see if they get too stressed and then just let them air dry if they are stressed.

That happened with my cat Byron when he came inside and I tried to dry him with a handheld hairdryer. He hated it and knocked it right out of my hand, after that I would just towel dry him and let him dry naturally if he needed a bath which was very rare.

* A few fleas though can turn into a lot in a short amount of time. So if I were you I would at the least give them a bath and clean your house, vacuum thoroughly, etc. that has to be done for at least 30 days because that’s the time the eggs could still hatch if they laid eggs on the floor/ carpet, etc..

 

[silent meowlook]

I like the regular Revolution. Not Revolution plus.

 

[fluffpaws]

Thank you @ Meowmee for this very alarming information about Cheristin, I find it very disturbing that veterinarians are still recommending this lethal flea medication to cat's under their care.I will definitely be discussing this with my vet's.

 

[Meowmee]

Thank you @ Meowmee for this very alarming information about Cheristin, I find it very disturbing that veterinarians are still recommending this lethal flea medication to cat's under their care.I will definitely be discussing this with my vet's.

Yw