Worm toxicity?

[Buster799]

Kitten season has taken my area by storm this year. I tnvr and every time I go to trap I end up bringing home more foster kittens. The area where I live is bad and these kittens all seem to be infested with roundworms. It started in January when I took 3 in. This is when I had a suspected bout of distemper. I wormed one kitten of the 3 with pyrantel and it almost immediately started throwing up worms. I decided not to deworm the other 2 and they were shortly throwing up worms. Within 24 hours they had all passed. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago (after cleaning the CRAP out of my house, THANK YOU to everyone who recommended Rescue) I took in a 2 week old kitten who was abandoned. She was doing really really well, 2 days ago when at 4 weeks old I gave her .005 ml (half of .1?) of safeguard as recommended by a lady I know who runs a rescue. Yesterday morning she was great, by the time I came home from work she had died. At the same time as I found her I had tnvr’d a cat in the same yard that had 6-7 week old kittens, I had previously posted about them throwing up soft food, they were dewormed and are fine. Now I am scared to deworm and scared to not. Every one I have talked to says safeguard is extremely safe and to start worming them at 2-4 weeks. But now I am reading about worm toxicity from too many dead worms in the body after deworming. So what is the proper timeline here. I also have a litter of 6 week old kittens that I know for a fact need to be dewormed but now I am terrified to do so but also scared to wait. What is the proper coarse of action for this situation. Also all of my fosters are separated in different rooms and have no contact with each other.

 

[fionasmom]

I am sorry that all of this has happened to you, especially when you have tried so hard to help these kittens and cats. The first thing that struck me is wondering if you are dealing with comorbidities, especially in the kittens who passed. If I am understanding your timeline, distemper was present at the same time, so worming might not have been the whole story to their passing.

Were vaccines given to any of the kittens? If so, that might be another piece.

I have used Panacur (Safe-Guard) with puppies who were over 6 weeks old but I know that my vet uses Nemex (pyrantel) with kittens who are younger. VCA website says that kittens 2 to 3 weeks of age should be dewormed if tapeworms are present.

I recall that you rescued kittens from a neighbor per previous posts and were trying to save them from further distress. Are you at all able to speak to a vet about this? I don't mean taking all the cats in and running up a huge bill, but maybe a consultation?

Sarthur2 ? Hopefully some others will have some advice for you on this.

 

[Sarthur2]

I agree that you may be dealing with more than just worms with some of the kittens, but I think at this point it would be wise to check in with a vet you trust to ask about doses, weights, and ages before treating further.

It could be just bad luck that the kittens are overly infested and can’t handle the toxic load. This is mentioned towards the bottom of the first link.

Here are helpful links:

Kitten Deworming Protocol - University of Wisconsin Madison Shelter Medicine Program

Pyrantel Pamoate for Dogs and Cats | petMD | PetMD

 

[Buster799]

Thank you both! The info in that link is pretty much what I have been advised to do from a couple different rescue people so I guess that was the right way to do it. Just so many possibilities with these kittens from outside I did ask my vet before the original 3 started getting sick and they wouldn’t give me any information without going in for an appointment and wanting to give them their dewormer, which seems to be strong tablets that I’m not very comfortable with in the little ones.