Drontal and decontamination

Nigel, one of my civvies, vomited up a 4-5 inch wiggly worm, so I'm going to treat all 3 cats with Drontal. My question is, at what point do I change out/sterilize litter boxes and clean (burn?) linens? I will treat everyone tomorrow, as soon as pills arrive, but not sure how/when to go about cleaning up afterward. Do the dead worms come out in poop or vomit? My skin is crawling. Everyone's been inside for over a week (they've been indoor/outdoor all their lives), and after this, I might just keep them as indoor cats. They've almost stopped screaming to go outside. I'm assuming the worms came from a murdered bird or other creature. Would appreciate any advice. Thanks!

 

The worms will come out in the feces. The worms are transmitted by injection of worm eggs in the feces. Thus, as you said you have to essentially sterilize the little box and scooping utensils. A dilute bleach (32 to 1) works good and soak for a bout 15 minutes. No reason to do anything special about linens except to wash normally. You can do it tomorrow when you first treat them. and then do the litter box again a few days later.

 

Hi Karen

You should repeat the Drontal in each cat 2-3 weeks after the first dose. And I agree, keeping them inside sounds like a good idea

 

Really? My vet only prescribed one per cat. Good grief.

 

Drontal is foremost a medication for tapeworm (which your cats may have since it comes from ingesting fleas; even cats without a ton of fleas can end up with tapeworm since they are such meticulous groomers); for tapeworm you need only one dose. To kill roundworm and hookworm you should repeat the dose. Personally I find Drontal difficult to administer since it is a chalky, bitter tablet so you could use another medication like Revolution, or Strongid (pyrantel). Strongid in particular is rather benign, easy to administer (liquid), and rarely causes any side effects.

PS Do you have any big fat cats? The dose might be more than one tab for a fatty.

 

If the photos I found online are accurate, I think it was a tapeworm. It was long, but segmented. Nigel is the biggest cat, at 14 pounds. I actually put Revolution on him and Flo today. Ollie got Frontline Plus b/c he vomited for a couple days after I gave him Revolution last month. Vet told me Drontal was good for roundworms, hookworms and tapeworms(?).

 

Hi Karen

So it wasn't like this: http://scienceguy288.wordpress.com/2008 ... -calculus/ but rather flat like this? http://www.balgownievet.com.au/images/tapeworm1.jpg ? The one-dose Drontal should be enough, unless they still have fleas and are re-infecting themselves.

 

Definitely looks more like the tapeworm photo. I never did see any fleas, but he had earmites. I had been using Frontline Plus. I assumed the worms came from something he had murdered and eaten--he's a pretty hard core hunter. I treated all the cats with Otomite, then gave Revolution. Then the worm showed up. Go figure. I hate to think how long the worms were eating him alive.