Fleas/Frontline question...

There_Goes_Trouble

Yeah, I can as long as the active ingredients are both different and compatible. So I can't use another fipronil based product but I can use Advantage because its not fipronil. When Chameleon said it a few posts back I did remember that from a dog we had at work with Demodex who had not long been treated with Frontline, but the Vet said we could still treat with Advocate after 2 weeks.

Taadaa

TGT it's the weather - fleas love it when it's warm, humid and on the damp side. We had the same issue a few years ago as well. Haven't seen any of the little blighters today, but I'm not holding my breath. Will think about getting Advocate online as I don't think we have used that yet, just in case.

There_Goes_Trouble

Advocate is prescription only and also acts on some types of worms. You therefore need to be careful which wormers you use so that you don't overdose.

Advantage has the same flea ingredient as Advocate, but is available without prescription. It is not effective against worms.

Best to check with your vet if you are unsure as overdosing can be very nasty for your pet.

There_Goes_Trouble

I've ordered Advantage, Johnson 4fleas and another can of Acclaim. I'm planning to treat the cats and dog with both the Advantage and the 4fleas when it arrives but I will check it with the vet tomorrow or Tuesday and if she says I have to wait or prefers to use something else then I will. The Acclaim is to go in the cupboard, seemed silly not to order another can while I was there. I'll have a chat with the vet about when to do that next aswell. I'm thinking about a month...? I dunno, see how effective my current spraying has been first!

JodyBPM

There Goes Trouble, I've had exactly the same problem with fleas this year.

I was using Frontline, and whilst it seemed to have some effect around days 3-7, by 7 days after treatment the cats were crawling with them again. I'd sprayed the house, hoovered like a madwoman etc, but still we were getting fleas and fleabites. The children looked like street urchins with bites all up their legs, and you could actually see fleas hopping along the carpet, on our legs etc.

I tried a whole variety of different flea sprays for the house, thinking that the cats were getting re-infested from the house, without realising that the problem was that fleas in this area have become resistant to Frontline. Having used Frontline successfully for many years, I really struggled to understand why it wasn't working when I was religiously treating them every 4 weeks as I always had.

Anyway, we got the house professionally sprayed by a contractor (£70 through our local council) and took the cats to the vet where they gave them capstar as an immediate solution and advocate for the longer term solution. They advised us that Frontline is basically as good as useless in this area (Surrey) as the fleas have built up resistance to it.

We appear now to be winning the battle. It's a week on since the house was sprayed and the cats re-treated, and although I'm still seeing the odd flea, and the children are still getting the odd new flea-bite, its definitely much better than it was. Apparently we have to leave it 2 weeks for the treatment of the house to take full effect, and then if they're not all gone, then as its a guaranteed treatment, they will come and spray again for free. I suspect we will need a further spray to kill off all the stragglers... Although £70 seemed a lot to get the professionals in to spray, we'd ended up spending nearly that amount on flea sprays from PaH, plus a lot of effort and were getting nowhere using the DIY route.

Good luck, its been horrible having to deal with this. From what I understand the weather plus the resistance to Frontline has left a lot of people in this position this year, even people like us and yourself who don't normally have a problem because we are responsible and keep up with treatments. I def recommend you ring your council and get a quote to get the professionals in - knowing it is a guaranteed service and we can call them back in as often as we need has taken a lot of the stress out of the situation for us...

Hillbilly1

Glad something is working JBPM.

Just to note the 'resistance' thing with Frontline is fabrication. A species as diverse as fleas does not build resistance - please can everyone who post about FL read this!

The reason it appears not to work are:-
1) it only kills adult fleas which jump on your pet (5% of population - 95% are in your house flooring)
2) After 7 days (the timescale you give) the eggs/larvae will have hatched out in the carpet and be active.
3) If you have nothing killing the other stages of the flea life cycle in the environment then they will continue to breed and will only be killed once an adult flea, which has already laid its eggs has jumped on your pet
4) fleas are so succesful we have not yet invented a product to kill all 4 stages of their lifecycle. Therefore we must use multiple products and good cleaning regimes.

Use a product which kills flea and other stages such as Stronghold, FL Combo, Advocate.

~Chameleon~

Hillbilly1 wrote: »

Glad something is working JBPM.

Just to note the 'resistance' thing with Frontline is fabrication. A species as diverse as fleas does not build resistance - please can everyone who post about FL read this!

The reason it appears not to work are:-
1) it only kills adult fleas which jump on your pet (5% of population - 95% are in your house flooring)
2) After 7 days (the timescale you give) the eggs/larvae will have hatched out in the carpet and be active.
3) If you have nothing killing the other stages of the flea life cycle in the environment then they will continue to breed and will only be killed once an adult flea, which has already laid its eggs has jumped on your pet
4) fleas are so succesful we have not yet invented a product to kill all 4 stages of their lifecycle. Therefore we must use multiple products and good cleaning regimes.

Use a product which kills flea and other stages such as Stronghold, FL Combo, Advocate.

Hallelujah!!! :T :T :T

JodyBPM

Hillbilly1 wrote: »

Glad something is working JBPM.

Just to note the 'resistance' thing with Frontline is fabrication. A species as diverse as fleas does not build resistance - please can everyone who post about FL read this!

The reason it appears not to work are:-
1) it only kills adult fleas which jump on your pet (5% of population - 95% are in your house flooring)
2) After 7 days (the timescale you give) the eggs/larvae will have hatched out in the carpet and be active.
3) If you have nothing killing the other stages of the flea life cycle in the environment then they will continue to breed and will only be killed once an adult flea, which has already laid its eggs has jumped on your pet
4) fleas are so succesful we have not yet invented a product to kill all 4 stages of their lifecycle. Therefore we must use multiple products and good cleaning regimes.

Use a product which kills flea and other stages such as Stronghold, FL Combo, Advocate.

It was our vet that told us that there was a resistance to Frontline in the area, using those precise words!

Whilst I don't want to dispute what you are saying, because you seem to know what you are talking about and it all seems plausible, what I will say is that after 7 days, the cats were crawling with live adult fleas - the Frontline simply wasn't killing them, and certainly wasn't working for 28 days as its supposed to. I'm not talking about finding the odd live flea on the cats, but they were visibly crawling with them. We had also repeatedly sprayed the house with flea spray. Must admit, I'm not sure which lifecycle stage(s) the house spray killed, so it may just have been killing the adult ones, with more hatching out. I'd been using Frontline for about 10 years up til this year, and had never had this problem before. Nothing about my cleaning routine or Frontline usage had changed.

I don't see why localised flea populations can't build up a resistance to certain chemicals - its well known fact that some bacteria have developed resistance to certain antibiotics, and this is just the same principle - survival of the fittest, those with the advantageous mutation live to breed and pass that mutation on!

There_Goes_Trouble

I'm hoping my delivery of Advantage, 4fleas and Acclaim arrives tomorrow before I go away, although the Acclaim is just going in the cupboard ready in case I need it. It would be good to get the cats treated before I leave them since they won't get flea combed while I'm away. It's definitely better since I re-sprayed, time will tell I guess.

If this hasn't worked then my next step is professional pest control :-(

There_Goes_Trouble

Yay!! It all arrived!!