Diagnosing tapeworms in cats is, surprisingly enough, not something you can leave to your veterinarian.
The reason for this is because tapeworms are usually not detected through fecal examination as they rarely release eggs into the feces. This means diagnosing tapeworms in cats involves you noticing the signs of tapeworms and alerting your veterinarian.
Physical Signs Of Tapeworms
Diagnosing tapeworms in cats can happen in two ways. The first is physical signs of a tapeworm infestation. For example, you may notice your cat scooting or dragging its bottom across the floor or carpet. The reason for this is because your cat is suffering from an anal irritation caused by the tapeworm segments or proglottids that are shed by the worm.
Other physical symptoms of cat tapeworms are if your cat seems to be suffering from abdominal discomfort or is showing signs of nervousness. You may notice vomiting or your cat may even vomit up a tapeworm. If your cat is suffering from a really serious infestation, it may have convulsions due to the toxins produced by the tapeworms.
Signs Of Tapeworm Proglottids
The other way of diagnosing tapeworms in cats is to examine the cat's anus and stools. As the tapeworm grows in length, it sheds segments or proglottids. If you examine the cat and its litter tray carefully, you may see these segments moving around on its anus or in its stool. At this stage, the proglottids will resemble tiny, white grains of rice. However, as they are released in the environment, they dehydrate and harden, becoming quite small and showing a golden hue. Each of these proglottid capsules contains up to 20 tapeworm eggs. These eggs can be eaten by flea larva and will infect the flea with tapeworm larva. If your cat happens to ingest one of these tapeworm infected fleas, it will soon have a new tapeworm.
How To Prevent Tapeworms In Cats
The only way a cat can get a tapeworm is by ingesting a flea containing a tapeworm larva. When the flea enters the cat's stomach it is digested. This releases the tapeworm larva into the cat's stomach and it passes into the small intestine. The tapeworm larva attaches to the siding of the small intestine and develops into a adult tapeworm. Tapeworms reach reaches maturity about 1 month after infecting a cat.
Preventing tapeworms in cats involves controlling fleas on your cat, as well as your cat's indoor and outdoor environments. The best option for keeping fleas off your cat are cat flea medicines. For controlling fleas in your home, there are a number of good flea sprays available. These products include Bio-Spot® Inverted Carpet and Premise Spray, Raid® Flea Killer Plus Carpet and Room Spray, Adams Carpet Spray, Frontline® Spray and Ectopamin Flea and Tick Spray, which is an all-natural flea killer.
The important thing is choosing a flea spray is to make sure it contains an Insect Growth Regulator or IGR so that it is breaking the flea's lifecycle and not just killing the adults.
You may never have seen the fleas, but your cat must have ingested one in order for it to develop tapeworms. As a result, tapeworms are more common in environments that are heavily infested with fleas. This means that if you live in a wet area or one with high humidity, your cat is more likely to develop a tapeworm.
Treating Cat Tapeworms
There are two good things about tapeworms in cats. First, tapeworms generally do not cause your cat to have a serious or life-threatening problem. I'm sure that if you were the cat, you might feel differently about this as your cat is probably feeling some sort of discomfort.
The second piece of good news is that it is relatively easy to rid your cat of these intestinal parasites. You can take your cat to your vet where he or she will use a product called Droncit - either orally or by injection -- to kill any tapeworms. As an alternative, there is an over-the-counter treatment called Tradewinds Tapeworm Tabs that contains the same ingredient, Praziquantel, as the more expensive Droncit. All you do with this product is feed your cat the appropriate amount -- from 1/2 to 1 1/2 tabs -- depending on its weight. In either case, one treatment is usually enough to kill the tapeworms.
As you can see, diagnosing tapeworms in cats is relatively simple. The important thing is watching for those hard, dry proglottids.
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