Expert: Ali - 2/2/2010

Question
My cat (approx. 1 year old) has had a very hard time with tape worms. She will expel the worm segments in large amounts and I see large white pieces in her poop that wiggle. I have taken her to the vet several times and she has received a liquid dewormer once and a pill version three times (about one a month). Nothing seems to help. The first time she took the pill she expelled a large amount of worms in her poop. But after three weeks or so, the segments begin to appear again. She is an indoor apartment cat, never goes out, I do not tromp about in the grass, I vacuum regularly, and she gets Frontline flea treatment. My other cat (approx 2 yrs old) does not have this problem, and lives the same lifestyle. How do I break this vicious cycle? Can she get the worms again from the segments? Can I get the worms from her? The large amount of segments she sheds makes me very nervous. She does not vomit, eats normally, weighs about 6-7 lbs. Please help!

Answer
Erica,

I'd like to start off by letting you know that I am not a veterinarian, therefore I can't make diagnoses, recommend medical treatments or offer a medical prognosis for a specific ailment or illness. The information I am able to provide is based on my own experience and I do hope that it will prove helpful for you and your cats.

At this point your vet has diagnosed tapeworms and tried different medications to try and get these pesky parasites under control. About the only thing that you haven't mentioned in terms of things your vet has tried is Revolution for cats which kills fleas, ticks and various types of intestinal parasites, however conventional treatments for internal and external parasites are highly toxic so I'm not sure that exposing your kitty to yet another batch of chemical toxins in an attempt to kill these worms is the right thing to do for her in the long run.

In this situation your kitty's tapeworms are clearly not responding to conventional treatment which is a concern. My recommendation would be to consider alternative treatments for your kitty - a holistic and/or homeopathic veterinarian and a veterinary herbalist would be a good start. These alternative health care professionals will be able to prescribe treatments that not only take care of the tapeworms but benefit your kitty's overall health and wellbeing as well.

It's quite possible that your kitty contracted tapeworms from her mother while she was nursing which would explain why they've been so persistant. Obviously the healthier your cats are the less likely they are to be bothered by parasites since healthy, strong animals make poor hosts for parasites. I'm not sure what your kitty's overall build and body type is so it's possible that she may be slightly underweight just due to the tapeworms.

You expressed concerns about contracting tapeworms from your kitty. This is not a likely scenario provided that you scoop the litter boxes in your home a minimum of once daily, ensure that you don't touch your face or mouth while scooping the litter pan and of course wash your hands thoroughly in hot, soapy water after you've finished scooping the waste from the litter pans and disposing of that waste.

It sounds to me like your other kitty is just stronger and healthier overall which would probably explain why s/he's not having the same difficulties with intestinal parasites that the kitty you've contacted me about is. Overall I think that the focus should be on helping to maintain your kitties at optimum health in order to prevent future outbreaks of parasites in your kitties. To start with you may want to consider checking out newer research on vaccinating low risk kitties like your apartment dwelling fur kids (annual vaccines aren't necessary and research is pointing towards the fact that treating our cats this way is more harmful to them than it is helpful.)

In order to create the best possible conditions for your cats to be as healthy as possible nutrition is an important factor. Overall the vast majority of commercially produced pet foods on the market are of very poor quality - their ingredients are things that we would never consider eating and to top it all off the ingredients in standard pet foods are overcooked, overprocessed and chemically preserved which makes them less than ideal for our pets. Here is some educational reading for you on feline nutrition, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns that you might have about any of this information, I'll be happy to help you out in any way that I can.

- catinfo.org

This is the website that my holistic vet referred me to when I approached her about making my own cat food after the Menu Foods pet food recalls of 2007 nearly proved fatal for my eldest cat.

- catnutrition.org

This website is mentioned on catinfo.org and it provides a larger yield homemade pet food recipe which is ideal for multiple cat households.

- www.felinespride.com

Feline's Pride is a company that makes a high quality raw cat food. This company will ship throughout the US and some parts of Canada and they guarantee that their product will arrive mostly frozen provided that you are there to receive it when the courier delivers the food. It's well worth checking into this company and reading their testimonials page, they've really outdone themselves in terms of providing high quality commercially produced cat food as far as I'm concerned.

- http://www.halopets.come/pet-education/pet-articles/pet_food_what_you_need_to_kn...

This is an article that I believe every pet parent should read, there's plenty of information about what goes into conventional pet foods which is "MUST KNOW" information as far as I'm concerned, after all pet parents can't be expected to make good decisions about what to feed their feline companions without having all of the information (even the stuff these companies would rather that you didn't know). I will caution you that this is not mealtime reading if you've got a sensitive tummy.

I would also recommend that you check the Ask A Vet segment of this site and see if you can get a question in to Dr. Christine Chambreau who is a homeopathic veterinarian - she may be able to get you started on the right track in terms of treating tapeworms in your kitty naturally. If you're unable to find a holistic/homeopathic vet locally she may be able to help you out via phone and email consults for a fee (you'd have to discuss the rate with her) or steer you in the right direction locally since she keeps a list of resources in different areas so she can point concerned pet parents in the right direction in terms of getting local help. If you have any further questions about any information that I've been able to provide you with in this answer please don't hesitate to contact me again - I'll do my best to help you out.