questions about tapeworms

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weretable and the undead chairs - 07 Feb 2004 06:46 GMT

My cat has tapeworms and I am taking her to get medicine for them in
the morning, but I am now concerned about one of my other cats or my
dog getting the worms (or myself). She does not have any fleas
although I guess she could have picked one up in fall and just now be
losing tapeworm segments. I am guessing she caught a mouse in the
garage or something, as that has happened before in winter.

I understand that the segments release the eggs and so I doubt that
removal of the segments that she has lost will get rid of the problem?
Other than vaccuming well in areas of the house where she has been
lately, what should I do? Kinda creeped out at the moment, since she
has been sleeping on my bed a lot and it is way too late at night to
wash my bedding at this point (although I did vacuum it, lol).

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Suzie-Q - 07 Feb 2004 08:02 GMT

> My cat has tapeworms and I am taking her to get medicine for them in
> the morning, but I am now concerned about one of my other cats or my
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> has been sleeping on my bed a lot and it is way too late at night to
> wash my bedding at this point (although I did vacuum it, lol).

The segments are not the problem. Fleas are. I just went through this
and asked about it in alt.med.veterinary, where they were very helpful.

Fleas on an animal lay eggs. The eggs drop off, hatch, and become flea
larvae. Those larvae eat the segments, which causes the adult fleas to
have tapeworms. The animal (cats are especially good at this) eat the
fleas in their coats, which is how they develop tapeworms.

As much as you might deny it, if your cat has tapeworms, it is 99%
likely
to have fleas. You may never see them because the cats do such a good
job
of finding and eating them.

You should treat all your pets for fleas with a vet-prescribed flea
treatment (Frontline, for example) or be prepared to deal with another
tapeworm very soon. (This is my problem at present. I treated the cat
for the tapeworm but not for the fleas. Now she has another tapeworm.)

If you do a web search at google.com, you will find some good info. I'll
go see if I can find the page I was referred to when I first had the
problem. If I do, I'll come back here and post the URL.

8^)~~~ Sue (remove the x to e-mail)
~~~~~~

"I reserve the absolute right to be smarter
today than I was yesterday." -Adlai Stevenson
*************************************************
http://www.suzanne-eckhardt.com/
http://www.intergnat.com/malebashing/

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Suzie-Q - 07 Feb 2004 08:13 GMT

> > My cat has tapeworms and I am taking her to get medicine for them in
> > the morning, but I am now concerned about one of my other cats or my
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
> go see if I can find the page I was referred to when I first had the
> problem. If I do, I'll come back here and post the URL.

I couldn't find the page I saw before, but here are a couple of
good ones:
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_tapeworm.html
http://www.dr-dan.com/tapeworm.htm

8^)~~~ Sue (remove the x to e-mail)
~~~~~~

"I reserve the absolute right to be smarter
today than I was yesterday." -Adlai Stevenson
*************************************************
http://www.suzanne-eckhardt.com/
http://www.intergnat.com/malebashing/

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weretable and the undead chairs - 07 Feb 2004 20:49 GMT

Thanks for the replies. I do treat the cats for fleas and this
morning I got her some medicine for the tapeworm problem and the vet
said she saw no signs of recent flea problems on the cat.

I asked about giving her more flea medicine now, she said I could wait
until it starts getting warmer since she appears to be clean and
probably won't have to worry with them until spring. I was told that
it can take a while for the worm to develop so it is more likely that
she ate a flea back in summer or fall and is just now losing segments
than it is that she caught a mouse this winter and got them that way.

At any rate, between the vet and replies I feel like I don't need to
worry about the eggs since they need fleas to eat them and I am almost
obsessive about keeping fleas off my animals and out of the house
anyway. I'll just watch for fleas and keep the house vaccumed well.

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MaryL - 07 Feb 2004 08:07 GMT

I certainly am not an expert on this, but the only means of transmission I
have ever heard of for tapeworm is by way of fleas. I know that some types
of worms can be picked up from bedding (such as pinworms), but I havenever
heard of this problem with tapeworms. After I saw your message, I did a
very brief search on the Internet. Here is a site that may interest you
(and it would appear from this site that I was correct). This source says
that "These eggs are not infectious to mammals. The tapeworm must reach a
specific stage of development before it can infect a mammal."
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_tapeworm.html
Of course, you will want to discuss this with your vet.

I hope this helps.

MaryL

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