My Kittens fleas

Question
Dr.,
Recently I took in a 5-6 week old kitten. The kitten stays outside (many reasons) and this gives him fleas. He's limited to the backyard and he won't escape.
The kitten finds the fleas very irritating, and so do we because whenever we pet him we get fleas too. He even came inside and probably released fleas all over the house.
We're looking for flea treatments, but nothing seems right.
Flea collars are harmful. The cat's too young for Frontline, Advantage, Revolution, etc. Shampoos and combs won't help because the fleas will come right back. I'm at my wits ends... what can we do for the fleas?

Answer
HI Alyssa,
I am not a vet but I do have a ton of information for you about fleas!
First of all you need to know that the main problem with fleas is not the adults that you see (although they are a HUGE problem) but the eggs, larvae, and the cocooned adults.
Here is a link to the life cycle of the flea:
http://www.ah.novartis.com/cab/en/cat_fleas_lifecycle.shtml

Kittens are a challenge to treat for fleas but I use a spray called Ovitrol which is an Insect Growth Regulator. What those do is
target the egg stage of the flea life cycle. Quite simply, they are designed to prevent flea eggs from hatching. So, if your cat or dog does shed any flea eggs around your home, they'll just die and get sucked up by the vacuum cleaner.

However, you still need to kill the adults as much as you can. Ovitrol is safe to spray around the ground and on the floors of your house. There is a room spray just for that which can be diluted and sprayed.

You don't have a lot of options for treating the kitten itself except for bathing in a safe shampoo for cats and then using a flea comb.
You must treat your yard or you will continue to have a flea infestation that will infect your kitten. If this kitten has too many fleas on it it can get severe anemia and die from that. Fleas are more than irritating, they can carry tapeworms, plague and other diseases.

So get some yard spray and then flea comb your kitten. When she reaches 8-12 weeks your options are better. I use Sentinel heartworm prevention with Lufeneron in it to keep the fleas off my pets. I have used it for 12 yrs on four pets and even on my three acres of land I have no fleas at all. I never even think about fleas on my pets. There are none in the grass, none in the house. And that is with deer, possums and squirrels living here too.

I started my cats on it at the age of three months.
So once she gets older you can put her on that.
Good luck and let me know how she does.


Here are some more sites that describe flea problems.

http://www.cat-world.com.au/TreatingFleasOnKittens.htm
http://www.ah.novartis.com/cab/en/cat_fleas_treatments.shtml