Oral flea and tick medications?

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Garrison
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Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Garrison » Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:23 am

I have been using Frontline Plus sparingly/as needed for years. Was wondering what your experiences have been with any of the oral meds. Is my concern that an ingested pesticide that lasts up to a month may not be such a great thing justified?
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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by shags » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:09 am

I have similar concerns ever since I had a conversation with my own doctor about a long-acting med, and he expressed that if there's a bad reaction, I'd be stuck with it until the meds wore off.

So I choose to use Seresto collars on my dogs, and to use ivermectin for HW monthly and other wormers as needed. Easy peasy. The collars are expensive but I leave them on for 8 months, store them in the cans they came in over the winter, and reuse them the following cootie season. No fleas, and only an occasional sick or dead tick ( full disclosure, I don't live in a heavy tick area)

Long ago when the monthly flea pills first came out, I used them with no ill effects and they worked great. But they were just for fleas, not a shotgun treatment like some nowadays.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Sharon » Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:28 pm

I use Nexguard- oral; dogs love it. Never had any flea/tick problems with it. Use Heartguard for heartworm. This year there is a new product called Nexgard Spectra. .... flea , ticks, heartworm care all in one.
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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by art hubbard » Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:39 pm

I use Seresto collars also, they work great. Put them on and forget about it.

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Garrison
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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Garrison » Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:02 pm

Thanks
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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Steve007 » Sat Apr 13, 2019 4:51 pm

Garrison wrote:
Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:23 am
I have been using Frontline Plus sparingly/as needed for years. Was wondering what your experiences have been with any of the oral meds. Is my concern that an ingested pesticide that lasts up to a month may not be such a great thing justified?
No. It is not justified, though apparently there are other options. Don't know what you mean by "as needed", but parasites are still active during the winter months, no matter how cold it may get. And year-round parasite preventives not only help safeguard your dog from disease, but they help protect your family's health as well.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Fishmongerjoe » Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:48 am

My vet told me the biggest concern with the oral meds is the risk of seizures. That’s the bad news, the good news is they’re generally avoidable. The seizures are caused by an overdose. Too much medication for the amount of dog. My dog rides the along the line between dosages at +/-50 lbs. he wants me to keep her under that weight so he can give her the lesser dosage and keep the seizure risk at a minimum.

Obviously I use the oral meds and haven’t had any issues. I trust my vet’s knowledge and abide by his recommendations.


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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Mackenzie » Tue Apr 16, 2019 1:58 pm

I’ve been reading up on something all natural that will repel ticks. I live in the Northeast and there are a lot ticks in our area and it’s a big concern. I’ve read up on Seresto and speaking of seizures they are relating a lot of them to Seresto. I’m not saying they are right or wrong I’m just saying that’s what I read. At the end of the day IMO there just isn’t an easy answer to this horrible problem with ticks. You don’t want to poison your dog and on the other hand you don’t want to leave them vulnerable to getting bit by one either. If they only had something that was effective with no side effects this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m on the search to find it though.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by dog dr » Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:20 pm

look no further than the above posts... seresto collar

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by dog dr » Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:22 pm

Fishmongerjoe wrote:
Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:48 am
My vet told me the biggest concern with the oral meds is the risk of seizures. That’s the bad news, the good news is they’re generally avoidable. The seizures are caused by an overdose. Too much medication for the amount of dog. My dog rides the along the line between dosages at +/-50 lbs. he wants me to keep her under that weight so he can give her the lesser dosage and keep the seizure risk at a minimum.

Obviously I use the oral meds and haven’t had any issues. I trust my vet’s knowledge and abide by his recommendations.


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Most, if not all, of the oral flea/tick meds have been tested at usually 3-5 times the normal dose. The nly time ive seen any of these meds cause a seizure is when a client used Comfortis together with oral ivomec, and we know those 2 chemicals do NOT play well together.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by Mackenzie » Tue Apr 16, 2019 4:13 pm

dog dr wrote:
Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:20 pm
look no further than the above posts... seresto collar
So are you saying to use it or not. Here is the link to the report that I read on the Seresto Collar. Like I mentioned before I’m not saying to use it or not I’m just doing some research on all products related to this topic.

http://healthydogworkshop.com/why-i-don ... o-collars/

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by dog dr » Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:34 am

Im saying use it. I use it for my dogs, my dad uses it, my tech uses it, has worked great for us with no issues. Im not saying it absolutely cant cause seizures in a handful of dogs, but the active ingredient distributes thriough and stays in the dogs lipid layer of the skin, which to my knowledge is not associated with the central nervous system.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by mtlhdr » Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:00 pm

Fwiw, I use Simparica during the hunting season and it's far and away superior to Frontline Plus (in my experience), which I used previously, for tick protection (don't really have flea issues around me). I was a little nervous about using an oral but Frontline wasn't doing the job. I've heard good things about the Seresto collar but, perhaps naively, I don't like the idea of the collar on a house dog who lounges on the couches with my young boys.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by shags » Sat Apr 20, 2019 4:49 am

mtlhdr,

Would you do me a favor and check your simparica box for the species of ticks it kills? I passed on it last year despite my vet's recommendation because deer ticks weren't listed, and they are the greatest concern over here. TIA. I might go to it if deer ticks are covered.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by averageguy » Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:44 am

I use Bravecto with excellent results and no problems.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by polmaise » Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:30 am

I have used Garlic for the last 30 years as an oral preventative for Tick.
Before Y'all say that Garlic is on the danger list for Dogs ,So is Water ,if you it takes too much it drowns .
Only had one Flea infestation when one of the young dogs tried to retrieve a hedgehog and it spread through the kennels.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by mtlhdr » Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:16 pm

shags wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 4:49 am
mtlhdr,

Would you do me a favor and check your simparica box for the species of ticks it kills? I passed on it last year despite my vet's recommendation because deer ticks weren't listed, and they are the greatest concern over here. TIA. I might go to it if deer ticks are covered.
Deer (blacklegged) ticks aren't listed on the label. However, if you look on the website (https://www.simparica.com/simparica-kills-ticks.aspx) it states that Simparica kills deer ticks and cites a specific study. There are three studies in PubMed on deer ticks (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26935819). We mostly run into western blacklegged ticks out here (where we hunt) and it kills them quite fast. Same genus, different species as your deer tick I believe.

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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by shags » Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:47 pm

Thanks much. You worked way hard on that :D

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mtlhdr
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Re: Oral flea and tick medications?

Post by mtlhdr » Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:24 pm

You're welcome. I got curious :D

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