Cat Health and Fleas - What Harm Can Fleas Do to Your Cat?

By Ann Wong

With the responsibility of keeping a cat, comes the added task of ensuring that they are flea free. Fleas is a problem that all cat owners would have to deal with at one time or another. Ask any cat owners and I'm sure you would get a same answer from all of them and that is, getting rid of fleas on cats is not an easy task. It requires an enormous amount of effort and time to eradicate these pesky little creatures once they come into contact with your cat. What's worse is that not only are fleas a nuisance, they are also the cause of many health problems that we see in cats.

The most common cat fleas health hazards that we see is flea allergic dermatitis or what's commonly known as FAD. This is a skin disorder caused by an allergic reaction to an allergen found in the saliva of fleas. When fleas bite on the cat for a blood meal, it secrets saliva. The allergen in the fleas' saliva will result in pruritus (intense itch) causing the cat to scratch and lick itself excessively. This in turn lead to hair loss and raw and inflamed skin due to the constant non-stop scratching and licking. Affected cat will feel miserable and their appetite will tend to be affected leading to weight loss.

Tapeworms infestation is another health concern brought about by fleas. Cats groom themselves by licking their hair coat. While doing so, they may ingest a flea carrying tapeworms larva and the cat get infected as a result. You can easily tell if your cat is having tapeworms by checking its anus. Chances are that you would be able to detect the presence of what look like rice grain segments of the tapeworms. Though tapeworms would not cause any major health issue in cats, their presence in the guts of cats may hinder the proper absorption of nutrients resulting in malnutrition and weight loss. This is especially so when a cat is heavily infested with tapeworms.

Fleas may also cause anemia in cats. They feed on the blood of cats. Though one flea will only feed on a minute quantity each time, the combined quantity by hundreds of fleas living off the poor cat can be considerable especially in young and immature kittens.

Feline Anemia Infection or FIA is another parasitic infection caused by fleas. Fleas are carriers of the blood parasite call Haemobartonella felis that can cause rupturing of red blood cells in cats. This again may cause anemia in cats resulting in death if severe and not treated.
The only way you can protect your cats from these dreadful diseases is to have a proper flea control for cats. How To Treat Cat Fleas will show you how you can eradicate these pesky creatures before any harm caused. Get to know the right products to use and how to use them to keep your cat flea free.

To prevent flea re-infestation, it's not sufficient to just treat your cat, the surrounding environment need to be treated as well. House Flea Control is where you will get step-by-step instructions on how you can effectively get rid of fleas in your house both indoor and outdoor.