What are intestinal parasites?
Intestinal parasites are kind of like they sound. They live in the intestines, and they're typically worms that will live in there and can affect your cat's health, which we'll talk about in a second.
How do intestinal parasites impact the health and well-being of your cat?
The parasites can steal nutrients from your cat. They can also attach to the lining of the intestines and cause anemia, which is low red blood cells. These are all things that are pretty critical to your cat.
What preventative measures can be taken to ensure that my cat doesn't get worms or other parasites?
The biggest thing is making sure that you keep your cat inside. If your cat does go outside, then just make sure they're on prevention. This includes making sure they have flea and tick prevention as well as a monthly dewormer medication.
What are some parasites, and what are the signs and symptoms of some of them in cats?
The main parasites we see are roundworms, tapeworms, hookworms, and whipworms. The biggest thing you'll usually see is that sometimes these come out in the stool. Tapeworms are like little rice segments, and roundworms usually look like long spaghetti. Although you don't always see them, sometimes it's just microscopic, and it's just the eggs that are coming out. But if your cat has any sort of loose stool, mucus in the stool, or foul odor, those are all signs we'd want to get checked out.
What about ringworm?
Ringworm is a common misconception and has a silly name. It's not actually a worm; it's a fungus. We can talk about that later.
Can you see, well, you just said you can see worms in your cat's stool. How else can you diagnose intestinal parasites in your cat?
You're not always going to see them, like we just talked about. The best thing you can do is to bring in a fecal sample with you, ideally less than 12 hours old. I know sometimes it's tough to catch, especially with cats using the litter box. If you have a group of cats, if you have a couple at home, two or three, one stool sample will be sufficient for all of them. If one cat has parasites and they're sharing a toilet, it's likely that they all do. So bring in that stool sample. What we do is look under the microscope for those parasite eggs. If we see parasite eggs, we know there are likely parasites further upstream, and we'd want to get you a dewormer medication.
Are there different treatments for different parasites?
Yes, unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment. It really depends on what type of parasite your cat has. That's why we want to see that stool sample or if you can take pictures of the worms that you are seeing so we can get the appropriate treatment.
Why is early detection and diagnosis so important?
Like we talked about before, these parasites can steal nutrients from your pets. I've seen cats become anemic or have low red blood cell counts just from parasites. Cats can even form obstructions, almost like they ate foreign material. The worms can kind of ball up in their intestine and form an obstruction, which is a surgical emergency. So things can get pretty bad pretty quickly, and we really want to get that detected early.
When should I get my cat to the vet for deworming?
We recommend bringing in a stool sample once a year, during their annual exam works great. If they're an indoor cat, they may not need to be dewormed every year, but if they're an outside cat, like we talked about, you're going to want to do that monthly. And then obviously, if they're having any loose stool, we certainly want to check a stool sample at that time.
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