Help!

Has anyone who has adopted a rescue cat that has a dermatitus (skin) problem able to help the cat without a costly visit to the vet?

Rescued 'Zoot' two yrs ago and he constantly has these scabs on his skin. I can't afford to go to vet all the time. Is there anything I can apply locally or internally that will help his skin? It appears to be an allergy. Do know when he was rescued he had a bad flea allergy. Use the product Advantage to apply to him, but he still continues to get the scabs under his fur.

I buy from my vet - he's as cheap as the mail order places (~$28 for three cat doses). The thing is I need 11 * 0.5 ml doses a month for the cats and another 5.something for the dogs - say 11-12 ml a month. individual cat doses are over $9 per cat per month, but the large dog size is 12 ml for $36 + tax - a bit over $1.50 per cat and $3.75 per dog per month. I use a nearly worn out 3 ml syringe to meter the doses (I have several spares).

I compared the ingredients and found that the only difference is that there is slightly less of the juvenile hormone in the dog formula - the adult flea killer is the same concentration. Somebody in alt.cats suggested I look into that approach, and I checked with my vet and he OKed it. So far the only problem has been that some of the cats don't want me putting wet stuff on the back of their heads and struggle almost as much as when I try to clip their claws (same cats object to both; the others don't object to either).

T.E.D. ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - e-mail must contain 'T.E.D.' or my .sig in the body)

You can buy one large dog size Advantage for the same price as that for a cat. It's the same concentration. Draw it out with a syringe, throw out the needle and dispense. I find that's enough for 8-10 cats.

Advantage comes in two sizes for cats 9 lbs or LESS 0.4 CC 10 lbs & Up 0.8 CC One tube of large dog Advantage contains 4CC.

I think .4cc is too much for a small kitten. I prefer to weigh them and use .05cc/lb. which is slightly more than the minimum dosage.

I would want to be sure that I was dealing with an allergy and not ringworm which can be contagious to humans. Only a vet visit can isolate what the particular problem might be, and if its' still the flea allergy that's the primary problem. Frontline administered monthly should clear up any flea problem, and you need to get that from a vet. I don't particularly care for Advantage. It just seems to not work as well with the Southern fleas that exist year round.