Remember how my office was crawling with ladybugs - on my mouse, falling from the ceiling into my hair, covering the window panes? Well, this is kind of like that - only imagine the ladybugs are pieces of tapeworm, called proglottids. Well, maybe my house isn't actually crawling with proglottids, but it sure does feel like it when you're a parasite-phobe like me.
So the thing is: Stella has a tapeworm. The proglottids are breaking off the tapeworm, falling out of Stell-cat's booty, and shriveling up to look like little grains of rice. Sick. After some investigation with the help of Google, I've learned that Dipylidium canium (the most common feline tapeworm) is spread from an intermediate host, normally fleas, to housecats when they eat the intermediate host. I am therefore hoping that, because our house is seemingly flea-free, a one-time trip to the vet will clear this up. (Keep in mind that we already took her to the vet several weeks ago and had a parasite exam done; evidently this was missed. And we paid them $170. Burn.)
Luckily, despite all my irrational worries, Brandon and I probably do not have tapeworms ourselves. Do not fear. We would have to actually ingest the fleas ourselves for this to happen. Also interesting is that the worms probably aren't all that harmful for our little furry pal - they're just horribly nasty. Dr. Dan (my new favorite online vet) explains to me that my feelings are not uncommon "Nothing can compare to the disgust and repulsion pet owners experience when they find a tapeworm segment stuck on their favorite easy chair soon after the cat gets up...this is the world of tapeworms. Although they don't cause lots of damage in pets, tapeworms sure are gross and disgusting to pet owners."
Wish us luck - Stella and I are off to the vet this afternoon for some serious deworming.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment