I have 9 cats and a very clean home. I usually use Advantage to control parasites on my friends but when I moved west I heard there was a big problem with ticks so 2 weeks ago I switched to Frontline. What a waste of my very hard earned money! I spent almost $100.00 for one months supply and there are still fleas bouncing all over the house! I called the Merial/Frontline company that makes it and told them the problem and they just blew me off, Oh, it takes 4 to 12 hours to be effective, it will end the flea life cycle eventually, blah, blah, blah. I am very angry with them. I sat last night for several hours and brushed my pets with a flea comb and got a huge cupful of pest off of them and they all looked very energetic, not at all like they were getting ready to die. After 2 weeks I have a bigger problem with fleas than I had before I dosed them. While the Advantage was effective I had none, with the Frontline they are all over the house, I might just as well have used water. At $100.00 a month, that is some very expensive water. and the Merial rep did not offer me my money back or a coupon or anything! They suck!

hmm....well interesting my mom handles the fleas in the house and well here you only have collars and nothing else....except Frontline....and she used that and said that it is the only effective thing here.....well I suppose if you have other stuff there are better but since there aren´t any here she said it was very effective...and it was some liquid that you put on them where they can´t lick it off....well she was satisfied...there isn´t any "Advantage" here so we don´t know if it is better.....

Maybe because what you used before is stronger than Frontline and the fleas are not being affected by it. It worked for me so I´m assuming that it´s weaker than what you used before so they don´t react to it.
Same with lice on humans, sometimes if you keep using the shampoo it has no effect, it´s not the shampoo, it´s the lice in your hair that have adapted to it and made new lice undestroyable by it.

I hope that´s a decent explanation, at least that´s how I view things.
Any chance to order online if they don´t have Advantage there?

I am going back to the vet today to get the Advantage or at least something that works. I just got off the phone with the rep from the Merial company and they basically gave me lip service and said that even though they had a satisfaction guarantee I did not qualify because I had too many pets! All I got was a bunch more blah, blah , blah. I don´t make alot of money so when I buy something I expect it to work and to be satisfied by it and if I am finding that many fleas in my environment when I previously had none, it ain´t working. I have never had a flea problem like this before and to have them just pat me on the head and send me on my way has reallyword deleted by mod me off.

Frontline affects only fleas and tick and so on. But it does not affect flea eggs. I discovered, that my cat, while not having fleas or ticks (use Frontline for years now) had sometimes in his fur something. The vet told me that these was flea eggs. Since the cat was brushed every day those eggs fell on the floor - and I´ve got carpets.So I discovered in a pharmacy that there is a spray (really more a could) killing off eggs and a lot of other criters. Twice a year I use it in all carpeted rooms and have no problem anymore.
By the way, my vet as well as the people in the pet shop told me to use rather the cheaper version of Frontline than the concentrated one that costs much more.

I have the same issue with frontline. I prefer advantage. I looked into the products and the active ingredients are different. So it´s like us some products work on our skin and hair while others just don´t. Yet those same products work for others.

So frontline doesn´t work for us, but I know other cat families that it does. But I love advantage, it works great.

After using the Advantage the the other day the cats now have no fleas, the itching has stopped, and the fleas are not hopping around the house. We are all pretty happy now. I still think I will write to the Frontline company and tell them how terrible their product is. My poor babies that have flea allergies will still be miserable until the welts heal up.

I use Stronghold on both my cat and dog. It´s prescription only though and I´m not 100% sure if it´s available outside the UK. It works well though and so far we´ve never had any major flea problems. It also protects against roundworm, mange and ear mites. (and heartworm too I believe)

I use advocate its made by bayer, It controls fleas, intestional worms, prevents heartworm, and controls earmites.
My cats and home are 100% flea free and my cats look healthy.
for aussies i reccomend buying it on ebay because its about $15 cheaper than buying it from a pet shop and about $30 cheaper than the vets!!!!

I have 3 acres, 12 dogs and 65 cats. I ONLY treat 6 of the dogs with Frontline Plus.
if anyone would get fleas (the untreated animals), I would treat them too, but we haven´t had to as of yet. The six dogs patrol the property and I guess the fleas get on them and die, and don´t go around to the cats. No one has fleas or ticks. The dogs come in the house at night to sleep. Maybe I´m just lucky. Had switched to Revolution for Heartworm, and everyone got ticks, so back to Frontline Plus.

Possibly the location you live in has a different breed of flea than we do. All I know is it works great for our fleas and the only thing that kills all ticks on the property. I do not treat the cats and we had a horrible problem in the house when I first started using it. I love Frontline Plus. Ticks scare me terribly.

Eva

I use frontline plus and well keep all pets dry for the 1st 24 hours after application ... it works but if any of them get wet before the 1st 24hours is up they get fleas ...or ticks ... by experience.
On the odd occassion we do alternate to advantix to keep the fleas on their ... whatevers !

i found that after using frontline 4 about a year with no problems i all of a sudden had problems with fleas, its almost as if the fleas got immune to it lol so ive now switched to advantage and we no longer have any fleas

I have used Frontline on my cats for years but this year I have found that Frontline has not been effective, I am wondering based on your above comments whether a new breed of flea has emerged that is now immune to Frontline?????
Anyhow, I managed to combat the problem by using a household spray called Nuvon Top in combination with Frontline and lots of hoovering of the house (and the Cat - Viz loves the hoover) and got rid of them once and for all.
I think I´m gonna speak to my vet about changing over to another product, I dont want to go through all this trouble again of eradicating the fleas.

I don´t have a problem with fleas, but I regularly use Revolution on my cats. It protects/prevents fleas, ear mites, some intestinal parasites, heartworms. I like it.

I have lived on a second floor for several years
to minimize flea problems. When outdoors, I try
to stick to the paved and concrete parts, and avoid
walking on grass to keep them off my shoes and clothes.
nonethe less, they are virtually unavoidable and I have still had
a couple of incidents over the past 5 years.
I just get the one spot stuff at the supermarket.
The kind made by Hartz got rid of them within a few days.
I also use it as a recaution when I bring in a new cat even if
they don´t appear to have fleas at the time
If they do have fleas, they are quarantined in a room, that has
been bombed a couple of days before they arrive, with Raid for fleas and ticks
and a buffer zone of flea powder (Hartz) is laid down at the door and into the hallway,
hopefully farther than a flea could jump. Works for me.

In the house, I take a aluminum pie pan put a drop or two of Dawn dishwashing soap in with a little water and then put a candle (in a glass) or use tea candle (in little aluminum holder) and light at night. Fleas are attracted to both the heat and light so they jump in and drown. This is not a permanent solution, as I use drops too but it helps when fleas have invaded the house. Be careful around children and pets as it need to be in a center floor location. Some pets do go near the candles....gauge your pet first. Just a tidbit I found that works and wanted to share it.

I put frontline on Vitia, and she got such a deep wound from it - by being alergic, that I absolutely hate that product. I use now an old fashion flee powder and a brush.

Fleas absolutely get immune to the ingredients. That is why they do tend to slightly change their ingredients every now and then. As to a new breed of flea, I haven´t seen anything to suggest that. I have done a LOT of research on fleas and flea treatments. The cat flea is the most common breed of flea. For every one of the other breeds there are like 10 cat fleas. And cat fleas are the only flea that can live on other animals and humans. All the other fleas are specific to their host. They do become very resilient to flea treatments, which is why something that has worked for a while, suddenly doesn´t.

My Lily also was allergic to the spot on flea treatments. I use flea powders in the winter and then go back to the spot on in the warmer months.

Very interesting discussion. I had my brother bring some Advantage in for me when he last came to visit. I had suggested he try to get Frontline since I understood that it killed other things besides fleas, so I thought that would be an extra benefit. Anyway, the vet didn´t have Frontline so my brother brought Advantage instead. I don´t use it a lot—my cats live indoors all the time, but I do have a friend who works with dogs and cats out of doors and comes to me with her dirty laundry—I´ve picked fully loaded ticks off her blue jeans!

All that to say that Abby and Lou were scratching a lot so I thought it would be good to "dose" them for three months just in case. I don´t know if it´s okay to treat them and then stop in the hopes that the bugs don´t build up a resistance to the product???????? Any ideas on that?

In the house, I take a aluminum pie pan put a drop or two of Dawn dishwashing soap in with a little water and then put a candle (in a glass) or use tea candle (in little aluminum holder) and light at night. Fleas are attracted to both the heat and light so they jump in and drown. This is not a permanent solution, as I use drops too but it helps when fleas have invaded the house. Be careful around children and pets as it need to be in a center floor location. Some pets do go near the candles....gauge your pet first. Just a tidbit I found that works and wanted to share it.
I put pans out under night lights, less danger of fire, but I only do that where there are no animals. Haven´t had any fleas in the house or museum since started using Frontline Plus.
Eva

I´ve used Revolution since it came out in the late 1990´s. Never had a problem, and believe it is one of the stronger anti-flea products on the market. Thing is - it does NOT kill ticks, which was pennynellope´s big fear.

I´m even more afraid of ticks after moving to Australia and have seen animals get tick paralysis. I´d never heard of that before moving here. It´s a horrible way to die, and even if the animal recovers, it´s never the same again. But I´m in the suburbs and not near open fields where the ticks are. I haven´t seen a tick here yet. BLECH.