Reactions-so much more common than you'd think (Bob Martin Flea Products)

Member Name: Mardicow

Product:	Bob Martin Flea Products
Date:	05/08/08 (971 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none whatsoever

Disadvantages: Kills cats

Last year I bought Bob Martin Flea Spray to de-flea my indoor cats. I followed the directions on the bottle down to a T, and within 2 minutes one of them was twitching and frothing at the mouth. Under instruction from the vet we tried to wash it off with the shower, not easy on a semi-convulsing cat. Seconds later she was running blindly into the walls, doors, darting around madly, before throwing herself into the floor in a full blown seizure. This was less than 8 minutes since the application. We rushed her, and our other cat, who was fine, but we had washed her too just in case, to the vets, where she was sedated and treatment began. She was in the vets a total of three days, hooked up to a drip to try and clear her system, she was also washed a further two times. Our other cat came home the same night as she was absolutely fine.

According to the vet this reaction makes up over half of all of their out of hours calls, and very few cats survive as the common side effects begin with darting around, and this is often confused with the cat objecting to being treated and by the time owners realise the system damage is too severe.

My cat was lucky in that she survived, however she has a lot of lasting damage, which we were hoping would reduce in intensity as time went on, though after a year the vet is quite convinced that she'll never be 'normal' again. We've had to adapt our entire routine etc to accomodate her.

The problems she has been left with are;

* Temporary spasms of her motor functions when upset/excited. These can range from slight twitches/spasms of her muscles to loss of use of her back legs, eye twitching and excessive salivation.

* An intolerance to a lot of household cleaners, scents, perfumes etc. Some she's fine with, some will induce a seizure, there's seemingly no pattern to the active ingredient, and no comon links. It's all trial and error.

* Kidney damage

Luckily she has a high quality of life with us, but the outcome could have been so different, and I find it so distressing that something as potentially lethal as this product is found in most suppermarket and petshop aisles.

She is also now intolerant to a lot of household pesticides, and the only flea treatment we have found that doesn't afftect her costs £22 on prescription from the vet. Due to her 'condition' she can be absolutely fine with a product for weeks, even months, then develop an intolerance, so this means that we don't even have the option to get the prescription from anywhere cheaper as she has to be treated under vetinary supervision. Unless I keep her away from the others, which would be very unfair as she's a very social cat, the other cats and dogs have to be treated with the same brand, as even walking past another pet with a different treatment on can set her off.

Summary: Do not use under any circumstances