What's lurking in your gut? (Panacur Wormer Oral Paste)

Member Name: faithlessone

Product:	Panacur Wormer Oral Paste
Date:	03/09/08 (785 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It treats a variety of worms and intestinal parasites

Disadvantages: none

I have said before in a previous review that when you have pets as joyous as they can be they can at any given time present a number of health problems. Whether you have a cat or dog or both, worms do not differentiate and can be very problamatic to the animal.

The most suprising thing about this particular complaint is that there are numerous well known brands on the market all selling worm treatments most commonly in tablet form all claiming to treat the infestation of worms. In general they will kill off round worms and tape worms but these worms themselves have several different species. We unfortunately learnt the hard way, we often bought a well known brand for the treatment of worms for our cats, but it was on a routine visit to the vets that we were educated about the numerous species of worms and how devastating the effects of certain species can be not only to the animal but suprisingly to humans also.

Following the vets advice we bought Panacur, a paste specifically designed for the effective treatment of worms and Protozoa Giardia. Panacur is also the only licensed product that can be used against Protozoa Giardia. I had no idea what this was and was told by our vet that it is a parasite that infects the animals gut and symptoms often include just runny stools. However, here comes the but, you can't be secure in the knowledge that your animal doesn't have it even if a test is carried out as results are not always conclusive. So you need Panacur, it treats it even if your are not sure if your pet has it. Better to be safe than sorry I think.

As for the worms well, there are several species each as horrible as the next but you may find it handy to know that the most awful ones are not particularly common in the UK and as such only pose a risk to people travelling with their pets outside of the Uk.

One form of worm that is particularly common in the UK is the tapeworm (Taenia spp) and one thing I found particularly impressive with Panacur is that it can be given to pregnant bitches and puppies/kittens at just two weeks of age. This is brilliant as soon as they are born they are infected but with treatment able to be given so early it helps them to grow and be healthy much easier as apposed to being left untreated and using another form of treatment later on.

Toxocara canis (for dogs) and Toxocara Cati (for cats) is probably one of the other most nastiest types of roundworm there is. It is particularly dangerous to humans, children touch the infected animal and then the eggs are ingested and can cause some serious health problems. In particular eye problems even blindness (the egg develops into larvae and moves to the back of the eye) or other organ problems. The eggs of the roundworm can lay dormant for up to three years and then when some poor unsuspecting cat or dog comes into contact where the faeces once were then the eggs transfer and are digested. All puppies are born carriers of this and so treatment is an absolute must.

So you now know why you need it but how do you use it? Well, it's actually very simple. It comes in a paste which I find a much easier option than tablets because you can't guarantee your cat or dog will eat the tablets how ever hard you try to disguise it in their food (unless you wrap it in a piece of ham or stick it in some cheese) as some animals are just to damn smart for these obvious tactics and so for us the paste is a must. It comes in a white box with the Panacur brand name on the side in big blue letters and underneath in a bright orange strip it states 18.75% oral paste with a picture of a cat and dog directly next to it ensuring the purchaser it is for cats and dogs however it does also state underneath that it is a wormer for cats, dogs, kittens and puppies.

Inside the box you will find a single syringe, with convenient markings down the side, this is so after you have weighed your pet (we just stand on the scales with our pets then weigh ourselves after and minus the difference) you twist a dial to the correct dosage required for the weight of your pet and this dial will make sure that only this amount of paste is administered so no chance of overdosing on the product. One syringe will do on average three applications for a normal sized adult cat if he/ she
is a large cat then only two applications and so on. It works out that two syringe graduations per 1kg (2.2llbs) of bodyweight. Appearance wise it resembles toothpaste, is white in colour and is pratically odourless.

We have found if we wrap our cats in a towel first (one at a time of course!) and then one of you holds the cat whilst the other administers the paste there is less wastage and less stress to the cat, as for the dog well they eat more or less anything don't they. We have found with our cat Trinity we have to treat him every two months or so as he eats a lot of take outs! We do not treat our other cat Snowy as often as she eats only what we give her.

Price wise it is relatively cheap considering how much it actually treats, and is available for £3.95 from Hyperdrug.co.uk and of course is available from all good vets and other on line pet stores. So in summary, if you have a pet then you need Panacur.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: A worm paste for both cats and dogs