Cat Flea Bites and Treatment

How Serious Are Cat Flea Bites?

For a healthy adult cat or dog with only a few fleas, bites cause itching and little else. Allergy is the bigger problem. Some pets react strongly to proteins in flea saliva, and in those animals a handful of bites can set off intense scratching, hair loss and scabs. Vets call this flea allergy dermatitis, and it is a common reason pets are brought in for skin trouble.

Heavy infestations can seriously harm small, young, old or sick animals. Each flea takes a little blood, and a large number feeding on a kitten or puppy can cause anemia, which can become life-threatening. People can react too. Some develop larger welts or a rash where they were bitten, and scratching can open the skin to infection. Fleas can also carry a few illnesses, which are described below.

What Cat Flea Bites Look Like and When to Get Help

On people, cat flea bites usually turn up on the ankles and lower legs, the height fleas can reach when they jump from the floor. Each bite is a small, firm, red bump, sometimes with a darker center, and they often appear in clusters or short rows of two or three. They itch right away and can stay itchy for several days.

Keeping the risk in perspective: for most people a flea bite is an itchy nuisance and nothing more. Flea droppings can carry the bacteria behind cat scratch disease, which people pick up from a scratch or bite by an infected cat. Cat fleas can also carry the bacteria that cause flea-borne typhus, though that illness is uncommon. Pets, and occasionally young children, can get a tapeworm by swallowing an infected flea.

First aid: wash the bites with soap and water, use a cold pack to calm swelling, and apply an over-the-counter anti-itch cream.

See a doctor if bites become hot, swollen or start to ooze, or if you develop fever, headache or a body rash.

See your vet if a pet keeps scratching or chewing at the base of the tail, is losing hair, or has scabby skin, which can point to flea allergy. Also see the vet for kittens or puppies with pale gums, or rice-like segments near a pet’s rear end, a sign of tapeworm. Getting fleas under control is covered in how to get rid of cat fleas.