There are various types of over the counter medications for a flea. They include captar, cap guard, and fast cap (Lavan et al., 2018). These products are widely used in dealing with fleas because their main ingredient is nitenpyram. This makes them act very fast, and they are highly effective in treating animals that are heavily infested with fleas. The other type of over the counter flea drugs is advantus, which is relatively new but has also been very useful. There are also various types of prescription medications for flea, which are effective. Some of these medications include isoxazolines, bravecto, credelio, NexGard, simparica , comforts, and trifexis.
The advantage of oral control medication over topical is that when oral medication is used, it is difficult to get into contact with the children and other people and hence avoid poisoning people (Tyler et al., 2019). The oral medication also has little or no skin reaction, especially for pets with very sensitive skin. Another advantage of oral over topical is that oral medication stays active for a long duration instead of topical. If the pets swim or get wet, the drugs’ effectiveness is reduced significantly.
Some of the shortcomings of oral flea medication over topical are that most oral medications have an adverse reaction that may causse various side effects that may require a veterinary doctor (Rosenkrantz, 2016). Cases of seizures and death of pets are also common when oral medication is used instead of topical drugs.
References
Lavan, R., Armstrong, R., Tunceli, K., & Normile, D. (2018). Dog owner flea/tick medication purchases in the USA. Parasites & Vectors, 11(1), 1-6.
Rosenkrantz, W. (2016). Flea control in the 21st century. In Sponsors Of The 8 Th World Congress Of Veterinary Dermatology (P. 40).
Tyler, S., Roberts, C., Foster, A., Barnard, N., & Murray, J. K. (2019), Owner-reported flea treatment measures and skin disease in cats. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. https://doi. org/10.1177/1098612X18773911.
