Hello FML,

I've been thinking about the issue of fleas, medication for them, and
skin:

   o  Skin in relation to Revolution not working

   o  Skin relative to hair loss and Revolution

   o  Possible change in Revolution formula

1. Last year, one of my cats (a dusty-orange 5-yr old named Raoul)
began to lose patches of hair where I applied his Revolution. This
type of loss is well-known: "Approximately 1% of cats experienced
temporary hair loss at the application site. "

2. My 6-yr old ferret, Jonas, rather suddenly lost most of the hair in
a band around his body, shortly after his most recent application of
Revolution. Do you think the two events could be related? I can't
remember if the other time he lost his hair was after a Revolution
application.

Btw, My vet (Swiss woman, who knows ferrets) is quite sure Jonas does
not have adrenal. I'm checking w other people on the FML about that
again.

3. Vicki pointed out something about my dog Brian's skin. The fleas
dined on Brian, despite applications of Revolution, and now a bath.
He is a Chinese Crested, and they often have skin problems. The one
problem in the past he's had has been an intermittent thickening of
the skin on the back of his neck -- due, I was told, to fleas. At
first I didn't believe it, since at that time I had only recently
given him his Revolution.

Over time, Brian has had more fleas than the other dogs, including
his sister, even after a Revolution treatment. Now fleas seem little
affected by the Rx.

Perhaps Brian's skin has become resistant somehow to penetration of
the Rx, so it isn't doing its job?

Or maybe too many animals like Raoul (and Jonas?) had hair loss, and
Revolution's formula was altered? This idea is appealing, since

     o   The idea of immune fleas is awfully unsettling.

     o   Other people (many, many others?) have found Revolution to
         be losing its effectiveness, and if I remember right, all
         of us first experienced this about a year ago.

     o   This problem is too geographically widespread to seem
         reasonable: How could the fleas in Ethiopia and around the
         US all be going through the same change, since only a few
         people here use the product.

A few days after a second application, Brian's fleas seemed to
have been vanquished, but he got into some charcoal and got a bath
yesterday. He slept on my bed last night, and around 4am I had an
unpleasant experience with a flea myself, and in a moment I heard
Brian scratching. The night before there'd been no problem -- or no
obvious one.

What do you think about the apparent effect of the bath? The Revolution
literature says animals can be bathed 2 hrs after application, and it
had been a few days. On the other hand, why had it taken a few days
after the second application for the fleas to disappear? Something to
do with Brian's skin?

FYI, the fleas here (a high-altitude, temperate/sub-tropical area of
Ethiopia) are different from those I knew in the US. They are slender
and long, rather than roundish (maybe 125 % longer), and don't have the
hunched, legs-hanging-down body structure I'm used to. Also they are
much easier (though not actually easy) to catch and kill by hand: They
are slower and nowhere near as hard.

Last night, after feeling a familiar crawling sensation on my skin
(nope, not that), I cautiously lit the lamp, craftily peeled back the
flannel sheet and.... What is that -- a bit of dried grass or a flea?
Ah, I thought it was just grass, but as I reached for it, w/o enough
caution, it zppped up into the air, bounced hard off my chest and
vanished. I wont describe the remaining hours of the night, but in the
morning I found it -- or, I fear, one of its companions -- strolling
down a fold in a comforter. It is now dead, and all the bedclothes are
on the clothesline, swinging in the breezes under the African sun.

P.S., The Revolution that the dogs got was new, the cat Revolution the
ferrets got was old.

[Posted in FML 7367]