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Hello. I am writing for your opinion on using Bravecto, the pill that provides 12-week flea & tick protection. My vet is keen on it. My concern is that one of my two dogs has had cancer twice; also she reacted badly (vomiting) to a similar pill when she was a puppy. What is your advice? Thank you
–Gwen
Editor’s Note: for more information, check out these two articles: Homemade Flea and Tick Prevention for Dogs & Best Flea and Tick Prevention for Dogs
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As one of the comment moderators for Canine Journal, my heart breaks reading all of our readers’ comments about what Bravecto has done to your pets. Fortunately, our Sally has been completely healthy and happy and didn’t get sick from the Bravecto. In the future, I will ask more questions up front about potential side effects of medications and do research on what my vet recommends for my dog. I consider us to be very lucky that nothing bad happened to our sweet Sally.
I want to express my sorrow for those of you who have given Bravecto to your dogs and they have gotten ill from it. I can’t imagine how it feels to be in your shoes and I want to thank you for sharing your experiences with our community so other pet parents can be more informed.
I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for alternatives that are as effective as Bravecto is supposed to be. Topical treatments are constantly failing and I have to change brands all the time and they never seem to keep my dog protected for the full month. We were out of town and missed a treatment by 4 days once and literally had to move out of our apartment after both fumigation and very expensive flea treatment failed. When it gets really bad I have to sit with a flea comb and soapy water picking fleas off him one by one – I once got over 40 live fleas – and he hates it and now runs away when he sees the comb. The fleas also seem to have smartened up because they no longer hang out on the typical areas fleas like (they used to appear on the parts of his body covered in tan/white hair, now they only hide in the black. They also don’t appear near his tail, abdomen or armpits anymore. lately I only find them on his upper chest.) He’s an indoor dog. Doesn’t visit dog parks or hang out with many other dogs and yet its a constant problem. Furthermore, I cannot take a chance with natural flea products as we are in the midst of a flea-borne typhus epidemic in Los Angeles right now and it’s always flea season here so I need something strong and long-lasting. I love my vet and he insists Bravecto is safe, as has our secondary vet, but this thread is terrifying and I’m scared to give it to my dog.
Another question directed at the administrators – have you been reviewing all the posts to try and determine a pattern of common symptoms? It seems that a lot of people are blaming Bravecto for a lot of different types of issues and so I don’t even know what I should be looking for in terms of potential side effects. Any pattern between breeds? Age? Geography?
Regarding your admin questions, we haven’t been analyzing the comments for common threads regarding breeds, age, geography, etc. That would be interesting data to observer and see if there are any commonalities. Something we will definitely consider doing! From what I can tell, there seems to be no pattern I’ve noticed. I’ve given Bravecto to my dog in the past (prior to knowing about the serious issues with it) and fortunately I haven’t had any issues with it. My dog is approximately 4 years old, hound mix, female and we live in Iowa.
I have been living in LA for 10 years now and my dog has been taking some form of flea and tick medication either topically or orally until early last year when she reacted badly to taking Comfortis. This was an oral medicine that was to last a month and once administered, my dog vomited, showed lethargy, and had small to large, multiple lesions in her mouth. I knew that all pharmaceutical flea and tick medicine is just some form of pesticide/insecticide in smaller dosages that are supposed to be safe for our pets and never felt good about giving it to her, but with how bad the infestations get, i felt i had no other choice. however, after I saw these lesions, i decided that her body could no longer process the pesticide and stopped giving her any brand of flea/tick medicine. I found one product that seemed to work well. Wondercide Natural Flea & Tick Control concentrate for the yard (we used cedar and lemongrass) seemed to work well to kill the infestation in the back yard. We got the population numbers of both fleas and mosquitoes down significantly, not entirely since rats, raccoons, feral cats, etc. roam there, but it worked so well that we kept spraying the yard every time we saw any fleas in the flea trap. As for my dog, i had to comb her, bathe her regularly to keep her flea free, but she now suffers from Flea afflicted dermatitis so she’s just constantly itchy.
I got an application of BRAVECTO when a friend of mine raved about how well it worked for her cat, who also reacted badly to Comfortis. She mentioned that is gets rid of Flea afflicted dermatitis so i was really excited to try it out on my dog so that she can live itch free. After doing some reasearch and reading about how other dogs have reacted to it badly or caused deaths, I’m reluctant to try it out. Did you end up giving it to your dog? I empathize with your flea ordeal last summer. It was insane. I really hope this year will be easier for us and our dogs 🙂
The vets can’t seem to understand how his kidneys and liver became damaged. But we used the bravecto just over 6 months ago.
I decided to post this so persons can apply some caution before using this product.
SIP Raja. We love you.
He had some sort of tremors, wouldn’t eat, he lost all his energy and all i did was lay next to him hoping for him to get through it and he did. I read reviews too late but if i would’ve known i would’ve threw it out.
We have just had a week from hell with our 5 year old, 40kg male Labradoodle, who also is never ill, full of life and eats exceptionally well. He has had Bravecto (on the advice of the vet), even though I voiced concerns previously. The problem as I see it, is that the dog doesn’t necessarily have an immediate reaction, it could be the same day, week, month or year, if the tablet is given on a regular basis. I’ve now researched even further, to find out that the toxins can build up, and slowly poison the dog, especially if they are not strong in the first place. The symptoms of both previously healthy dogs, did not come to light straight away, but after taking on a regular basis for a year. They were both disorientated, stagger, violently sick and diarrhoea, and all the usual symptoms connected to Bravecto. Our dog didn’t even recognise us for days.
Our current experience started 5 weeks ago, within a week of taking the tablet. I’ve never seen such a sick dog, and took him to our vet – cut a long story short 3 vets at the practice could find absolutely no conclusive reason for his illness, all the tests came back negative, and the dog ended up staying in for 2 days. At this point they recommended a referral to a vet hospital, which were also very good, but don’t seem to want to hear concerns about Bravecto. He had every scan, MRI, CT, Spinal tap, advanced bloods, to no avail – there appeared to be no answer. Our poor dog didn’t recognise us, couldn’t stand straight, and paced, without stopping for 36 hours straight. We were absolutely devastated and distressed. I asked for a neurosurgeon to have a look and that also concluded negative. I’m not medically trained at all, but know the dog, and it was definitely neurological in nature. He’d seen 3 vets and 4 specialist vets in the period of a week.
We brought him home on Thursday night, none the wiser, but if we were going to have to make the dreaded decision to let him go, it was going to be with us at home.
A miracle happened, and slowly (presuming by now the toxins had expelled themselves or worked through his system), our boy slowly came back to us over the next 2 days and now appears back to normal. We are so relieved to say the least, and will never ever give another dog this dreadful poison again.
I actually don’t know a vet that will say it could be related to Bravecto, but do have 2 colleagues who used to work as Vet Assistants, who both said the practice were bound somehow to prescribing this, but they themselves would never, ever give to their pets. Says everything.
Additionally, why do all vets want to recommend Royal Canin and Purina to poorly animals – indpendant dog food sites, show they are really low end and full of sugar and have as much goodness as cardboard. I’m afraid, as soon as my boy got home and wanted to eat, I put him straight back on to his raw……. he is now bounding back to normal.
I’ve owned dogs for 45 years, and up until using Bravecto have never experienced anything like this before.
Please, anyone reading this, do your own research before making the decision to give your dog Bravecto. I have never voiced anything on the web before, but as a concerned dog and animal lover, had to tell the story.
In the middle of September, after her second dose of Bravecta, she started having regular episodes where she would vomit, become lethargic, suffer tremors and a staggered gait. These episodes lasted four days the first few times, and occurred about twice a month. Eventually the episodes started happening more frequently, and would last about two days. Currently, these episodes are lasting anywhere between 12 hours and two days, but they’re occurring slightly more frequently than once a week.
I took her to the vet and am waiting for the blood panel results. She recommended that I take her off the Bravecta. I agreed with her whole heartedly. Unfortunately, she’ll have that crap in her system until December 13. Until then I’ve. Just been treating the symptoms the best way I can. I will take the advice of an earlier commenter and complain to the FDA as well as Merck. I’m also going to go on YouTube and share my experience. My dog has been so sick, and I’ve unwittingly been the cause.
I get more ticks than my dogs do and I have 8 of them.