Sure: pesticide neurotoxins to get better.
Because I trusted a brand.
I've mentioned Beel here before: orphaned when he was hamster-sized, we found him nearly starved and living under a construction dumpster while on a location shoot. The construction workers had been feeding him bits of sandwiches and water, but he was pretty far gone. I spent most of the day I met him carrying him around in my shirt pocket while he bellowed like a seal. We named him for my friend Bill, the photographer on that job, in large part to annoy him (we liked whining Beeeeeel at Bill, the human, all gratingly, like Buffy and Jody fussed at Unca Beel on Family Affair.)
Beel survived against all odds (I wheedled my sister into driving me to the pound with him on the day we found him; I wanted no part of sorry Beel's certain death from malnutrition, worms and bad breeding.) We got stuck in rush hour traffic and I had to bring him home, and that was that. He lived for the first few weeks in our closet in the Bull Mansion, on a stack of my sweaters. He imprinted on me the first week, and attempted to nurse on my shirt buttons. He's pretty neurotic, has all manner of separation anxieties (if he wakes up in a room, and I've left, he howls) and is a bony, canine-behavior-exhibiting, malformed, gay goon.
Beel had developed some serious swamp breath; I could tell from across the room when he was facing me without looking in his direction. He doesn't function well at all outside the house (although he loves car rides) so I was dreading a vet visit. It took three separate attempts (at $100 each) to draw blood for testing. He'd freak, and literally attempt to climb the walls of the vet's office. He was miserable, bellowing deep and low, like whale song, or Della Reese or something, and he'd do these amazing, panicky back flips, propelling himself from my arms in a sickening acrobatic way that almost guaranteed his spine would snap.
It turned out to be what I expected: tooth decay, and a fourth visit ($387) sent him home minus one molar, and druggily exasperated. And with fleas, apparently.
He had a couple of almost bald spots where he'd licked his fur down to peach fuzz, pink, tendony skin showing nakedly beneath. He scratched behind his ear doggily, and would wake from sound sleep as though he'd been goosed. I called the vet, we discussed the unlikelihood of bringing him in for any sort of reasonable evaluation, and the range of possible reasons for the behavior, everything from stress-based compulsive grooming to allergies.
I talked to a friend at work who lives in a house lousy (literally) with pets, and he suggested that rather than stress Beel with another visit to the vet, that I buy some over-the-counter flea medication, and see if that took care of the problem.
I stopped on my way home and bought some Hartz 3-in-one flea drops, and applied them on Tuesday night. They're a liquid, slightly sticky, in a little, single-dose 'dropper' bottle. The directions say to part the fur on the back of the cat's neck in order to expose the skin there, and apply the drops directly at the base of the skull, so the cat can't reach to lick the medication.
Because it's poison. Only they don't stress that part so much. They suggest that the medication will distribute itself "through the animal's natural movements" and warn not to apply it more than every thirty days.
Beel, being no dope, and still plenty traumatized by the hole in his jaw and the apparent flea infestation, was displeased from the outset at being held still, and even more so from having sickeningly perfumed liquid dripped onto the back of his neck. He objected vocally, and when I released him, gave me some serious stinkeye from across the room.
Later, after I'd gone to bed, he began howling, frustrated, I assumed from an inability to reach the sticky, greasy spot (the stuff made a nasty, oily, astonishingly smelly clump at the base of his skull in the few hours after I'd applied it.) This went on for an hour or so, really plaintive cries, and I'm ashamed to admit I did my best to ignore him, until I heard crashing and went downstairs to see what he'd knocked over.
He was convulsing on the living room floor, rigid, with his legs flailing stiffly, and groaning. I picked him up and he was bent oddly, and his head was thrashing, his tongue creepily extended. The room reeked of the flea drop perfume, so it wasn't difficult to imagine the cause. I held him for a few minutes, and eventually he relaxed, and then he seemed to become aware of his surroundings again and panicked, flailed loose from me and ran, his back lags spasming and being dragged along behind, up the stairs. I had to pull him from behind the clawfoot tub, and once I did, I held him under the faucet and washed the back of his neck as best as I could as he fought me, convulsing and growling, biting as hard as he could. I wrapped him tightly in a towel, and began googling.
Googling "cat flea drops reaction" brought up this. And this, from the Environmental Protection Agency, from which I'll quote:
"At EPA’s insistence, Hartz Mountain Corp. has agreed to cancel uses of several flea and tick products that may be associated with a range of adverse reactions, including hair loss, salivation, tremors, and numerous deaths in cats and kittens."
Note that the URL indicates this notice is in the "pesticide" section of their site. I intentionally put pesticide directly onto my cat, so that it could be absorbed into his bloodstream and cause serious neurological damage.
Beel has fits of agitated disorientation during which he panics, looks around seemingly terrified, regardless of his surroundings or previous state. His back legs kick out wildly and randomly, which makes him either fall down, or climb recklessly. He gnaws at his fur and is lethargic and morose. He presently spends most of his time in a small cardboard box or in my arms; he panics if he's anywhere else. I have been carrying him to his litterbox and his food dishes.
They're still selling this shit. They aren't allowed to make anymore, but they can sell existing stock until the end of the year. Someone online pointed out that Hartz donated truckloads of product to hurricane relief efforts. I hope that none of it was this neurotoxin. So: tell everyone you know please, and if you see it on store shelves, ask 'em to send it back to Hartz. Though god only knows what they'll do with it. I understand the notion of corporate greed, but I have to wonder how much they can make by selling this stuff for a few more months. And how they sleep. Not with a cat atop them, I'll bet.