Fleas often breed in large numbers where pets and other animals live. Pets infested with fleas bite and scratch themselves constantly. Their coats become roughened and the skin can become infected. Symptoms of sensitized hosts are often mistaken for mange. Cat fleas and dog fleas may be intermediate hosts for the dog tapeworm.
Some people suffer more than others from flea bites. The bites can cause intense itching often resulting in secondary infection. The usual flea bite has a small red spot where the flea has inserted its mouthparts. Around the spot there is a red halo with very little swelling. Many people do not react to flea bites at all while others are sensitive and suffer severe allergic reactions. Fleas may also vector such human diseases as plague, typhus, and tularemia.
Symptoms of Flea Allergy Dermatitis
The primary clinical signs of this skin disease are severe itching, biting, and scratching, usually involving the hind end, especially at the base of the tail or inside the thighs. Cats often have an itchy patch over the base of the tail or in their thighs, but may also scratch around the head and neck region.
Footnotes
1. This document is ENY-205, one of a series of the Entomology and Neamatology Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Date first printed July 1993. Revised: February 2003. Please visit the EDIS Web site at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu. Additional information on these organisms, including many color photographs, is available at the Entomology and Nematology Department website located at http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu.
2. P.G. Koehler, professor/extension entomologist and F. M. Oi, assistant extension entomologist, Entomology and Nematology Department, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.