Thanks for all the tips! I’ll bug our vet about it again. It sounds like there are other options besides dex that aren’t that expensive.
This is a sweet kitty and if we have an opening for housecat, she’s first on the list. A friend from church asked me to take her. The cat, Delilah, was an apartment cat. Everyone in the complex knew her, but she lived in the carport area, mostly. Then, her long hair began to fall out in patches, she was itchy, scratching herself constantly, swollen paws and face that turned scabby. After a neighbor threatened to “stomp on her head” my friend hid her in her bathroom (she had inside cats already) and asked me for help. Suspecting something contagious, we set her up in a crate in the barn until her appointment. She had both scabies and hookworm! We handled her with gloves and quarantined her in the barn for 30 days during her treatment (we had no other outdoor cats but needed a barn kitty). After she got the all clear from the vet, we let her out. The neatest thing was being able to pet her for the first time without gloves on. She crawled right on my lap and curled up.