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Our Persian mixed cat has feline ringworm. It doesn't seem to bother her, but treatment appears to be long & difficult.

I understand it is caused by the same fungus that causes athletes foot, so I wonder if creams & sprays available for humans could be used safely on a cat.

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No. Don't ever use human medication unless advised to do so by a vet.

The reason treatment for cats can be difficult is because cats have so few options. Cats are susceptible to all sorts of poisons that are perfectly safe for humans and this rules out a lot of options from human medical science.

There are too many horror stories of cats poisoned by their well-meaning owners. Even shampoos can be fatal to cats due to the plant extracts they contain.

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  • I like this answer, but could you add a reference for the cats being poisoned by plant extracts in shampoo, I have not heard of this before.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 9:30
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    Just for clarity, don't ever use human medication on cats except on the advice of your vet. There are a few situations where a vet will recommend human medicine in tiny doses, but I doubt that ringworm is one of those situations. And yes, treatment does tend to be for a long time, so make sure you're consistent with the prescribed medication.
    – mhwombat
    Commented Jul 26, 2015 at 19:09
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    @JamesJenkins, I can't find the original link that talked about use of human shampoo on cats, right now, but (and this is kind of worrying) there are a heap of resources on cat shampoos killing cats by using the same ingredient. I haven't seen much tea tree shampoo for humans in California. In the UK many brands taint almost their whole product lines with that or other terpene sources because they're natural and they smell nice.
    – sh1
    Commented Jul 27, 2015 at 0:44
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    @JamesJenkins I asked a question addressing this concern pets.stackexchange.com/questions/9888/…
    – Zaralynda
    Commented Jul 30, 2015 at 0:40

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