Heart Worm Damage - Page 2

I'm with DKiah,  I am speechless also. Well howabout we turn the tables and pose this question. "If you were diagnosed with worms (that could kill you) and they were all around your heart, just tons of them babies and adults and you were told there was a treatment but it might kill you or make you very ill, and they told you that it was prevatable how would you feel. You might die because you did not take precautions. Would that not make you rethink that maybe you could have avoided all this damage to your health, organs and added expense?

Just some thought,

Debbie

There is actually a labeled (wormer) over the counter the public can buy that prevents and also kills the worms if infected. But, of course most the public doesn't know the 14 dollar secret and it's not in the doggy isle. I've noticed the serious hunting dog owners and farmers use it round here.  

Ivermectin paste, horse dewormer, will also prevent h-worms in dogs. A syringe is around 8 bucks at Tractor Supply and will last a year or more for one dog.

I'm really sorry you lost your new dog, Wufpack. That's the stuff nightmares are made of. That just happened to a GSD rescued locally and it's not the first dog the rescue has lost to h-worm treatment. Sadly, such deaths are totally unnecessary.

Well, I don't even know where to begin with an answer...........................

1) HW Treatment can be VERY damaging or lethal to dogs, i've seen a dog get treated at our clinic, stay for two days, take all the steroid & antibiotic drugs and the next day after going home, dropped dead.

2) Dogs can get severe reactions at injection sites as well as severe pain in the back & rear end

HW Treatment is NOT easy on the dog nor is having HW. As someone else stated, it isn't possible to say how much damage the dog could have in 1 year since it depends on how infected the dog gets over the year (repeated exposure)

Tina

BabyEagle4U,........ have never heard of anything you can buy OTC that wll treat a heartworm infestation.. it is just too serious a condition and the big worry after treatment is the clots releasing and killing the dog anyway such as what happened to Wufpak (so sorry about that, devastating..)

So, that isn't something I would recommend..

Ivermectin paste, horse dewormer, will also prevent h-worms in dogs. A syringe is around 8 bucks at Tractor Supply and will last a year or more for one dog.

I've been told that the paste doesn't have an even distribution of the medicine and to avoid it for dog treatment. I use the Ivermectin injectable cattle solution (make sure it's not got any other medicines in it); I mix it in their food once a month at the dose Wufpack suggested. I buy a 40ml bottle. It lasts at least a year and treats all my dogs for about $40.

If I had collies, border collies, or greyhounds, I'd stick with the vet-only stuff to be a bit safer--they, for some reason, are MUCH more sensitive to Ivermectin. I also use the pills for my 2 Jack Russells--with their size there's just a lot less room for error.

I also do annual spot checks on my dogs as they come into the vet for other reasons--just to make sure the treatment is effective.

If you have a good vet who understands that you are caring for multiple animals, they will work with you and make sure you know your correct dosages if you have any questions.

I prefer to recommend natural resistance 4 prevention. Domestic dogs have a natural resistance to the microfilaria still, so the key is to have resistance for the Adult Worms, and we all know the miqueets don't inject Adult Worms. Through domestication or dare I say, ohh yes I will, pharmaceutical formulation, the domestic Canidae family has lost complete resistance for the adult Dirofilaria. I could seriously contribute to the facts regarding this... but I better keep my conclusions on the University forum.

Sorry for your lose Wufpak.

 BabyEagle.....you are absolutely incorrect. There is NO natural resistance to parasites whose infection is transmitted as a larvae into the new host, in this discussion that being the dog. You better do some reading on the life cycle of heartworms. Clearly, you don't have a clue about what you are talking about. 

Better yet, stop posting about subjects you do not understand. Infection with heartworm is a serious infection leading to disabiliity and likely death. Even those dogs who survive treatment often have serious and significant sequelae.

Two Moons, treat your dogs or don't. The choice is yours. Prevention, like in almost every other instance, is worth the trouble and expense. If you do not live in an area where proper environmental conditions exist for mosquitoes, then it is not so crucial. Only you know that. 

If that's what you say Hodie. No .00 in arguin' about it. But, maybe you should learn what microfilaria is before spewing your simple larvae in ma face. Dogs do have natural maternal resistance to "larvae" or microfiloria aka stage miqueet spits parasite in to... yes a dog.

But I bet in less than 2-3 years man will have recoursed that also and convince people domestic dogs were born in test-tubes. WTF !!!  Doesn't anyone care about the health of the dog ???  I understand people are comsumers and do what they think is best ... but someone has to question this pharmaceutical authority ... arsenic is a very serious chemical.

Man what a pretty day, the dogwoods have come on and its just great!!    I see everyones been busy, thanks for all the input.

OK, first off I take excellent care of all my animals thats why my expense's are so high.   My posing these questions was just to hear from dog owners instead of vets on heartworms.    They are nasty little buggers and quickly spred through a dogs circulatory system and then pass through organs into other systems.   Yes they are fatal and the treatment is too.   My friend was lucky I guess, I have lost a dog to heartworms years ago.  An Irish Setter who ran with the coyote's and was lost for over a year.   We couldn't treat her because they had pretty much spred through her entire body including her brain.   She lived for three years after we got her back and eventually was put to sleep.

Blitzen,

Google in china censors the internet for the government and when someone search's for something not on the approved list google reports them to that government and people go to prisons, or just disappear.   I hope the olympics are a total flop.   Google does the same thing here for homeland security, keeping an eye on us all.  Anyway thats what I think of google. 

Does everyone trust interceptor and was my vet just looking for more of my money with the 100% remark and wanting to do test's?

I have used the Ivermectin on several different animals and liked it but too much or the wrong dosage can cause organ damage I have been told.

Anyway I didnt really learn what I was hoping to learn today, but wofpack came the closest, thanks everyone.