Heart Worm Damage - Page 4

I would personally think that prevention would be much healthier then treatment.

However I have never experienced a dog with heart worm before so I have no first hand experience with it.

There are very few cases of heartworm where I live but I still use the prevention each summer as I feel it is not worth the risk at all.

I use Ivomac that we buy from our local TSC store and 1/2cc orally on the first of the month!  We test each spring when we do our yearly vet check just to be sure!

Better safe then sorry!

 A major tenet in toxicology concerns how substances are taken into the body. A substance may be taken in one way and not be particularly effective for a variety of possible reasons. Secondly, how the substance is metabolized is critical. Different species also metabolize differently than dogs, as an example. Thirdly, how is the substance distributed in the body? Some medications, for example, have to be in certain doses, or forms of administration before they can even be metabolized and/or distributed in the body. And of course, one must also be interested in how something is eliminated from the body. So, all this to point out that for those of you who simply go get medications intended for horses, as an example, you may or may not be delivering the drug appropriately simply because of the issues mentioned above. This is why it is always better to get medications in dosages intended for canines, in forms that are tested as being capable of metabolizing, distribution and appropriate time framed elimination. At the very least, if one is going to use a medication intended for a horse, for example, for a dog, then one ought to understand and know the answers to all these questions above and more. 

For what it is worth...................

Sorry I meant Interceptor way back in the thread, not Ivermectin. Interceptor is my preferred HW preventative.... there are ways to cut costs.. HW preventative is effective for 45 days, so I  made the personal decision to give it every 6-8 weeks instead of once a month........

Of course, not too many  vets or companies will tell you that

Two Moons, you are just special, not strange .

DKiah, a few years ago I read a report that indicated h-worm preventative is just as effective given every other month as every month. I believe the drug they tested was ivermectin.  Of course I can no longer find it on the net.  You may know this, when we first realized h-worms were a problem with our dogs, we only had a drug called caricide.  It needed to be given every single day beginning one month before the mosquito season and continued for one month after the first killing frost. It was a very bitter liquid, most dogs hated the taste. It was a PIA to administer, had to be drawn into an empty syringe according to the dog's weight and either mixed in the food or squirted into their mouthes which would make them foam and gag. It was also available in tablet form; even though my dogs ate like they were on death row, many left that darned pill in the bottom of the food dish. I was thrilled when we finally had a monthly preventative.

Hodie, a vet at Penn formulated the dosage for me for the horse paste. He uses it for his dogs as do many of the vets there.

My sister traded for a white adult male GSD and got a dog who had heartworms when she got him.
The male had to be taken in  to the vet for 2-3 spinal injections spaced I believe she said 2 weeks(maybe only 1 week)  apart. He was given everything the vet knew to do, but still only given a 50/50% chance of survival. The poor dog lost like 10lbs through what had to be a painful ordeal, but he DID pull through and went on to fully recover and sire a litter.
The spinal injections were $60 each, not counting the vet office visit fee per administration(because he had to be taken back in for each shot plus check-ups on his progress), plus gas to get to/from the vet and other things that had to be done for him to try to get him over it. It was an expensive ordeal.
If you even REMOTELY cared for your dog, why would you wanna risk his/her health and potential death to such if you didn't have to? It's not even an option or debate here-they get treated, period. And they're all healthy, active, fine and doing wonderful. All 8 of 'em, ranging from 5 1/2yrs to 5 mos old.
Actually, right now Tractor Supply in Ohio has Ivermectin tube horse wormer on sale for $4.95. You can get it in generic form(1.87% Ivermectin in tube) even CHEAPER at www.horse.com. It works great-just give a little every month because overdosing CAN potentially make a dog sick, and horse wormer is much stronger than dog wormer; don't give to bred/pregnant females because it can cause issues with that, but its fine for males and non-bred females.  I've treated my GSDs preventatively, and I have NEVER had a dog test positive for heartworms in my decade with the breed. Most of my crew get mandatory heartworm blood testing with the therapy dogs international annually, so I'm up on the health condition of my crew.  

I guess it's ultimately depended on how you feel about your dog and how you would feel if you had to see them go through treatment.          

I have had one dog get heartworms in my life and NEVER would wish to go through that again.  He WAS on preventative but nothing is 100%.  The treatment nearly killed him and I believe he was never 100% again even after the recovery period. Seeing my dog in the condition he was during the treatment phase broke my heart.

I use Interceptor now - Heartguard does not take care of Whipworms which is prevalent here. That of course is never brought up by the vets but I always make sure to tell anyone I speak with about dogs to use Interceptor instead because it covers more parasites.

With regard to Ivermectin- What does it prevent besides the heartworm from the mosquito?  I have heard numerous breeders say they use it as well as lots of dog owners here in horse country of Missouri.  Could someone please list the parasites it controls and what are the dosages, methods of ingestion, etc for the product?  The price sounds to good to be true.

Speaking of pest prevention.  Numerous breeders who feed a raw diet have told me they do not use Frontline.  The theory being a healthy immune system occurs when feeding raw?  Any thought, comments out there from RAW feeders with regard to ticks and fleas?  Geeze with the amount of ticks in my wooded, pastured property I can't imagine life without Frontline but am open to others experiences.  My dogs are outside 90% of the time, we have 0 fleas here but the TICKS are awful.  We only use Frontline about 7-8 months of the year.

I'd love to get guinea hens to free range for tick control but I tried free range chickens for that and the dogs REALLY love to eat moving prey, feathers, claws and all.  We did get a few eggs before the entire flock was consumed!  Hah LOL  My husband is a dreamer-guess we need a movable chicken tractor,  will Guineas hens stay in a movable chicken tractor?  I have never seen them contained before , I know chickens will do fine like that.

Meant to add this as well for mosquito preventation..  BATS  yes BATS  they are the best mosquito preventer out there.  Build some bat houses and you will see a DRAMATIC decrease in mosquitos.  Also bird houses.  Between those two we rarely see any mosquitos, can stay outside all summer long and if we happen to see a mosquito we say "Wow look at that!" We've been here 4 years and I can count on one hand the number of times I've been bitten.  BATS are amazing and we highly encourage them as control.  We live in a heavily wooded area with water and lots of pasture, just great places for mosquitos to flourish but because of the nightly visits by bats we are quite comfortable. 

Blitzen,

I remember the Styrid Caricide days.. uhoh, what does that say about us?? I was in college in Fort Lauderdale at the time ....

nasty potent stuff, too.. now THAT was poison.. what we have now is in and out of a dogs system in 12 hours or so

DKiah, it means we are mature individuals . I don't think any of my dogs ever suffered any long term problems from the carcide, but it sure was a pain to adminstered it every day. I wonder if that was really necessary.

My understanding is the dosage of ivermectin used to prevent h-worms is not strong enough to prevent or kill any other internal dog parasite. 

BTW if you're using Frontline and have a multiple dogs, you might want to check out Bio Spot instead. It does the same job for a lot less money. The Foster & Smith web site offers a chart with a nice comparison of the different brands of flea and tick control topicals. Bio Spot ranks at the top of that list. I've used it for many years, have never seen a flea or a tick on any of my dogs. Sooner or later fleas develope a resistence to the insecticide in all topicals, so what's working today might not work tomorrow. It doesn't necessarily mean the medication is no good. Fleas are bionic and seem to be able to reinvent themselves when necessary. They can live up to 7 years in th environment without taking a blood meal.

I don't think a raw diet eliminates the need for h-worm preventative. A breeder I know in New England, a raw feeder who raises all her dogs naturally using nosodes instead of vacs,  had that thought and ended up treating 5 dogs for h-worms. In fact all were positive but the remaining 4 were too old to treat.