Heart worms

[boxergirl76]

Can someone tell me what some signs and symptoms are of heart worm and what I need to get done for my dog to be tested for them thanks

 

[courtney323]

You need to take him to the Vet and have them run bloodwork on him.

There are no symptoms, until the disease has progressed (and I'm afraid you do not want to wait that long).

 

[dieselhound]

How old is your pup? The way heart worm is contracted is through mosquitoes. We use Revolution on Ty. Revolution defends against mosquitoes. If your pup was born in the winter you shouldn't have to worry yet as long as you put something on or give a tablet. Ask your vet about a good defense against heart worm.

 

[Taren]

our golden retriever just passed with heartworms. she was loosing weight so my mom took her to the vet and she had them they gave her a series of meds to kill them she had to stay inside the houe for a month after the series of meds she passed. the vet says that the meds were jsut too strong for her body so in other words i think he killed her. during her tretment she would cough and weez alot. the vet said he has never had a dog dir like she did. thats why i think he killed her not on purpose but you know. we switched vets after that. but i would definately take your dog to the vet and get them to run bloodwork on her before its too late.

 

[Taren]

oh and another thing make suer your dog is no heartworm meds year long we didnt have missy on heart worm meds year long just when the mosquitoes were bad. but they need to be on them YEAR LONG...

 

[TheBoxerCrew]

I disagree that your vet probably killed your dog, Taren. It sounds as if your dog had an advanced case, and once a dog gets to that point, their whole system of internal organs is compromised. The administering of the drugs CAN and HAS proven too much for some compromised dogs to handle, resulting in death. It is a crapshoot you take when you put a dog through the treatment - you may kill the worms, but the dog may be physically and internally too weak to survive.

In the southern part of the country, where winters are mild and you rarely get a hard freeze, it is advised to continue HW prevention year-round. Even living in Wisconsin, where they DO get a hard freeze, I still heard of a few isolated cases of dogs NOT getting continuous prevention and ending up with mild cases of HW come Spring (when most testing is done).

 

[Taren]

i didnt mean that he purposedly killed our dog but the dose he gave her was too strong for her. thats what he said. hes never seen a case like that before. our vet didnt advise us to put our dogs on the heartworm year round so we didnt but now we know to do that year round.

 

[courtney323]

she was loosing weight so my mom took her to the vet and she had them they gave her a series of meds to kill them she had to stay inside the houe for a month after the series of meds she passed. the vet says that the meds were jsut too strong for her body so in other words i think he killed her. during her tretment she would cough and weez alot.

Actually, just to clarify, this particular heartworm treatment is quite risky, and there is a definite risk of death during treatment. We recently treated our male for heartworms (he was a rescued stray Boxer), and I believe I remember being told that the risk of death is between 1-3% with Immiticide (the newer Rx on the market) and between up to 20% for Caparsolate.

Hope this helps.

 

[JulieM]

Just an aside, please visit www.heartwormsociety.org for information on what the temperature requirements are for it to even be possible for a mosquito to transmit heartworm larvae. While some areas meet these conditions nearly year-round, others meet them two months a year at most. There is no sense poisoning your dog monthly when temperatures are at or below freezing.

 

[Claudia807]

In the southern part of the country, where winters are mild and you rarely get a hard freeze, it is advised to continue HW prevention year-round. Even living in Wisconsin, where they DO get a hard freeze, I still heard of a few isolated cases of dogs NOT getting continuous prevention and ending up with mild cases of HW come Spring (when most testing is done).

You are correct about Wisconsin. We keep all the foster dogs on HW preventative year-round, and we recommend it to our adopters as well. We are VERY fortunate that we do not deal with heartworm on the scale that the southern rescues do. However, it is not unheard of up here . . . we've had to treat several dogs. We had a young one come in from the northern part of the state who was heartworm positive.