There are millions of dogs in the United States that do not get heartworm prevention, or get it sporadically. Although there is treatment for heartworm, it is extremely expensive and depending on the severity when it is treated, the dog could die.
It is much easier to prevent the disease than to try to treat it. And it is not enough to get the preventative. You have to actually give it consistently for it to be successful.
What is heartworm?
Heartworm is a parasitic worm transmitted by infected mosquitoes and lives in the heart and lungs of mammals. For some reason, they mainly infect dogs — more than a quarter million per year. When an infected mosquito bites, the larvae enter the dog’s blood stream and find their way to the heart and lungs where they grow undetected, usually for about seven months, until the symptoms appear. By this time the worms are fully grown and can damage the heart, lungs and other vital organs significantly.
Any dog, any age, from puppy to an elder, is subject to heartworm. Some parts of the country, such as the Midwest and South, have more heartworm-carrying mosquitoes than we do, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in New England. Areas with cold winters will generally have a mosquito season and you can just give the preventative during that time. But in the warmer climates, you would really need to give your dog year-round protection.
If you don’t use the preventative and the symptoms appear, the chance of successful treatment decreases. If nothing else, test your dog every year at its annual checkup so you will know right at the beginning if your pet has developed heartworm. Otherwise, you eventually will see fatigue, coughing and abnormal lung sounds.
And if it is advanced, there will be difficulty breathing, fluid in the abdomen, loss of consciousness and abnormal heart sounds.
Heartworm is treated with an adulticide with a series of injections. Another series is an orally-administered microfilaricide that kills immature worms.
When adult heartworms mate, these immature worms are released into the blood stream.
If you have given your dog a yearly heartworm test and it shows the dog has heartworm but has not shown any symptoms to that point, chances are the treatment will be successful and end with the passing of dead worms through the organs and blood vessels.
But dogs that are already coughing or have other symptoms may die from the actual cure. And without the treatment, they will definitely die. Many people who felt they could not afford the heartworm preventative cannot afford the treatment because it is 10 times more expensive to treat heartworm.
Get a blood test
If you have not been giving your dog a heartworm preventative, you need to get your dog a blood test and when it comes back negative, you can begin the preventative treatment. You have to wait for a negative test though, because some preventatives can cause fatal reactions if you give them to an already infected dog. Make the test a yearly thing and you can rest well that your dog stays healthy.
There are various types of preventative medication and they also vary in price.
Therefore, you have a lot of choices to find something that can fit into your budget. A daily chewable tablet remains the least expensive. They are in treat form but you must remember to give it every single day. Missing a few days puts your dog at the same risk as if you had never given him any type of preventative at all.
Monthly pills or tablets often prevent against worms as well. You have to make sure your dog does not spit them out, of course. This is what we use and we find that a piece of turkey works wonders. And, there are also the topicals which work much like your flea preventative treatments. And the easiest and probably the most expensive is a shot administered by your vet that will last for six months.
Mosquitoes are a pesky part of life. Most of us who live near any kind of stagnant water are at the greatest risk. I have a bat house in my yards, as well as a garden spider (whenever I can lure one to stay), so I have fewer bugs in general swarming around our outside lights during the season.
But that doesn’t mean you should not give the preventative medicine — it’s just one more safety factor to consider to keep your best friend safe.