# heart worms



## jim kirkendall (Jan 31, 2009)

Does any one know ,or had experience with treating heart worms with pills and getting rid of the worms a little @ a time.I'm not talking about the preventive but the treatment of, instead of doing it expensively with a vet and all at once.Thanks


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

If I recall correctly David Frost has gone through this with one of his K9s. Not good results!
David?


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

I have had three dogs test positive as the prevention is not working in the Mississippi valley area. 2 were treated, with a new 'slow' method. One is negative, ane is still positive. Its been a year and a half. Both of these dogs are old, and had a high infestation. A younger dog that tested positive, was just changed to the ivermectin cattle injectable, and she tested negative without the actual treatment. This is not recommended by the vets. I worked as a vet tech for 10 years, knew the risks.

The prevention we were on was heartgard or triheart, whichever was cheaper and the vet had on hand. It failed. The treatment I choose to go with was Advantage Multi, along with doxycycline for several months. 
Total, I spent around $1500, one still positive. I am using the cattle ivermectin, and have had great luck so far. However you do have to be careful with the dose and especially herding breeds.

Other heartworm preventions have failed here as well, so I don't know that it is resistance to ivomec, as they originally were saying.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

In japan very few vets will treat HW with the arsenic based muscle shot that kills the adults since the expulsion of the dead adults worms all at once is often more dangerous for the dogs
- same potential problem even if two shots are given
an alternative is get em on a high dose of the preventative HW meds that are easily available and that will keep prevent more adults while it kills off the microfilaria....a healthy dog rarely has a problem with a few adults, and when they die it usually doesn't cause a blockage when they are expelled
....i'm no vet by any means but that seems like a safer protocol to me and that is what i have done with HWpos dogs.....i still got em checked with a UT to make sure the adult infestation wasn't severe, since it can be with the dog still not showing the classic symptoms......not sure but believe the life cycle might run a couple years until cleared using this protocol

....or is this even what you were asking about ????


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## Adi Ibrahimbegovic (Nov 21, 2008)

i have this weird theory.... but of course I am an idiot, so...

the reason we humans don't get heartworms is because our diet is full of salt,which kills them. from what i have researched, bovine heart gard is a heavy saline solution.

adding some salt to dog's diet will go a long way on killing and preventing heart worms?

is this theory BS or do I have a leg to stand on here?


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

jim kirkendall said:


> Does any one know ,or had experience with treating heart worms with pills and getting rid of the worms a little @ a time.I'm not talking about the preventive but the treatment of, instead of doing it expensively with a vet and all at once.Thanks



I followed a vets recommendation and tried the preventative as a treatment. It did not work. Almost lost the dog. I'd have to see some serious studies indicating the failure was a real fluke before I try it again. HW has become a real problem in certain areas. Some dogs have contracted hw even when they were on the monthly preventative. All my dogs west of the TN River are on twice a month preventative. They are tested semi-annually. I know Auburn has been conducting a study in conjunction with U of Mississippi ( I think) to determine the cause of the "preventive" failures. 

DFrost


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

if you are referring to the preventative as heartguard or other types, i think a lot of the success or failure depends on how many adult worms are already established....

- did the dog already show symptoms b4 u went to the vet ? if it's showing symptoms it's probably already got a more severe infestation and the heart lungs could be already damaged as a result, but like i said a few adults usually won't bother a healthy dog...don't think the elisa (?) test can detrmine how many adults, just the fact that they are there, and not even whether they are male or female
- did the vet do a diagnostic to determine how many adults there were, etc ?
- did the dog have any other med problems that would have made it difficult to deal with the HW it had ?
- just a test that shows positive really doesn't tell you anything about how far it has progressed
- about the only thing going for prevention from the get go is the heartguard types (i know nothing about salt), and of course that doesn't kill adults, but if you kill the microfilaria there won't be any
- when i check the shelter dogs around here, any that have been on their own for a few months are almost always positive...it's a BIG problem
- either way with a bad infestation and a LOT of adults that the dog has to shed all at once when given the arsenic shots, there is def no guarantees that the dog will pull thru, and i would think most vets will say that up front, and the more active the dog the harder it is for them to shed w/out problems

must have some vet types on here that are more familiar ???


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## Gina Pasieka (Apr 25, 2010)

Unless there is some reason why a dog can not take the Immiticide treatment....ie the dog has kidney or liver disease...the adulticide therapy is usually the way to go. The reason why it is so important to keep dogs quiet during the treatment is to prevent dying pieces of worms from causing deadly emboli to their lungs. Dong the slow kill method (ie. just putting them on preventative) means that the worms still live for up to 2 years and slowly die. This means that at any time during this period the dog could have a lung embolism and 2 more years that their pulmonary arteries are undergoing damage. 
By the way...parasitic infections are most commonly host specific...and when they do accidently cross species...they don't finsh their natural life cycle. There are the occasional human infections with dog heartworm...but the majority of cases are related to skin lesions and other aberrant larva migrations. Nothing to do with the amount of salt we eat. 
You can always find the most updated information and recommendations regarding treatment at the American Heartwom Society website.
http://www.heartwormsociety.org/


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