What is heartworm disease?
Heartworm is a parasite that your pets can contract from the bite of a mosquito. The mosquito has the baby worm inside of it and when it bites your pet to get a blood meal, it passes the baby parasite into your dog. It travels around in the skin and various tissues for about six months and then eventually settles in the lung and into the heart and will grow. These worms are about the size of a spaghetti noodle and they will grow more and more, producing more worms over time. Without treatment, heartworm disease is fatal as the worms kind of take over all the space in the heart and the heart goes into heart failure.
How do you catch heartworm?
Like I said, you catch it from a mosquito bite. We see it very frequently here in this area. Any area that has mosquitoes, which is most of the United States, is at risk for heartworm disease. We see it frequently here because we have a lot of water with all the rivers and lakes and streams. If your pet is not on heartworm prevention consistently, eventually your pet will become heartworm positive. We live in what we call an endemic area, where our population of mosquitoes are infected. So a hundred percent of pets over time that are not on heartworm prevention will eventually contract the disease through the bite of the mosquito.
How can heartworm disease be prevented?
Heartworm disease can be prevented through heartworm prevention. There are various types of heartworm prevention on the market. There are pills you take once a month. There are some topical medications that you can also use for dogs who don't like pills or may have some allergies to the pills. There's also an injection called ProHeart 12, which is given once a year to prevent heartworm disease in dogs.
Are there any dog breeds that are susceptible to heartworm medications?
There are some dog breeds out there that are susceptible to some of the medications that are used in heartworm disease, particularly the ivermectin family of medications. The dose that we use of ivermectin-based heartworm preventions is low enough that dogs that have the susceptibility to the medication are not affected. So any of your heartworm preventions that are sold by veterinarians that are made for dogs are safe for all breeds of dogs and can and should be given to all pets.
What are signs in my dogs that would indicate heartworm disease?
The majority of the time when I diagnose heartworm disease, the pet does not have any signs. They're what we call asymptomatic. Some signs that you will see can be a persistent cough, exercise intolerance, or lethargy. It can also be weight loss.
What are some mid to late stage symptoms of heartworm disease?
Trouble breathing, bulging ribs, a bigger abdomen due to fluid. They can have a heart murmur. They might not be able to rest comfortably because they can't lay down because of fluid buildup. Those are some signs.
When a dog is diagnosed with heartworm disease, what can be done to stabilize my pet?
First, we have to confirm the disease through a test that we routinely do here at our hospital. It's a blood test we routinely do. A lot of times it's included with our blood work that we send to the lab, but we also have a quick in-house test for those that need it. So we confirm that they're heartworm positive. The test is very sensitive and very specific. Rarely do we have a false positive or a false negative. If the situation warrants, we can send off for a confirmation test with our lab. When we stage your pet, depending on whether they are showing signs or not, we follow the American Heartworm Association guidelines by placing the pets on a doxycycline, which is an antibiotic that will help weaken the worm. It kills a bacteria that lives in the worm called Wolbachia. We also place the pets on possibly steroid prednisone if they're doing a lot of coughing. And then we can also place the pet on certain heartworm preventions that we give that are safe in pets with heartworm disease. There are some preventions that are not safe in pets with heartworm disease. So that is a judgment call that the veterinarian has to make and the veterinarian knows which preventions are safe to use in your positive pet. Then we follow the American Heartworm Association guidelines and we would either recommend staying on the prevention long-term or there are medications we can give, a midicide that kills the adult worms. And that's a protocol that we use. You can find it on the American Heartworm Association website. Not all pets are candidates for that depending on the stage of the heartworm, and that's a conversation that you would have with your veterinarian.
How soon should I bring my dog in to see for heartworm prevention?
Your pet should be seen once a year to have a heartworm test by your veterinarian and should stay on prevention, either a monthly pill that you give or an injection you give once a year.
How will the veterinarian diagnose if my dog has heartworm?
Like I said, it's a blood test. It's an antibody test. The antibody test, or antigen test, sorry, not antibody, tests for a protein given off by the female heartworm. So it is possible to have a false negative because if you only have male worms in the infection, your pet could actually have heartworm disease and we can't detect it at that time. It is very rare, but I have seen it happen. That's why it's important to have a test once a year to make sure we're consistently negative and on the right prevention for your pet.
Why is early detection and diagnosis of heartworm so important?
Heartworm is fatal if untreated. And the earlier we catch your pet with heartworm disease, the easier it is on your pet and your pet's body to be treated to eliminate these worms. The more advanced the disease, the more complications that we have, and trying to eliminate a parasite the size of a spaghetti noodle out of your pet's body does carry its own risk with treatment. So prevention is the key. It's rather inexpensive to prevent heartworm with the injection or the pill. It is very expensive and can be life-threatening to treat your pet for heartworms.
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