I've been doing a lot of research over the past couple months into treatment philosophies for heartworms in dogs (insomnia is killing me so might as well take advantage of it). A number of vets and researchers have begun to promote a different approach to dealing with potential heartworm infections I find very interesting. Namely, don't put heartworm meds in your dog at all during the year, but do twice a year wellness checks where a blood test for heartworms is performed. 'If' heartworms are present, then the vet prescribes a treatment regiment to remove them. Apparently heartworms progress at a very slow pace and if caught early on can be eradicated very easily and quickly from a dog's system. Its only when dogs are neglected for extended periods that heartworms become problematic and difficult to address.

I like the idea of close monitoring and treatment early on when needed as opposed to pumping chemicals into my dog 24/7/365. And assuming a dog doesn't test positive for heartworms regularly (unlikely with dogs like mine that live most of their lives indoors), the monitoring and treatment costs shouldn't be much more expensive than buying and administering heartworm meds throughout the year.

So I'm curious as to the thoughts of the dog owners here. Does this treatment approach seem reasonable, or is the status quo the way to go where we keep pumping Ivermectin (or similar drug) into our dogs throughout the year?

I have started giving heartworm pills only from May thru Nov.

I've had Labrador Retrievers all my life since I was 9 years old. They all got heartworm all year long.

Read this and decide if you still want to do the testing and treatment instead of the prevention:

https://www.fda.gov/animal-vet...ut-heartworm-disease

Is There a Treatment for Heartworm Disease in Dogs?
Melarsomine dihydrochloride (available under the trade names Immiticide and Diroban) is an arsenic-containing drug that is FDA-approved to kill adult heartworms in dogs. It's given by deep injection into the back muscles to treat dogs with stabilized class 1, 2, and 3 heartworm disease. Another drug, Advantage Multi for Dogs (imidacloprid and moxidectin), is FDA-approved to get rid of microfilariae in the dog’s bloodstream. Advantage Multi for Dogs is a topical solution applied to the dog’s skin.

The treatment for heartworm disease is not easy on the dog or on the owner’s pocket book. Treatment can be potentially toxic to the dog’s body and can cause serious complications, such as life-threatening blood clots to the dog’s lungs. Treatment is expensive because it requires multiple visits to the veterinarian, blood tests, x-rays, hospitalization, and a series of injections.

Living in the middle of a swamp both of mine get the 6mth Pro Heart shots to make sure they are covered well

I give my dog a small dose of Ivermectin once a month mixed with his food. Ivermetin is very safe.

I've had 2 to 3 dogs for the past 35 years.
All took Heartguard with no apparent problems. Heartguard has ingredients that address other intestinal worms in addition to heart worms.
I cut out the treatment during the colder months or sometimes every other month in the winter.
My dogs are indoors spoiled mutts that go outside for walks and general exercise so probably aren't exposed to as much risk as an outdoor only dog.
I've never had a positive test and think it's very rare for a dog in those conditions to get heart worms.

Mine gets heart guard year round . One of my old dogs had heart worms and the treatment is basically poison. And she had to live in a crate for a month. So that none of he dead worms would break off and get into her bloodstream and cause a stroke…

So no, I give him his stuff monthly and that prevents it.

My dog now has had them and we opted to just give the monthly prevention to prevent new ones…the old heart worms die off and are absorbed and we didn’t have to keep him sin a crate all day and night. It’s much easier on him.

Our dogs all get heartgard plus monthly. With the research that has come out, the dogs get the bonus of not having to worry about the COVID insanity because the ivermectin make a nice prophylaxis.

It’s an interesting concept since less chemicals are always better if the results are the same.


24/7 365 is a bit of a stretch though. I give one chewable heartguard tablet 8 times a year and have never had an issue with any of our dogs. It’s an extremely mild dose from what the Vet says.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
A number of vets have begun to promote a different approach to dealing with potential heartworm infections I find very interesting. Namely, don't put heartworm meds in your dog at all during the year, but do twice a year wellness checks where a blood test for heartworms is performed.

bigdeal, do you have a handy link or three?

I would genuinely, sincerely BEG you all to please not subscribe to online ideas about not giving heartworm prevention. Go visit heartwormsociety.org and read to your heart's content. Those people have literally dedicated their careers to controlling and stopping this horrible disease.

Some people read online that you can stop prevention in the winter months, and that is true IF you live in areas where there are no warm snaps that allow mosquitos to fly around. Mosquitos are the carrier of HW and without them there would be no transfer of the disease, and they will become active and feed at temps over 50 degrees (even for short spurts of time or in pockets of the environment). So if you're in Maine, you're gtg during the coldest months. If you're able to recall a time that you were sitting on the porch in January and a mosquito flew by your face (i.e., anywhere in the South), you're making a very bad mistake stopping the prevention at any time of the year.

Juvenile heartworms (microfilaria) are only susceptible to heartworm PREVENTION for a certain amount of time (we usually say 30 days, but it's a bit longer) before they mature into the next phase of life and are resistant to heartworm preventions. After that date you must give the melarsomine product (adulticide) to kill them, and the best protocol is complicated and prolonged (doxycycline at double the usual dose, wait a month, give one shot, wait a month, give another shot once a day for 2 days, and oh btw give steroids and prevention the whole time). And cost-wise there is no comparison. Much cheaper and safer on your pet to give the prevention and move on. So, you can see that doing checks a couple times a year would leave your dog totally exposed to heartworm disease for most of that time.

To summarize:
-monthly heartworm prevention or injectable 6 or 12 month product (it isn't expensive, just do it)
-don't discontinue prevention in the winter unless you get your vet to agree to it
-there is no (valid) new/better/cheaper way to prevent heartworms in dogs
-heartworm meds are proven safe with wide safety margins in virtually all dogs
-all reputable heartworm prevention manufacturers offer a guarantee that if you use their product and your dog gets heartworms, they will pay for the treatment. This is a good deal, especially given that there is a strain of heartworm that is resistant to EVERY brand of prevention, and yet the manufacturers will even honor the guarantee if one of that strain is the cause of your dog's heartworms.

I know we are sometimes a contrary and argumentative bunch around here, and some of us love to debate as the expert on hand. Please don't put your dog's life and well being into jeopardy because you followed the advice of someone who didn't know what they were doing.

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
I know we are sometimes a contrary and argumentative bunch around here, and some of us love to debate as the expert on hand. Please don't put your dog's life and well being into jeopardy because you followed the advice of someone who didn't know what they were doing.

I spent a bit of time about a month ago on heartwormsociety.com reading. I take their commentary and recommendations very seriously. Where this all started for me, I have a very old (15 years old) dog that can no longer handle virtually any preventatives (fleas or heartworms) or medications. My vet recommended we terminate administering these drugs to him as he thinks they are probably as risky for him as him getting heartworms at this point in his life. He's been off all meds for the past couple years, but I still have him tested regularly. That situation got me thinking and researching if there might be another way to approach this issue with dogs in general, hence the basis of this thread. My new adoption Bert gets his Tri-Heart Meds on the first of the month, every month, and we'll continue on that path until a better option presents itself.

And please don't read any of my original comments as me being an expert on the topic or recommending any course of action. I only wanted to bring the topic up for conversation and feedback, as I know we have a lot of dog owners on the board.

From another board.

"Yes, I've taken dogs through HW immiticide treatment successfully in rescue. Most dogs go through treatment just fine. Even though I've taken several through it, I still get nervous when I have a foster dog in treatment.

Though most sailed through treatment without a hitch, one did not. I had a 1-year-old foster dog throw a clot in her lungs during treatment, even though she was on strict crate rest, on a leash in the house, on a leash in a small area to potty and on total restriction. Despite being rushed to a vet school emergency clinic with a full ICU and specialist care, she didn't make it. I say that because I want to be sure it's out there for everyone reading that the vet recommendations about rest during HW treatment aren't hyperbole. The restrictions on movement are to lower the risk of this kind of death, but even with the restrictions, the risk cannot be brought to zero.

The next two months are going to be challenging. I think that your dog should be on a leash in the house so there's no risk of "zoomies" when she's outside the crate. I don't think a dog needs to be in the crate 24/7 if you are home, but I do think you have to have control when it's outside the crate, to keep things calm. Keeping her leashed in the house next you will help with that -- you just have to train yourself to get used to always moving around the house with a dog.

Google "Crate Games," buy puzzle toys for her unpack with treats inside...basically, do everything you can to entertain the dog in calm, low-energy ways in the house. It's a great time to practice OB cues in the house or train some tricks. You can use it as a time to train the dog to be calm. I even take them for a drive if they're good in the car -- we drive out to a lake or anywhere pretty (without a lot of dogs to get them excited), and just sit for a while together. It gets them out of the house at least.

I also use calming essential oils in a diffuser (Mellow Mix by Aura Cacia is my favorite). It's nice for the humans and the dogs, and the house smells goods.

The reason for all this is that worms are dying and embolizing. The dead ones are breaking off and moving through the bloodstream to land in lungs. There's a very specific hacking, gagging, "hairball" sound HW dogs make when that happens. It's a "dead worm" cough. It has to happen -- we want the worms to die-- but we want this to happen slowly. We do not want a big chunk of many dead worms breaking off and clogging the pulmonary arteries or causing a big bleed in the lungs. To that end, we don't want the heart to pump hard. Keeping them calm is an effort to protect them from a big thromboembolism and big bleed in the lungs from the dead worms.

If your dog coughs up blood, get her to the vet immediately. Don't shower or eat, just grab your keys and go. If it's 2AM, get to an emergency vet (one with an ICU and an oxygen crate) -- find out now where that would be (ask your vet) so that you don't have to look it up during an emergency. Hopefully you'll never need it, but a little advance planning will save precious time if you do need it.

I got into the habit of counting the resting breaths per minute of my HW treatment dogs. Ask your vet what the "good" number should be and what number is reason for concern. Then when the dog is lying next to you, put your hand on them, look at your watch and count. It's an easy way to reassure yourself that everything's okay.

I know it's scary. The odds are strongly in your favor because you are doing everything right and taking your vet's advice seriously. You are doing it at the best time of year too -- statistically there are fewer HW treatment complications during winter, according to my vet."

So every month, no misses, not worth the risk.

Proheart injection, 1 year preventative.

bigdeal, please don't take a word of what I wrote to be aimed at you. You asked questions and posited information that you were reading with a request for feedback. I have zero knowledge of your personal pets situation or the relationship you have with your vet, and would defer to that relationship and his/her advice 10/10 times.

There's a ton of information out there about preventions and treatments, and much of it still has to do with old outdated medicine or misinformation. Most of that I take to be honest confusion and (call it what it is) ignorance. Some of it is folks who are hurting badly because they did everything a vet said to do and still lost a beloved pet, and I understand sometimes they need someone to blame. Rarely there are folks who spread misinformation for who knows why. Either way, it doesn't help get the facts in front of the pet owners, and that isn't good.

My statement was merely a heartfelt one beseeching our members to make the smart decision, and stay on prevention for however many months of the year that your vet advises in your area. Other regions of the country may have different needs, so always ask the vet in your town.

Year round preventative is much easier than the cure for you and your pup.

Having nursed a couple of rescues through the treatment of established heartworm there is not a chance I would recommend any strategy but prevention.

I did a fair amount of research selecting a Vet when we got our pup in March. I trust the one we have. He spends a good deal of time explaining things, not just saying give him this or that. He strongly recommends the prevention approach, so that's what we do. Heart conditions are prevalent in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and I don't feel like experimenting with our pups health.

I administer Trifexis once a month. It protects against fleas, heartworm and several other worms. It does not offer tick protection.

Year around heat guard here in Florida. We have seen skeeters in January-February