Heartworm Symptoms, Do Not Wait Until It Is Too Late   by Alison Graham

If you suspect heartworm infection and your dog exhibits any heartworm symptoms such as not wanting to play or to engage in physical activity and he appears lethargic with an unexplained and persistent cough, consult your vet. Whilst these symptoms may not be related to heartworm at all (as they are common to a number of illnesses), only testing by your vet will be able to determine whether or not your dog has become infected.

What the vet will be testing for is the presence of heartworm larvae and adult worms. In the unfortunate event that this test is positive, the vet will suggest that your dog is x-rayed to see how severe the infection is. Although the initial test will tell whether or not adult heartworms are present, it cannot tell you the severity of the problem. It is necessary to determine how many heartworms there are before an appropriate course of treatment can be decided upon.

If no adult heartworms are detected in the test but larvae are found in a sample of the dog’s blood, there is oral medicine available that can be given to kill the larvae and cure the problem. After this course of treatment, another test will be done to ensure the dog is now clear of the problem and your vet will recommend an appropriate heartworm prevention medicine to avoid a recurrence of the problem.

If the dog is diagnosed with adult heartworms it is very important to start dealing with the problem as soon as possible. Two injections over two days of an arsenic based drug are administered and these should kill all the adult worms. The aim of the treatment is to avoid killing the worms too quickly so that as the worms die and break down into small pieces, they can be expelled naturally from the heart. This process takes about six weeks to complete and during this time, the dog must be kept very quiet and prevented from getting excited or running about. The problem is, that if the dog’s physical activity level raises the heart rate and causes the blood to pump harder, the dead worms can be passed into the dog’s lungs which could kill the dog. Provided that the dog is treated according to the instructions from your vet, in six weeks, you will be able to take your dog back for further treatment with oral medicine that will kill any remaining heartworm larvae in the bloodstream.

I am sure that from the foregoing description, you will agree that making that annual visit to your vet for the heartworm screening test and keeping your dog on the heartworm prevention treatment schedule that is recommended for the area where you live is far better than attempting a cure once your dog has become infected.