He has Heartworm..any help?

[stina3246]

I feel like an awful owner. My rescued stray dog Dash has been diagnosed with heartworm. I'm from California and mosquitoes are rare but we now live in Florida. I had NO IDEA it was so horrible!
The treatment is $1500 and we are in the process of moving, between the economy, my hospital stay, my husbands loss of income (He worked at Dixie Stampede which shut down a year ago but finding another job was tough and his new one doesn't pay 1/2 of what Dixie did...our money is GONE. The other option the vet gave us was to put him on Heart Guard and hope for the best. This is what I'm going to have to do (Just the visit today was $133 and i have a wellness plan which is USELESS but thats another story!!)
Has anyone delt with this? I read the past posts but most all of them are on prevention and not treatment.
I saw the site for holistic treatments....I'll give that a shot too.

[Bosley Slave]

You don't mention Dashs' breed or breed mix. One great thing to do is research, Google "Heartworm" and you can read for days. Google "Washington State University" then look for their "Veterinary Science" Department, you'll be able to find excellent information. PLEASE, do not try and treat it yourself, Heartworm is nothing to mess around with.

Here is just one article I found: This animal was adopted from Vietnam, but it has some info on heartworms. http://www.vetinfo4dogs.com/dhwtreat.html

I have to explain a little bit about heartworms prior to trying to explain
the rest of this answer. Heartworms have three major stages in their life,
from a clinical perspective. These are the adult stage, the microfilaria
and the infective larvae.
Adult heartworms are full grown heartworms living in the heart and
pulmonary arteries of the infected animal. These cause most of the damage
associated with heartworms by causing very small blood clots which damage
the lining of the blood vessels in this region, eventually leading to high
blood pressure in the pulmonary circulation. When the blood pressure gets
high enough, the heart can't work well and heart failure starts. This is a
slow process, usually taking a year or more to produce clinical signs (but
not always). Adult heartworms are six to fourteen inches long but very thin
and flexible.
The adult heartworms produce babies, which are referred to as microfilaria.
There are often as many as 60 or more microfilaria in one cc of blood,
which means there could be hundreds of thousands of microfilaria in the
blood stream of one dog. Parasites can only survive as a species if they
don't kill the host they live in before they can reproduce. For this
reason, it is important that all these microfilaria stay microscopic. If
they all grew up, the dog would die. For this reason, microfilaria must be
picked up by a mosquito and activated in the mosquito in order to grow up.
Once the mosquito has activated the microfilaria, it is referred to as an
infective larvae. Until this happens they just float around in the
circulation until they are picked up by a mosquito or die a natural death.
The infective larvae are carried by a mosquito from the dog it took blood
from to the next dog it bites (or the same dog, if it bites it
again). They are injected into the skin and begin a long migration to the
heart region, which takes about 5 months. During this time, they can be
killed with little to no effect on the dog. This is how heartworm
preventative medications work -- the dog is infected with the larvae until
the medication is administered and then it kills all that are present. The
newer medications can kill infective larvae up to about 50 days of age,
which is why they are given once a month.
Both the use of aspirin and the use of levamisole are controversial when
treating heartworms, at the present time.
In theory, aspirin should reduce the damage that is caused by heartworm
disease, since it interferes with blood clotting, but this effect is not
consistently found in clinical studies of its use. In fact, at least one of
the studies found that aspirin use prior to adulticidal therapy for
heartworms cause more complications than not using it. In our practice, we
will sometimes use aspirin prior to treatment, or to treat inflammation
after treatment. We tend to use a low dose of about 5 mg/lb once a day at
the current time.
Aspirin causes [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]gastrointestinal[/color][/color] irritation severe enough to cause ulcers in
some dogs (less than 5% of dogs treated with it). When there is evidence
of GI irritation it is best to discontinue the aspirin, or to use
medications to protect the stomach, such as misoprotol (Cytotec Rx) or
cimetidine (Tagamet Rx).
Levamisole, as it is formulated in the United States, is a very
inconsistent adulticide medication for heartworms. Several studies have
shown that the formulation available in the US will not kill the adult
heartworms in most cases. However, there are studies from Australia that
support the use of levamisole. Unfortunately, I can not tell you what the
differences are in the formulations, nor can I tell you how to tell if the
levamisole will work. If your vet in Vietnam has had good success with the
treatment he is using, in the past, I am not sure what to advise you.
I do know that melarsomine (Immiticide Rx) is a very good adulticide
medication with the best margin of safety for adulticide medications found
to date.
It is usually safe to wait a few days, or even a few months, prior to
treatment for heartworms in dogs that are not showing clinical signs
(coughing, lethargy, exercise intolerance). If there are clinical signs
waiting may not be a good idea, but a few days won't matter much. Some veterinarians in the US prefer not to treat the adult worms and just
put dogs on the ivermectin based heartworm preventative (Heartgard Rx) and
wait for the adult worms to die. Personally, I don't think this is a good
plan in most cases, since the damage to the arteries continues as long as
there are adult worms. Some dogs do make out OK with this approach,
though. If you can't get melarsomine, make sure you do use the monthly
heartworm preventative medications after treatment. You should do this,
anyway, but it would be especially important in this case.

[Maliraptor]

Vote here for Immiticide, it sure beats the older treatments, but is still a bit "ugly" and painful for the dog.

[stina3246]

Dash is possibly a LabXchow PitXchow or LabX? I've seen 3 different vets and came up with 3 different mixes. He is black and has a purple tongue but has a head more like a small lab. He is about 5ish but he was a stray so no true idea.
I did a bit of research, it mostly talks about prevention, not treatment. The info on treatments I found aren't very specific.
He is showing none of the clinical signs. It was actually a surprise to all of us.

[Cearbhaill]

There is also a book out there "How to Afford Veterinary Care Without Mortgaging The Kids" by James L. Busby DVM that has many cost cutting suggestions.
[HYPERLINK@www.oldcountryvet.com]

His suggestion for a heartworm infestation is to give the dog Heartgard for 18 months which cures the disease/ kills the heartworms. He further states that no confinement or any other alteration of the dogs normal life is necessary.

I am not saying he is right or wrong, or that I believe or disbelieve him.
Just that he is a DVM who states this as fact.

Your dog, your decision.

[stina3246]

Originally Posted by Cearbhaill

There is also a book out there "How to Afford Veterinary Care Without Mortgaging The Kids" by James L. Busby DVM that has many cost cutting suggestions.
[HYPERLINK@www.oldcountryvet.com]

His suggestion for a heartworm infestation is to give the dog Heartgard for 18 months which cures the disease/ kills the heartworms. He further states that no confinement or any other alteration of the dogs normal life is necessary.

I am not saying he is right or wrong, or that I believe or disbelieve him.
Just that he is a DVM who states this as fact.

Your dog, your decision.

Well, obviously I have to do SOMETHING. There's no way in H@!! I can afford the $1500 option and another vet will be tough right now after the $133 I just paid all though I'll look around, it's not like we're short on vets out here! Right now my best option may be to get the heartguard and go for it. I'll also look for the book maybe on E-bay but it sounds like I don't want to waste too much time thinking about this.

[saluki-sue]

Was he on heartworm meds when he test pos for HW? If he was then the company you buy your meds from ie. Heart Guard or one of the other, will pay for the treatment. But if he wasn't on meds then it falls on you.

Good luck

[stina3246]

Originally Posted by saluki-sue

Was he on heartworm meds when he test pos for HW? If he was then the company you buy your meds from ie. Heart Guard or one of the other, will pay for the treatment. But if he wasn't on meds then it falls on you.

Good luck

Unfortunately he was not on meds. As i said, I'm from a place where we had no mosquitoes and didn't realise how dangerous heartworm was and it wasn't explained to me on previous visits so....no meds.

[saluki-sue]

I was hoping when you moved your new vet started you boy, but then I saw your other thread.


Call around to some other vets in your town, tell them how you've been treated by that other joke of a clinic. Find out how they treat HW and how much they charge. You may even be able to work out a payment plan. These days HW treatment is given in 3 seperate visits, so you may not have to shell out the money all at once.

[stina3246]

Originally Posted by saluki-sue

I was hoping when you moved your new vet started you boy, but then I saw your other thread.


Call around to some other vets in your town, tell them how you've been treated by that other joke of a clinic. Find out how they treat HW and how much they charge. You may even be able to work out a payment plan. These days HW treatment is given in 3 seperate visits, so you may not have to shell out the money all at once.

Sorry, i'm getting my threads mixed! Anyway, my husband worked for Birds and Animals and although they haven't needed him in months he is still on thier books so maybe he can get a hold of thier vet and maybe she'll be able to help.