What is the treatment for heartworms?

Heartworm Infection: Treatment

By Dr. Christa Young, DVM – Bellalago Veterinary Hospital 

TREATMENT IN CATS:

Identifying a heartworm infection is difficult in cats, and they don’t show the same signs as dogs making the diagnosis even more challenging.  Generally we offer supportive care to reduce damage to lungs and heart muscle, prevent weight loss, and prevent blood clots.  Cats are started on monthly heartworm prevention and doxycycline to kill baby heartworms.  Prevention is really key with cats!  We carry Revolution for Cats to prevent heartworms.

TREATMENT IN DOGS:

The ideal and most effective treatment involves preparations to ensure your dog can endure the injections that kill adult heartworms, or the surgery to extract worms from the heart chamber. Tests include organ function panels, blood counts, an EKG, and chest x-rays. Surgical treatment is rare, so we will focus on adult heartworm-killing injections.

Before adult heartworm removal injections are begun, your veterinarian will prescribe a medicine called doxycycline that helps reduce reactions to dying baby heartworms. This is in addition to starting a monthly heartworm preventative - your pet takes these medications for about two months before the injections. 

Once initial testing and baby heart worm therapy is complete, a pet can move to the injection phase. Splitting injections into a series of three provides higher safety and better kill rate of adult heartworms. Your dog receives one injection, given deep into a back muscle, and in 30 days two more deep-muscle injections are given 24 hours apart.

These injections are a medicine derived from the poison arsenic. While dogs in earlier stages of heartworm infection tolerate these injections pretty well, there is always a risk of allergic reactions, pain at injection sites, and muscle injury where injected.  

Besides the pain of the injections, treated dogs can develop allergic reactions or lung blood clots in response to the worms dying. Because of this potential risk, your dog will be under strict rest for 6 months. No running, jumping, long walks, chasing ball, stairs, playing, tug-of-war time, off-leash time outside, or over-excitement.  

As if that's not enough, there is the expense to consider.... it's costly!  In fact, owners should expect for the treatment to cost well over $1000!  Of course, we offer CareCredit payment plans to help make this more affordable, but it’s better not to spend this money at all! 

A 45 pound dog can get a real beef chew heartworm preventative (such as Heartgard) monthly for 12 years for the cost of recommended treatment if infected. That's a LIFETIME of prevention for the cost of painful treatment with potential complications!  Not to mention, $7+ each month for a lifetime of a dog is always more budget friendly than the same amount of money paid out all at once!

The diagnosis of heartworm infection is heartbreaking, not to mention the cost and discomfort associated with recommended treatment overwhelming. Be sure to discuss treatment options and planning with your veterinarian.

We offer Heartgard, Revolution, and Trifexis preventatives here at the hospital which will both prevent heartworm infections.  Please give us a call to set up an appointment to discuss which is best for your pet!  Let’s prevent heartworms – not treat them!

Current clients can purchase heartworm preventatives on our online pharmacy.


This is the second post in a series by Dr. Young all about Heartworms.  Here is a link to her first post about how your pet might get heartworms.

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