Pets

/

Home & Leisure

My Pet World: Preventing heartworm is the best 'remedy'

By Steve Dale, Tribune Content Agency on

Only about a third of all dogs, and likely less than 10 percent of cats, leave a veterinary practice with a heartworm preventive. No one knows how many ferrets are protected, but it's likely that number is very small. Dr. Stephen Jones, president of the non-profit American Heartworm Society, calls the situation "frightening."

Heartworm disease, transmitted to pets from mosquitoes, is potentially deadly. Recent research shows even dogs treated successfully for heartworm likely suffer permanent damage as a result.

"Every dog I've necropsied (similar to doing a human autopsy), most after living out a normal life after suffering the disease many years ago, showed evidence of permanent lung damage, sometimes significant," Jones notes.

Treatment for heartworm in dogs is expensive, and the medication, which includes arsenic, is taxing on the animal. For cats, symptoms can be treated, but there's no treatment for the disease itself.

"It seems obvious that prevention is the way to go," says Jones, of Moncks Corner, S.C. "Preventives work extremely well, and they're very, very safe," he adds.

Heartworm exists in all 50 states. The heartworm cycle begins when mosquitoes bite a dog and ingest blood containing a microscopic larvae or "baby heartworm" called a microfilariae.

 

Later, that same mosquito will infect another dog. About two months after initial infection, the larvae undergo a final molt and become juvenile (sexually immature) worms. These juveniles range from one to three centimeters in length. They enter the dog's vascular system and move to the heart and lungs, where they mature into adulthood, reaching the size of strand of spaghetti.

Adult heartworms can then produce live microfilaria, which are released into the bloodstream and the cycle repeats when another mosquito comes along. Without preventives, nature is on the side of the mosquitoes perpetuating infection.

Dogs can have dozens, even hundreds of these worms in their bodies. No wonder infected dogs get so sick, even die.

In cats, heartworm is a very different disease.

...continued

swipe to next page

(c) 2015 DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

Comics

David Horsey Rose is Rose Dustin Ed Wexler Caption It Archie