If you give heartworm medication to a dog and he already has heartworms, what will it do to him?
I live in a rural area and have adopted a very wild dog that appeared at my house. I have tamed him a great deal after months of working with him, but it's impossible to get him into a car to get him to a vet. (He's a very-very large dog.) So I gave him heartworm medication even though he hasn't been pre-tested. If he already has heartworms what will the medication do to him?
The best answer is by :
love my goldens :
Actually, it can kill him! Heartworm medication is given as a preventative. If the dog already has hearworms, the medicine can cause the heartworms to die too quickly, forcing them into the heart and lungs, and causing death for the dog.
Here is an article about heartworms.
http://www.all-about-goldens.com/heartworm-treatment.html
December 11th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
That is a good question for your vet
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December 11th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Make him very ill! Don't do it please!! Maybe your Vet would make a house call. The HW test involves drawing blood, U can get results in 4 minutes.
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Vet Assistant
December 11th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Your dog could become very ill, I would not do it. I would have someone try to help you get him into a truck to take him to the vet. You could ask if your vet could possibly come to your home and do the test. They just have to draw a little bit of blood and do a snap test. Only takes a few mins.
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December 11th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
At the very least, it could make him sick. Worst case scenario it could kill him. Do as others have said and try what you can to get him to a veterinarian or have a vet come to you — he needs more than just a heartworm test.
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December 11th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Actually, it can kill him! Heartworm medication is given as a preventative. If the dog already has hearworms, the medicine can cause the heartworms to die too quickly, forcing them into the heart and lungs, and causing death for the dog.
Here is an article about heartworms.
http://www.all-about-goldens.com/heartworm-treatment.html
References :
My Profile
December 11th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Simply put, it can kill him.
If the dog has heartworms and is given heartworm prevention medication, the medication will kill the baby heartworms (microfilaria). The sudden death of the baby heartworms can cause a shock-type reaction in the dog. And the heartworm prevention medications do not kill adult heartworms, so if you never test the dog, you'll never know that there are heartworms slowly killing the dog (damaging heart and lungs).
Heartworm prevention meds are often the first line of treatment in a heartworm-positive dog, but that is only under strict veterinary observation and certain requirements (such as the dog has to stay crated for the months that the whole treatment takes, if the dog even lives through the treatments).
Heartworms are not something to mess around with. They are easy to prevent, but very hard and harsh on the dog to try to get rid of once the dog is infected (and many times the dog doesn't survive the months of treatment).
Either do an at-home mail-in heartworm test or find a vet that makes housecalls before you give him any more heartworm medication. Keep him on heartworm prevention meds year-round and get him tested for heartworms every year or every other year (if you don't go year-round with the prevention meds, you have to test him before you start up again after stopping, but year-round is the best method).
Heartworm meds are prescriptions, so I'm not even sure how you got the medication without a prescription. If you got it online without a prescription, it might be fake.
References :
http://www.heartwormsociety.org/article.asp?id=1140#q12
December 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
As "Love My Goldens" mentioned, it can be very dangerous. Aside from the quick death of some of the worms, it can cause those that survive to become immune to the medicine, which will cause problems for everyone else who gives the medicine regularly. There are already quite a few reported cases of dogs getting heart worm even though they are on a regular preventative. The "resistance" works much like the MRSA we are dealing with now. Too many antibiotics, people not finishing their meds, antibiotics to appease the patient and now the bacteria has become immune to the medicines we take.
A safer solution would be to do what you needed to get a heart worm test and know for sure if your dog is clean or not. IF your dog does have them, you can get some herbs that kill all parasites, not just the heartworm. There are also natural formulas you can buy online, but it is much cheaper to do it yourself. I have used a mixture of Wormwood, Cloves and Cayenne pepper, ground up in a blender, encapsulated (you can buy capsules at any health food store) and stuff the herbs in it. For the "00" size, I give 4 capsules 2 x a day for 3 days. I take a 7-10 day break and repeat. I have used this for tape worms, but it is also effective for heart worm. Raw pumpkin seeds are also used as an anti-parasitic. My dogs love them. I add it to their food, or if I have found fleas on them (gives them tapeworm) I'll give them a whole bowl of it and let them chow. They make quite a mess, but love it!
If your dog does get heart worm, the "treatment" for it from the vet is very risky to the dogs survival. It is basically arsenic. Even the heart worm preventative contains arsenic and there have been reports of this poison building in a dogs system until they get very ill or die from it. Because the dose is much lower in the preventative, a dog will generally be on it for 10 yrs or more before the symptoms show, but it is a reason for concern.
In high doses, some say wormwood can be "toxic" to dogs, but on the other hand, wormwood has been shown to kill or assist in killing cancer in dogs (and people). One report I read spoke of giving a dog with bone cancer, advanced to the point the dog could no longer walk, wormwood. In 5 days they took an x-ray because the dog was walking without pain, and found the cancer was gone.
References :
http://csuvets.colostate.edu/pain/Articlespdf/Ancient%20Chinese%20Herb%20Cures%20Cancer.pdf