Heartworms

What is Heartworms
Heartworms belong to the same class of worms as roundworms. In fact, they look a bit like roundworms, but that is where the similarity ends. When a mosquito carrying infective heartworm larvae bites a dog and transmits the infection, the larvae grow, develop and migrate in the body over a period of several months to become sexually mature male and female worms. These reside in the heart, lungs and associated blood vessels. As mature adults, the worms mate and the females release their offspring (microfilariae), pronounced: (micro-fil-ar-ee-a), into the blood stream.

Offspring can be detected in the blood (pre-patent period) about six to seven months after the infective larvae from the mosquito enter the dog. The male heartworms (four to six inches in length) and the females (10-12 inches) become fully grown about one year after infection, and their life span in dogs appears to average up to five to seven years.
Heartworms are found in dogs, cats, and ferrets. They also occur in wild animals such as California sea lions and black bears. They have rarely been found in people.

Signs of Heartworm Infection

Dogs and Cats with heartworm infections may show decreased appetite, loss of weight, and listlessness. Often, the first sign of the disease is a cough. Animals with heartworm disease will start to show lack of endurance during exercise. Some will accumulate fluid in their abdomen (ascites) that makes them look pot-bellied. In rare situations in which animals have many adult worms, the animals may die of sudden heart failure.
Heartworm disease may cause a combination of medical problems in the same dog including dysfunction of the lungs, heart, liver and kidneys. The disease may have an acute onset but usually begins with barely detectable signs resulting from a chronic infection and a combination of physiologic changes. Dogs with a low number of adult worms in the body that are not exercised strenuously may never have apparent signs of heartworm disease. However, in most dogs, the heart and lungs are the major organs affected by heartworms with varying degrees of clinical signs.



Heartworm Prevention Program?

In many areas of North America, April is the time of the year when veterinarians begin to check dogs and cats for exposure to heartworm organisms that may have occurred during the previous mosquito season. If your pet was infected last mosquito season, evidence of the disease may now begin to be detected.
The best program for prevention of heartworm infection includes using preventives, performing routine heartworm testing, and reducing exposure to mosquitoes. Reducing the exposure of a pet to mosquitoes can help prevent them from even being exposed to heartworm larvae.
For Cats
Cats are not as well adapted to having heartworms in their bodies as dogs. For this reason the cat body tries to wall off the heartworm as it is traveling through the body as a molting larva. While their body tries to stop the foreign heartworm they may form cysts in the brain, kidneys, liver, etc. This is the reason that in a cat heartworms can cause many different disease conditions other than just heart failure. We can see circling, seizures, kidney and liver failure, lethargy or sudden unexplained death in the cat with heartworms. In the dog it is generally a slow buildup of heart failure. #3 Cats cannot be treated for heartworms. At the present time there is no treatment for adult heartworms in the cat. The cat is sensitive to drugs. If we use dog treatment protocols the cat tends to throw blood clots which plug blood vessels and kill the patient. 70% of cats treated die during treatment. So what do we do? As mentioned above, cats are not as well adapted to heartworms as dogs. If you control the symptoms of heartworms with differing medical treatments, the adult heartworm will die off on its own in two or three years in the cat. We can't treat so the answer is to prevent them from ever getting in!



Testing

In making a decision on when to test, you must consider how common heartworm disease is where the pet lives, and how long the mosquito season lasts.

The American Heartworm Society advises all adult dogs and cats being started on a heartworm preventive programs for the first time should be tested. In addition, all dogs and cats should be tested annually for heartworm.

Keeping pets healthy during this summmer

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1. To keep your pets healthy during the summer always make sure they have plenty of water

and shade.



2. Do not over exercise the or take walks during the day for the ground will be to hot and burn

their paws.



3. Never leave pets in the car. The car could become a death traps During the hot summer

months because inside temperatures can climb to more than 120 degrees in just a few

minutes, even on a mild sunny day. It's best to leave your pet at home while running

errands during hot weather



4. Avoid contact with harmful poisons, don’t walk your pet in areas which may have been

sprayed with insecticides or pesticides.



5. Although most dogs love swimming, the potential for drowning still exists- even in

backyard pools. Keep a watchful eye on your pet at all times.



6. Ear and skin infections can result after prolonged periods in the water. To remove water

from your pet’s ears, place a piece of cotton in the top of the ear canal and massage the

lower ear to force water into the cotton.



7. Most importantly, in case of emergency, keep your veterinarian’s phone number handy.