Up to date Guidance About Heartworm Therapy For your Dog
Online, you will find quite a few websites which are recommending so-called natural heartworm treatment. Some sites claiming these treatments are effective and safe and will protect your pet seem to be offering advice which is directly in opposition to that of the American Heartworm Society (AHS) that has done so much to enhance the treatment and prognosis for heartworm afflicted animals and to raise public awareness of correct treatment and care.
The AHS advice is uncompromising and states that there are no natural or herbal therapies which have been proven as effective and safe treatments for heartworm disease. That being said, for dogs which have heartworm disease, treatment with the only medicine that has FDA approval for heartworm disease treatment, (Immiticide) isn’t suitable in every case.
The AHS site recommends that in these instances, treating an affected dog every month using an authorized heartworm prevention medicine could be effective in treating adult worms too. Nevertheless, this is not recommended as an alternative for treatment with Immiticide in some cases because whilst preventative treatments will get rid of the worms, the more mature the worms are when treatment starts, makes it take longer for that treatment to get rid of them.
So in real terms, this may mean that your pet will eventually get to be heartworm free however it could take more than two years for this to be accomplished; and in this period, your dog’s organs will go on being damaged by the worms.
However, if for whatever reason the arsenic-based Immiticide treatment methods are not indicated for your dog, the long-term preventives treatment if carefully monitored could eventually cure your pet of heartworm. This alternative is not suitable for dogs that will not take to leading a very quiet and restricted life during treatment, or those dogs who are already showing the symptoms of infection with adult heartworms; it is suitable only for those dogs that have tested positive for heartworm but are not showing any symptoms.
It is not a cheap option either as even though preventives are relatively inexpensive, the dog must be carefully managed with restricted exercise and regular examinations from your vet to monitor the damage being caused internally as a result of the worms. Another thing that the American Heartworm Society has expressed concern over with using this method of treating heartworm-positive dogs, is that it could potentially lead to the development of strains of worms that are resistant to the ingredients in the preventative medicines.
There has been recently an encouraging report by the American Heartworm Society on a type of combination treatment that may really help dogs that for reasons uknown cannot be treated with Immiticide although they have tested positive for the presence of adult worms. This can be a treatment that uses Ivermectin, a heartworm preventative medicine in combination with Doxycycline which is an antibiotic drug. Reports from studies carried out show that having both medicines administered periodically over a 36 week time period resulted in an impressive 78% reduction in the numbers of adult worms.
For more information on heartworm illness and the brands of preventative medications available now, visit Heartworm Treatment For Dogs.com today.
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