Any experience with heartworm treatment?
We just adopted an 8 month old mutt puppy with heartworm. Took her to our vet and he recommended the fast kill method. She’ll get the shot, spend 3 days at the vets office, then another month on crate rest. I’ve never had to do heartworm treatment before, so I’m nervous, lol.
Puppy will have to stay quiet for at least 6 months after the treatment to prevent an embolism type of event and death.
I can’t tell you how many dogs I have treated here for hw, but it’s into triple digits. ( I’m very active in rescue).
I do the slow kill. It’s much easier on the dog and much easier on the wallet. And it works. I highly recommend it over the immiticide .
My dog had to undergo the treatment when he was around 1 1/2 (the good things was the preventative company paid for it because he never missed a dose)
It started with 30 days on minocycline antibiotic, then one shot.
I think it was around 30 days later he got two shots 24 hours apart and stayed at the vet overnight.
During this time he was confined to the laundry room since it’s small and outside only on the leash for potty. No playing, he was kept very calm.
I think (if I remember right) it was about 3 months of quiet rest and then slowly increasing to short walks and eventually full activity. It is very important to keep them quiet. He handled it well
He has since passed on from cancer but he lived 7 years after that. Never had an issue again and was heartworm negative the rest of his life.
Best of luck to you and your pup
6 months? I was under the impression from the vet it would only be 30 days, based on her age and heartworm load. I’ll have to confirm, I’m not sure we are up to crate rest for 6 months. Slow kill was quoted as about $100 more, maybe because the shelter won’t pay for the meds? I’ll have to ask more questions.
Slow kill costs the price of a bottle of ivermectin.
You just need to get the daily dosage for her from a vet… you can do the slow kill yourself at home, it’s just an oral dose of liquid ivermectin a day for about 6 weeks.
If the shelter is paying for the immiticide and doing the treatment then yes it’s going to be cheaper. Normally if you pay it yourself it’s anywhere from $500-800. The immiticide also is injected into their spine so there are always risks with that too
A heart worm only has a 6 month life cycle.
The adult worms die and the treatment kills the baby worms. Same with the monthly prevention. It kills off baby worms.
Puppies staying quiet for six months? That’s really hard developmentally. I think shelters require it, though. We had a foster dog that they wanted to do the same thing to. It was really hard keeping her on downtime.
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