Heartworm Meds

SandyM · Post by **SandyM** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:43 am

I avoid immunizations, vaccines and as a responsible humanbeing I try to not poison myself, children or pets. I however struggle with knowing exactly what is right, wrong and where to draw the line.

I don't want unnecessary suffering. I don't want an early 'preventable' death. But I also don't want a sloppy compromised immune system that is beaten down over time with heavy metals, a disease injected that May never of been introduced otherwise. It's a real struggle to get things sorted sometimes. I'm fully aware that as soon as a vaccine takes place the immune system is compromised and never returns to its original state. Now whether that original state was good or bad, is irrelevant, the best piece of information I have armed myself with over the last year is that it is FOREVER altered.

So heartworm. I've been digging into it more recently because essentially I am asking Drake to eat a pesticide, a toxic corn stalk that when the mosquito bites, it and it's diseases are killed. OMG! The lightbulb that went off. So the search for more info became more serious. I don't vaccinate Drake any longer, mind you I did cave and get him his rabies vaccine this year because we had 2 rabid raccoons and 1 distemper show up within a month (2 confimed diagnosis). Since cinder has been gone our predator load has increased. I'm looking forward to another German Shepherd to help keep predators at bay. Miss my girl. Anyways. Heartworm.

I've found through research that the treatment we give is called preventative but essentially it is a 'treatment'. The preventative measure assumes your dog has heartworm each month. By eating the little beef or chicken flavoured chewable it has set out to kill the parasites. There or not. Without a diagnosis. So that also tells me there is a difference between a heartworm infection and heartworm disease. Also takes my thought process into resistance. At some point will the 'tablet' stop working or the immune system respond differently? Causing early onset of arthritis, diabetes, auto-immune conditions, early aging, unknown death? And so on.

A fully functioning healthy immune system will kill worms. But with each vaccine administered we alter the immune system and I believe, compromise it.

Vets have moved heartworm testing to yearly instead of bi-yearly. I called my vet out on this nonsense because it can take longer than 6-9 months for a heart worm to mature to adults. Therefore by the end of the heartworm 'preventative' treatment period to the spring testing is not an appropriate amount of time for a valid test result. Drake gets tested every other year. They can not lie to me about facts.

I'm left in a position where I do not feel comfortable giving Drake a heartworm pill each month, but perhaps twice a year. Not even sure in that. Still more research to do.

Does anyone else not treat for heartworm monthly? I'm curious for how others handle the heartworm treatments.

Interesting article, http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/do ... ampaign=xx

Epona · Post by **Epona** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 12:32 pm

We never test for heart worm as we do the drops between the shoulder from end of June till October. My understanding is that the test is necessary if u don't follow a regular routine of treatment. Treating a dog which has heart worm with preventative treatment can cause a lot of harm. I also understand that it is only the late summer breed of mosquitoes that, because they can do more than one puncture wound on the victim, spread diseases. Knock on wood, for all the dogs we have now and in the past, we've not had an incident. We used to live in the north and never treated for any of this stuff. Since moving here, we've had to look out for this, West Nile and Lyme.....to mention a few.

Robbie · Post by **Robbie** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 12:58 pm

IMO a very bad idea. Once they get heartworm getting rid of them is hugely problematic, very very hard on the dog too. You will not be doing your dogs any favours allowing them to develop mature heartworms. Besides there's no way to know if your dog has a good or poor immune system, many parasites are very good at evading the immune system anyway. It's a miserable, debilitating parasite for an animal to have. Since it's a mosquito borne parasite it's difficult top prevent infection. The microfilariae are easy to kill (although resistance is becoming problematic ) with a miniscule amount of drug. The drug is a wormer. There are a couple of recommended products, myself, I dilute down my own ivermectin, the dose I use for my dogs for heartworm control is the upper range of 12 micrograms per kilogram (NOT milligrams). Almost free. It's unfortunate that big pharma is so blasted greedy, the price for prevention using those chewies is hideously bloated. More people would probably give them to their dogs if they were reasonably priced, but then sometimes I forget the main goal of the vet, health care and pharmaceutical industries is to make profit, not prevent suffering.
The catch with using ivermectin to treat dogs is knowing whether or not they carry the MDR-1 gene deletion (It's got a new name now, forget what that is )which makes them sensitive to ivermectin and certain other drugs. There's a test for that now, but even with the gene deletion the heartworm preventive rate of 6 micrograms per kg. is considered safe.

I don't bother with the blood test unless they are getting tested for other stuff. Treating with that rate of ivermectin would not kill adult worms anyway, there's no danger of dead worms blocking up the cirulatory system. I just assume (and hope) that they are not infected. I'd probably get yelled at by vets for this, but it is what it is.

SandyM · Post by **SandyM** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 2:08 pm

Yup. I hear you on all of that. Thanks. Given me lots to think about.

NormaK · Post by **NormaK** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 4:34 pm

Would 1/10th of a cc/mm of Ivermectin per mosquito months be sufficient? I read that on BYC.
No matter the weight of the dog.

SandyM · Post by **SandyM** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 4:58 pm

NormaK wrote:QR_BBPOST Would 1/10th of a cc/mm of Ivermectin per mosquito months be sufficient? I read that on BYC.
No matter the weight of the dog.

You mean give it all at once?

Robbie · Post by **Robbie** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 5:17 pm

NormaK wrote:QR_BBPOST Would 1/10th of a cc/mm of Ivermectin per mosquito months be sufficient? I read that on BYC.
No matter the weight of the dog.

Which formulation is it? If it's Ivomec injectable, that product contains 10 mg ivermectin/ml, so 0.1 ml contains 1 milligram or 1000 micrograms. If we go with a moderately high dose of 10 micrograms per kg, that dose is in the correct range for a 100 kg or 220 lb dog.

That's risky, it's best to do the math.
If the dog does not have the MDR-1 gene deletion, you can get away with a significant overdose, but if it does, you can kill it. There is no antitode for ivermectin poisoning. Dogs prone to having the gene deletion are collie- like breeds like collies, aussies, shelties and there are some others.

Edit: I should add, that is an oral dose. I have never done pour- on ivermectin for any of my critters.

SandyM · Post by **SandyM** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 5:27 pm

Robbie wrote:QR_BBPOST
NormaK wrote:QR_BBPOST Would 1/10th of a cc/mm of Ivermectin per mosquito months be sufficient? I read that on BYC.
No matter the weight of the dog.
Which formulation is it? If it's Ivomec injectable, that product contains 10 mg ivermectin/ml, so 0.1 ml contains 1 milligram or 1000 micrograms. If we go with a moderately high dose of 10 micrograms per kg, that dose is in the correct range for a 100 kg or 220 lb dog.

That's risky, it's best to do the math.
If the dog does not have the MDR-1 gene deletion, you can get away with a significant overdose, but if it does, you can kill it. There is no antitode for ivermectin poisoning. Dogs prone to having the gene deletion are collie- like breeds like collies, aussies, shelties and there are some others.

I believe German Shepherds are on that list

Robbie · Post by **Robbie** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 5:35 pm

As far as vaccines go, I follow the Dodds protocol. I vaccinate for everything, lyme, leptospirosis, and keep up with the DHPP/rabies vaccines. Lepto and lyme vaccines give me the worst headaches deciding whether or not they are needed but I've picked deer ticks off my dogs, had a husky with lyme (not sure if he got it here or not, he was a rescue with no vaccine history) and I consider us in a high risk leptospirosis area- my vet says he loses 2-3 dogs each year from the disease and that's enough for me. I have never had a dog react to either the lyme or leptospirosis vaccine, but I know they are risky.
I had a puppy die from parvo, got it from the pound already sick and that's an experience I never care to repeat. I know vaccines can have a downside but the diseases they protect dogs from are far, far worse. Sometimes you have to weigh the chances and possibilities, and choose between the lesser of two evils.

Farrier1987 · Post by **Farrier1987** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 5:59 pm

Small sideways comment here. Not to say yay or nay to vaccines, just to impart a small bit of my understanding.

Vaccines are for bacteria, germs, one celled little buggers that give us polio and infections and measles and things. They work by making the immune system recognize certain proteins in the bacteria as enemies, and then shutting them down.

Hearworm and other parasites are mostly multi celled organisms, that are a combination of types of cells that make up the whole. The immune system doesn't really know they are there.

So being immune to a parasite would be like being immune to dog bites, not going to happen. What the parasite medicines do is either poison or make something within the parasite not work or repel the parasite. So with the dog analogy, it might be a muzzle that doesn't let them bite, or it could be a poison that kills them before they find you, or it might be a sort of fence that keeps them out, or a perfume you put on that they don't like so they stay away.

Seems to me you are talking two different things in your post. Hope this might help sort things out a little for you.