I ran out of heartworm medication last spring so my 3 dogs went all last summer and fall without any monthly meds. I want to start them on medication again before it warms up and thaws outside but am wondering how critical is it to get them tested for heartworm before I start them all up again?

I understand that treating an animal can be fatal should they already have heartworm and are dosed with the standard meds, and at this point all my dogs are quite a active and run probably a couple hundred yards every day but I would appreciate some of the more experienced forumites here to give me their opinions and suggestions.

Thanks all!

Mark

I would. What does your vet say?

I don't have a regular vet, in fact there is no veterinarian in the entire county that I live in. I had a dog spayed in November, and it was 45 miles one way to the vet I used.

In regards to the testing, the American Heartworm Association recommends annual testing for all dogs, including all the dogs that are currently receiving preventative medication. However, just like before receiving treatment this is only recommended and not mandatory. That is why I am asking this question. I don't want to kill my dogs but at the same time I don't wish to spend somewhere between $100-$150 on testing that may be unnecessary if other observations prove it unnecessary, hence my posting of the question.

Ours get tested during annual exams but the test itself is not that expensive.

Not sure about your area, but heartworm is endemic here, treatment is costly, and even dogs on preventative sometimes develop it. Given the climate we use preventative year round and test fairly often.

Go to Veterinary Partner.com and you can ask a vet your question. It is a free service hosted by a group of vets across the country. Click on the "ask a vet" category and type in your question. I'm betting they will tell you to get a test first!

Sorry Mark,

I do not figure a couple hundred yards a day is an active dog. I am not a vet and do not live in an area bad for heart worms. If you do not want to run the risk of killing the dog, get em checked.

IMO a dog needs two or three hours of romping to be active.

First off heart worm medciation is by perscription only, so you have to go to a vet anyway.
You can get the horse heartworm treatment (Ivomec ?) and treat your self, but if they have it you will kill them.
If you live in the lower Mississippi valley heart worms are out of control. My Pete was on a double dose for a year and still got them.
He was on Heartgard.
Now he's on Bayer Advantage. So far Advantage is keeping them in check.

Not trying to be a jerk, but you do not have to have a prescription to get heartworm medicine. There are several websites (1800petmeds for instance) that will sell the proper dog wormers to you a bit cheaper than your vet will. You can get some vaccines this way also. That being said, the price is still outrageous. It costs me about $6 to use a generic Ivermectin wormer on a 1250 lb horse and that only has to be done quarterly, but a 50 lb dog somehow costs $8-10/month? I use horse wormer for mine, and it costs me mere pennies rather than $100+/yr. That being said, supposedly (wives tale?) some breeds of dog (I've heard collies at least) will die from this version, though I've never had a problem. The way I see it, you can do it yourself, (especially if you have multiple dogs) as long as you use due dilligence to understand what you are doing and get the dosing correct.
As was said before, even when on a preventive plan, some dogs will still get them, especially here in the South where the mosquitoes are terrible.
All that being said, the damage that heartworms do is not reversible, so if you think much of the dogs, you should get them checked asap. One of the first signs that actual damage has been done is a little cough that doesn't go away and will only get worse. The test shouldn't be that expensive at all, though they'll probably want to do yearly stuff and whatnot rather than just the simple blood test. Everybody has to earn a living after all.

I pray that your dogs don't have heartworms. The disease is bad, but the treatment is no picnic. Some dogs (about 5%) won't survive the treatment, and many are just somehow different after having gone through it. The treatment is also a fair bit more costly than prevention. Good luck.

1800PetMeds WILL NOT sell heartworm meds with out a perscription.

quote:

Originally posted by brad may:
1800PetMeds WILL NOT sell heartworm meds with out a perscription.

I didn't actually buy any, but I did just go on their site and proceed all the way to right before I'd have to finish the checkout (cc # shipping address, etc.), and was never prompted for any type of a prescription, authorization, etc. Unless it is about the last step in the process, I think you can. I don't know why they would need a prescription to sell these meds. You can buy the same exact ingredients (ivermectin, pamoate, pyrantel, etc.) in horse and cattle wormers over the counter, online, or through catalogs with no prescription if you want to do the maintenance yourself. Why would you be able to buy the same thing for a horse, and not for a dog? You can also go to a pharmacy and buy products to worm yourself without a prescription. Australians worm themselves twice a year. No kidding.

Daniel
Your correct in that is the last step in the order for a perscription med at PetMeds.
They won't even accept a faxed perscription, it has to be mailed.
I know all about ivermection availbilty. A lot of dog trainers us it. Most use a dose that is way higher than needs to be, it beats explaining to the owner that their dog has heartworms.
Bayer Advantage is expensive. For my two labs it is over four hundred a year. After Pete came down with the worms, it is well worth it. He should get his Grand title this year.

Hope he gets it. I do agree that most people who use the horse tubes use way too much. I did a quick search and found one lady saying that a dog took ten times the same dosage as a horse. In her mind, the dosage/100 lbs. of horse would only do 10 lbs. of dog.
I just use a pea sized drop. Works just fine. Good luck to all.

Brad, my first lab, a British, black female, got hearworms when she was 7 or 8. We did the treatment, and she survived, but it took a lot out of her and she was never quite the same dog after. Did you notice a difference in Pete?

Daniel
Haven't done the treatment on Pete yet. My best friend is a pro (Wax Lake Retreivers).
We decided to wait and see after 18 months on Advantage. He has three of his dogs that got the worms after being on a double dose of Heartguard. He put them on Advantage and after 18 months they came up negative.
Hoping that happens with Pete. After a year he was still positive, in another 4 months he'll be tested again. If still positive he'll get the treatment.
Yes there is a difference in a dog after the treatment, espicially a female.

Buy the cattle injectable ivermectin 1% at your local county store&use 1/3 ml=333mcg.50 ml costs~$30so you get 150 doses.20cents/dose/dog.give it 2Xmonth&flea problem often solved.

quote:

Originally posted by brad may:
1800PetMeds WILL NOT sell heartworm meds with out a perscription.

I buy my heartworm meds from 1800PetMeds. It is much cheaper from them than from my vet. They will not sell it to me without a perscription. My vet will not write me a perscription unless I let him test my dog for heartworms first. He charges $25 to write the perscription. I have 5 dogs.

I missed a month on two occasions, both times my vet required a heartworm test before writing a perscription. Two different vets too. Both times they told me that they will not give heartworm medication without testing a dog that has been off medication because if they are heartworm positive it can kill the dog. I think the vet I use charges $65 for a 6 month supply of heartguard. The active ingredient in heartworm medicine is Ivormec, which can be purchased at most feed stores since it's used for farm animals. A $40 bottle of Ivormec will last 1 dog its lifetime most likely. I've used an insulin syringe w/o the needle, just squirt it in their mouth. The dosage is very small, larger dosages will get rid of the mange too. I'm back down to my last months worth of heartguard and then I'm going to switch back to the ivormec.

Seems like the Ivormec would save me a ton of money $$. I bet my vet would be all over me if he found out what I was doing. He doesn't even like me buying the heartworm medication online instead of from him.

I buy ivormectin for my dogs without a prescription from Australia in tablet form, extemely inexpensive.

Ivermectin (trade name Ivomec) is available in liquid generic form for about 10 to 20 cents per CC, depending on size purchased, it is the drug of choice (plus cursulon for liver flukes which is called Ivomec Plus--DO NOT USE PLUS FOR DOGS) for cattle worming. It is commonly available at most cattle feed supply stores but may cost a bit more there. One CC once a month will treat a 100 pound dog. Basically use .1 CC per 10 pounds body wt or a bit more. If you're worried about the dog not getting all of it due to your method of administration, using .15 CC per 10 pounds will not cause a problem. It is pretty easy to dose a dog, one way is to put a bit of peanut butter on some white bread, or just the plain white bread might work for some, put all or half of the dosage on it and feed it to dog. Some owners I know just shoot it into the back of their throat but I'd advise against that if possible.

I've also read that certain long haired dogs, esp collies, may not tolerate it. I would proceed very cautiously, if at all, with such animals. FWIW I've given it to a long haired border collie type without problems but, for all I know, it might kill the next one.

BTW as far as I know this wormer, ivermectin, does NOT work on tape worms.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark:
I ran out of heartworm medication last spring so my 3 dogs went all last summer and fall without any monthly meds. I want to start them on medication again before it warms up and thaws outside but am wondering how critical is it to get them tested for heartworm before I start them all up again? Mark

Good question!!!
If your dogs have heartworm including baby heartworms (L1) in their blood, they could die from getting treatment because of the dying larvae.

Heartworm is also very hard on the lungs and could be called a lung disease as well. Besides being expense to treat, the damage is very hard on the heart and lungs and leaves you with a dog that struggles to have fun.

This is why you need the test, which looks for the antigen shed by the preg female heartworms.
From the bite, it takes over 6 months to produce antigen for the current test to show positive.

The best idea is to give a preventative each month to protect against (remove) infective heartworm larvae (L3 & L4)and remove any round, hooks or whipwworms your dog may have picked up.

As others have said, you need a script compared to horses or cattle because Ivermectin products for livestock doesn't kill them when they are wormey.

Ivermectin does cross the blood brain barrier in Lassie type collie dogs. I wouldn't give the cattle product to collies or any collie cross dog.

Call several vets to see the current pricing for the test. Someone will run a promo.

Hope this helps.