Heartworm Disease

Heartworm Disease

In this article, you can expect to find information on:
What is heartworm disease?
Heartworm life cycle
Heartworm disease symptoms
Heartworm disease treatment
Heartworm disease prevention
We also included a section on the products which will help in heartworm disease treatment and prevention.


What is Heartworm Disease?

Heartworm disease is a serious and potentially fatal condition caused by parasitic worms known as Dirofilaria immitis. They reside either in the arteries of the lungs or the right side of the heart. Dogs of any age or breed are prone to heartworm disease.


Heartworm Life Cycle

Heartworm infection is spread from one dog to another through mosquito bites. Therefore, we can expect places with a large population of mosquitoes to be the easiest place to contract heartworm disease.

Let's take a look at what happens during a heartworm life cycle:

Young heartworms, known as microfilariae enter into a dog's bloodstream with the help of female adult heartworms.
When a mosquito bites a dog, it takes in blood which may contain the microfilariae.
During the next 2 weeks, the microfilariae mutates into infective larvae while still in the mosquito's body.
When the mosquito bites another dog, the infective larvae enter into the dog's body through the wound.
After 3 to 6 months, the infective larvae enter the heart where they change into adult worms. They may live in dogs up to a period of 7 years.


Heartworm Disease Symptoms

There may not be any symptoms of heartworm disease for dogs with mild infections.
However, heartworm disease symptoms for serious infection cases may include:

Weight loss
Reduced appetite
Fatigue after exercise
Mild, persistent cough
Reluctant to move or exercise


Heartworm Disease Treatment

Heartworm disease treatment consists of eliminating the adult worms and the microfilaria separately using different medications.

A medication known as adulticide is used in the process of eliminating the adult heartworms. Hospitalization is usually recommended for this treatment.

Some serious side effects may arise with this heartworm disease treatment such as:

More blood vessels are blocked as the corpses of the worms dwell in the lung arteries.
Inflammation is worsened by the presence of decomposing worms within the blood vessels.
Inflammation and swelling also occur when foreign substances are released into the dog's circulation as the worms are being eliminated.

Complete rest for your dog is essential to prevent lung damage from the dead and decomposed worms after the treatment. To ensure a speedy recovery, please keep your dog from excitement and exercise for at least a month.

After all adult heartworms are eliminated, another drug is given to eliminate the microfilariae.


Heartworm Disease Prevention

Although treatment for heartworm disease is available, it can be a slow, complicated and expensive process. Rather than seeing your dog suffer, you can help him/her through heartworm disease prevention.

Heartworm disease can be easily prevented with safe, easy and inexpensive medications such as daily and monthly tablets, and monthly topicals. These medications disrupt the development of heartworms before they can even cause an infection.

Either of the medications is extremely effective in heartworm disease prevention, provided the feeding instructions and frequency are strictly adhered to.