Pets Synopsis of Heartworm Disease in Dogs

tr> Canines are strong animals that are created to survive though condition. However they are not fully protected from all disease. There is certain health condition which should be treated timely and adequately.

Heartworm is a common canine disease is often found residing in the dog's heart and major blood vessels. It can seriously prevent a dog's heart from functioning properly. Heartworm disease can cause serious health problems including death due to heart failure or pneumonia. Dogs are considered the definitive host for heartworms.

This disease is completely preventable if caught early enough. The best way to battle heartworms is to start your dog on heartworm prevention as soon as you get him.The prevention of heartworm is aimed at killing off the young migrating larvae before they grown into adult worms. The larvae are vulnerable to treatment when they undergo a moult, and this is supposed to be approximately three to four, and again some 10 - 12 weeks, after the infective mosquito bite. Initially dogs tend to develop a cough and experience difficulty breathing.

Heartworms belong to the same class of worms as roundworms.The adult heartworm lives in the right side of the dog’s heart and the major arteries leading from both lungs. The parasite is up to 25 cm in length and just over 1 mm in diameter they may be in ones and twos or in well over the hundred. The worms will choke up the heart and the arteries, causing massive turbulence in the blood flow and dramatically interfering with absorption of oxygen within the lungs. The right hand side of the heart is enormously enlarged and the arteries become twisted. The larval worms are called microfilaria, and they circulate in the bloodstream in the thousands. The mosquito sucks the blood of the infected animal and takes into its blood one or two of these larva, they migrate to the salivary gland of the mosquito and after about 12 days are capable of reinfecting a dog when the mosquito next attacks. On entering the dog's body, the larvae migrate through the tissues, growing and moulting further before finally re-entering the heart and producing their own offspring some seven months later.

Symptoms: Breathing difficulties, accumulation of fluid in the abdomen (ascites), and chronic cardiac insufficiency. Diagnosis is made by means of a blood analysis. Lack of stamina, on occasions there will be a cough and swelling in the abdomen.

Treatment: "Prevention is better than cure". Give your dog his daily heartworm tablets. If a dog has heartworm than the cure may also cause his death. The treatment is by arsenical injection over a period of two to three weeks. The dead worms are swept into the lungs, where they are broken down and absorbed by the scavenging cells of the body. The exit of a large mass of worms may produce a massive clot in the lungs and surely kill the dog. This is usually caused by an increase in blood pressure attributed from exercise. Therefore the dog must be kept as sedate as possible during treatment

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