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Sent Cowboy to the vet for some fluid in his ankle & general check up. Turns out he has heart worms despite being on Trifexis. Doc says he will do a "quick" treatment as opposed to a long treatment because he's young (5) & healthy. He's gotta stay inactive for 6 weeks, which means we have to scratch him from the 4 Master tests CC was gonna run him in during October. Hopefully he will be able to work before the season. Any experiences with treating heart worms? What are some red flags I need to look for?

Mine starts his treatment next month.

I've heard a mixed bag of results from a variety of treatments. Everything from a slow kill method where the dog never slowed down to the confinement method and the dog never came back to 100%. My dad did the confinement route on a little bit older dog with good results.

Slow kill is ROUGH on mine, but she is also 12. Medicine makes her delirious and basically not in her right mind. We are rotating on and off months but its still pretty bad.

DanP wrote:Medicine makes her delirious and basically not in her right mind.

My dog is a Chessy, so I am not sure if I will notice if he goes out of his mind as this is a typical state for him.

I do not know anything about heartworm treatments other than we are going in next month for round one. He will be dropped off in the morning and then picked back up that afternoon. Round two is a month later and he will be dropped off and will have to stay overnight. A month after that is his last treatment and it is a morning drop off and evening pick up. From what the vet said, the second phase/shot is the worse part. We shall see.

You want to do the "quick method", it is Immiticide and the best way to kill them off. The "slow kill" method is a poor method of heartworm treatment and is mainly used for people that can't afford Immiticide (not cheap, but worth it). The "slow kill" method keeps the infection from getting worse and slowly eliminates it but it takes a long time and is not always effective either.


Use ProHeart (6 month shot) or Advantage Multi (topical), you want moxidectin. It is the best heartworm preventative medicine out there. TRUST ME.


-Spencer-

You want to do the "quick method", it is Immiticide and the best way to kill them off. The "slow kill" method is a poor method of heartworm treatment and is mainly used for people that can't afford Immiticide (not cheap, but worth it). The "slow kill" method keeps the infection from getting worse and slowly eliminates it but it takes a long time and is not always effective either.


Use ProHeart (6 month shot) or Advantage Multi (topical), you want moxidectin. It is the best heartworm preventative medicine out there. TRUST ME.


-Spencer-

You want to do the "quick method", it is Immiticide and the best way to kill them off. The "slow kill" method is a poor method of heartworm treatment and is mainly used for people that can't afford Immiticide (not cheap, but worth it). The "slow kill" method keeps the infection from getting worse and slowly eliminates it but it takes a long time and is not always effective either.


Use ProHeart (6 month shot) or Advantage Multi (topical), you want moxidectin. It is the best heartworm preventative medicine out there. TRUST ME.


-Spencer-

I'll second the Moxidectin in the ProHeart 6 or advantage multi. I remember hearing Dr. Watts speak at a seminar a few years back about a resistance being found to ivermectin and hundreds of dogs along the MS river tested positive for heartworms after being on ivermectin (Heartguard) monthly.

I have no idea why my post went through 3 times. I'm in vet school and I worked almost exclusively with hunting labs for 3 years before then, we reccomended Moxidectin only. Ivermectin used to be great, it's crap now (not that the drug has changed any, the heartworms are just not very susceptible to it anymore). I could go into a lot more details on it, but just use Moxidectin and don't waste your money on anything else.

I get TONS of free heartguard and other ivermectin products.....and I donate them to the local shelter, because I wouldn't trust my dogs, my parents dogs, or my friends dogs to them.