This is the best one I found.

Bandit's Buddies Heartworm Program

 

My sister is a vet tech in the south where there have been a lot of heart worm problems. She said what they do in her clinic for heart worm positive dogs, is give the animal heart guard or some other heart worm preventative for a year and it slowly kills the heart worms without killing the dog. It's a slower way of getting rid of it, but still produces the same results.

 

There are none. Listen to a licensed, experienced Dr. Let that person handle it.

As far as prevention, the cost of Heartguard is largely to blame for people not using ivermectin. I switched years ago to liquid ivermectin and paste. You don't have to buy paste in large quantities so for a person with one or two larger dogs it makes sense, assuming the dog is not a breed that is sensitive to ivermectin.

 

dangerous. dangerous. dangerous.

 

Thank you monster'sdad for your input, but I believe I requested the opinions of the knowledgeable people that have done some research for alternatives. Licensed, experienced Drs have also told me I am killing my dogs because I feed them raw............I am pretty sure I do not want someone THAT unintelligent injecting poison into my dog's body. I worked at vets for over 5 years, I know what happens behind closed doors.

Sahara, that link is very interesting! I will tuck that away and look into it more!

Felix, I have also heard of vets giving heartguard for extended periods of time to treat heartworms. Although all the vets I worked for would scoff at that option because they are so closed minded, I could see it being a better alternative than the doses of poison a dog is injected with as the normal method.

Anything that requires a dog keeping absolutely calm for more than a day for fear that the heart may pump the poison through too quickly and kill the animal is NOT a way I want to treat my dogs. I have never understood how people could risk that.

 

You can romance all you want about berries, herbs and light therapy, but heartworms are serious business. Treatments are much better than they were years ago when arsenic-based drugs were used.

Low-dose ivermectin is one way to go but it all depends. That approach is also an off-label use.

One person just "prescribed" kelp for a possible thyroid condition she knows nothing about for a dog she will never even see. It is easy to give medical advice for someone else's pet.

Talk to a Dr., most will use Immiticide. Some dogs may also need surgery.

 

once again; Drs are the ones that stalked straight up to my face and in his exact words, "I went home and read one article about feeding raw meat; just wanted to let you know you are killing your dogs".....not long after that he told me to find a new job because I obviously did not believe in what he was doing at the clinic, when I refused he fired me. When a dog is injected for heartworm treatment, it is customary to keep them kenneled for at least 24 hours, NO exercise, leash walked; for fear that the dog's excitement will cause the dog's heart to pump the blood through the dog's veins too quickly and rush the poison injected into the dog's rump in two separate doses, to the dog's heart and KILL the animal. Now if an alternative treatment is not working, it is just as easy to keep a dog healthy by a good diet and lack of vaccines so that the animal's immune system can TOLERATE the worms and not be affected by them. We have to remember that these are ANIMALS, not humans. What do you believe wolves do in the wild if they were to contract heartworms? Do you believe that they would run to the closest town to get injected with poison? I think not. They thrive on a healthy diet of meat, so their systems are strong enough to handle internal worms and parasites.
I have to ask, why are you even posting in this section? If I had wanted opinions on common methods, do you think I would have posted here?


Edited to add: I have an Australian shepherd, you do know that it can be very dangerous to give those breeds ivermectin right?

 

If your dog is MDR-1 positive you have to be careful, yes I know. Ivermectin can still be given safely. Get the test done.

Forget the wolf fantasy, wolves die too and generally pretty young.

Why am I posting here? Simple, the information and advice is ludicrous and people read it and take the advice.

No one should take your advice about heartworm prevention or treatment. It is completely crazy.

 

Well then please leave this post. I do not want, nor did I ask for your advice.


...I hope you realize that these vets you speak so highly of are wrong more often then not on their diagnosis. It was a vet that told me I should let him do an FHO on my dog, it was her 'only' way of living comfortably. Now 3 FHO surgeries later from said Dr, she is barely mobile and in pain, on top of throwing all of her weight into her front legs which is causing her elbows to go. It was also a vet that told me to spay my dog at 6 months old, it was the 'only' option to stop her urinary tract issues, now Im told it would have been much better to let her go through a heat first and her problem is common and usually cured after the heat cycle. It was also a vet that told me if I did not give my cat her meds when she contracted toxoplasmosis from 'her awful meat diet'(despite the fact that she killed and ate birds daily and was being fed nasty cat food from the neighbors right before she got sick) she would die....low and behold, I never gave her one pill and she was healthy as a horse after spending one week inside on 'bed rest'.....these were all different vets at different clinics, so forgive me if I do not trust your 'theory' that vets know best.

Vets are great at what they are taught, but nothing beyond that. If pet owners were not open to alternatives, our pets would be dieing at early ages just as the wolves are. Why should I forget the wolf fantasy? Are you stating that dogs are not 99.9% biologically identical to wolves? Wolves die early, yes. Your point is? They also live in the wild and it is survival of the fittest, is it not? More often than not, wolves die due to injury, not heartworms.

You Sir are ludicrous and no one should take your advice. Open your eyes, and do some research my dear friend. You cannot depend solely on what others say. If you never research for yourself, you will go nowhere in life.


If you have nothing to contribute to this topic, I kindly ask that you but out. Your negative comments are not wanted here.

 

...I hope you realize that these vets you speak so highly of are wrong more often then not on their diagnosis.

Bah. I hope you realize that millions of pet parents everywhere get invaluable help from vets every second of the day, 365 days a year. A handful loud internet complainers doesn't change that.

 

I know I'm late in posting but wolfcreekranch has something they say works, I haven't used it but they swear by it

 

does anyone know what to watch out for? heard of anything that was recommended, but turned out dangerous?

 

You might want to check out the information on this site. Heartworm Cures

 

This is the best one I found.

Bandit's Buddies Heartworm Program

These seem legit... :rollseyes:

 

The reason for keeping a dog quiet after heartworm treatment is not that the blood pushes the poisons through too quickly. Once the worms start to die off therecan be large clumps of them in the heart. Exercise increases the risk of one of these breaking off and causing the dog to throw a clot.

 

You are correct with this, but there is still the risk of the poison being pushed through the bloodstream too quickly.

 

Been there done that with Immiticide. I would never trust anything that has not been proven to work. Either way, you are dealing with a very deadly disease. I prefer to limit any future damage to my pet's heart and would avoid any long term methods. It all depends upon the severity of the disease. That needs to be assessed and then options presented.

 

What were your issues with the Immiticide? Did it not work at all, and/or cause more damage than good?

 

Here is a quote from the book "The Nature of animal healing" by Dr Martin Goldstein: "To judge by your local vet's stern insistence on regular heartworm pills for your dog, you'd think we're in the midst of a brutal epidemic, leaving piles of the dead in its wake. I think there's an epidemic, too, but of a different sort: of disease-causing toxicity instilled in our pets by heartworm preventative pills. Granted, heartworm is a serious condition. An infected mosquito bites your dog, injecting microscopic worms that first hibernate, then gain access to his bloodstream. The worms find their way to the heart, where they grow to as long as twelve inches, constricting the heart's passages and causing symptoms that range from coughing to labored breathing to heart failure. If the image of giant worms literally blocking the life blood of your dog isn't horrifying enough-and it can seem more so when viewing a real heart preserved in a jar of formalin, on display in a veterinarian's office as a sales tactic for heartworm preventative-the fact that they spawn hundreds of thousands of baby larvae, called "microfilaria," which circulate through the bloodstream, is nothing short of grotesque. A few caveats are in order, however. Only a small percentage of dogs who get heartworm die of it, especially if they're routinely tested twice yearly for early detection. Even in untreated dogs, after a period of uncomfortable symptoms, the adult worms die. The microfilaria do not grow into adult worms on their own. To reach the next stage in their life cycle, they have to be sucked back out of the body by another mosquito, and go through the other stages of their maturation process withih the mosquito. Only when that mosquito alights again on a dog and bites it can the microfilaria reenter the bloodstream with the ability to grow into adults. The chances of a microfilaria-infected mosquito biting your dog the first time are slim. Of it happening to the same dog twice? Very slim. And after two decades of pervasive administration of heartworm pills in the U.S., the chances of your dog contracting heartworm in most parts of this country even a first time are slimmer still. Early in my career, I saw and treated hundreds of cases of heartworm disease, most with routine medication, yet witnessed only three deaths. By comparison, we're seeing cancer kill dogs on a daily basis. To my mind, the likelihood that toxicity from the heartworm pills is contributing to the tremendous amount of immune suppression now occurring, especially in cases of liver disease and cancer, is far greater and more immediate than the threat of the disease they're meant to prevent. The most common form of hearworm prevention is a monthly pill taken just before and during mosquito season. It's toxins-ivermectin, for example-sweep through the body, killing any microfilaria that have been introduced by mosquito bites in the previous month, and thus preventing the growth of adult worms. Some brands also contain other toxins to kill intestinal parasites. The other approach to treatment is with daily dose of the drug diethylcarbamazine, starting several weeks before mosquito season. The drugs called for in either course if treatment are, simply put, poisons. Unfortunately, while they kill of microfilaria, they have the toxic effects of poisons, and can be especially damaging to the liver.I've saved a product evaluation for diethylcarbamazine mixed with oxibendazole, a preventative also used for hookworms. The evaluation, published by the company itself in a medical journal, reported that of 2.5 million dogs given the stuff, the company received only 176 reports of problems, including cases of liver toxictity and fatalities. To me, 176 is too many. But also, how may more went unreported? The evaluation concludes, "Of course, not all incidences are reported to the manufacturer, so the true magnitude of occurences is really unknown." The manufacturer would argue, no doubt, that many of the symptoms I've seen cannot be linked in any provable way to any of the heartworm preventatives. Perhaps-though the anecdotal evidence has long since persuaded me not to put dogs on the stuff. But I have seen one obvious, immediate effect of these once-a-month preventatives in case after case: when you give a dog that pill, over the next few days, whereever he urinates outside, his urine burns the grass. Permanently! In some cases, you can't grow grass there until you change the soil. What, I wonder, can it be doing internally to your dog in that time? When the first daily preventative came out, my brother and I witnessed evidence of hemorrhaging in the urine of several dogs put on them. We stopped the medication; the bleeding stopped. We started it up agin; the bleeding resumed. When we reported this to the manufacturere, we were informed that the company was aware of the problem from other complaints. Aware-but not about to pull its product from the shelves. All we could do was to stop giving the medication ourselves to the dogs we treated. Since then, the company has changed the product, diminishing this side effect and bringing it into the realm of acceptability for use in areas of high heartworm incidence. The dogs I treat from puppyhood receive no heartworm preventative pills. It may be said, of course, that I practice in an area where cases of heartworm are pretty infrequent. But while my clinic is in Westchester County, just north of New York City, my practice encompasses patients from around the country. In the last decade, 98 percent of my patients, on my recommendation, have not been given heartworm preventative. In that time, I've seen less than a handull of clinical cases. Two of them I treated herbally, starting with heart support supplements (a heart glandular, vitamin E, co-enzyme Q10) and regular doses of black walnut, an herb known to kill parasites. (It comes in a liquid extract form; I recommend putting a dropperful in the food or mouth at each meal.) The third I treated medically, with a new drug (Immiticide) reported to be a lot less toxic than intravenous arsenic, at a lower-than-recommended dosage. All three are clinically normal-no evidence of heartworm recurrence-years after treatment. As a precaution, I recommend that all dogs be tested twice a yearfor hearworm. For clients who insist on a more active form of prevention, I suggest doses of black walnut given tow to theree times a week, as I've actuallyreversed clinical heartworm with it. (For a thirty-pound dog, one capsule three times weekly during mosquito season in areas that have reported any incidence of heartworm.) We also use a homeopathic nosode. In areas where the chances of heartworm exposure appear greater than those in my own - like southern Florida and the Bahamas, where the chances of contracting it are high- I recommend adding to this regimen the conventional daily heartworm pill, given three times weekly. Veterinarians trained in homeopathy can get your pet on a good nosode prgeam for heartworm prevention.

 

I LOVE his book! I have it all marked up and highlighted!

 

Black Walnut is a folk remedy. There is no proof it is effective. Black Walnut is also toxic to dogs. Use at your own risk. Just because is Black Walnut is "natural" doesn't make it safe. Its toxicity to many mammals is well documented.

Also, ivermectin is a natural compound derived from fermentation. Toxicity is almost unheard of.

Vets normally dose ivermectin at 100 times the once a month dose in Heartguard daily for extended periods of time. Daily, not once a month.

If you want to play games with something that has a 100% infection rate be my guest.

 

River Run it is nice to see someone who is interested in more natural care. Don't feel the need to defend your position becasue you will never had enough or acceptable "scientific facts" for people like Monster's Dad. Alternative are alternative because they are different than conventional not because they don't work.

 

I feed raw and don't vaccinate or use any flea or tick preventatives, but HW is not something I want to mess around with. My dogs get monthly preventative year round, per the guidance of the holistic vet that we see. If I were dealing with a HW+ dog, I woud treat conventionally with a proven method, and work with my holistic vet who also believes in using conventional medicine when necessary. There are lots of natural options out there for preventing or treating HW, but this is one area where I would go with what I know works, and it is kind of iffy on the natural stuff when it comes to HW, unfortunately. I had this conversation with my holistic vet when I was wondering if I was doing the right thing by giving monthly preventative. She told me that none of the natural preventatives or treatments have ever been proven to work, or else she would be all over it. She recommends Heartguard or Interceptor year round for where we live. Used to be she recommended it every 45 days and only certain times of the year. However there has been a recent mosquito gene mutation causing the lifecycle of the HW to shorten. Right now this is moreso down south but will probably travel up the Mississippi and spread. Which is why she has changed her recommendation. And she does not even sell HW preventative out of her office, she just writes a script for it...so it's not a matter of her thinking she is going to make money telling clients it is necessary. Jut my 2 cents and I will leave it at that....

 

I agree with the above. Some holistic vets say it works and others don't. I'm only going to give Heartworm May-October (end) or less depending on the weather. I'm not in a high risk area.

 

This is the Holistic Alternatives and Remedies Section.
This is the section to ask questions about holistic alternatives and remedies... and to suggest holistic alternatives and remedies to those asking.
If you have no suggestions on Holistic Alternatives and Remedies, please do not post here. If the OP wanted advice on or to discuss conventional medicine surely they would have posted there.

WHY am I having to tell the SAME people over and over again to keep to the applied sections?

 

who are you referring to?

 

I'd like to just make a comment on heartworm. I've worked in an animal shelter for almost 3 years. I would say 80-90% of the dogs surrendered to us were NOT on monthly preventative (heck, most of them had never even stepped into a vets office), and of the thousands of dogs that we have gotten, only 2 tested positive for heartworm. One of them ended up having cancer, and the other was a very old, blind dog. These dogs were not the dogs kept outside year round, they were mostly indoor dogs who only went out for walks and potty breaks. I think its safe to say a dogs immune system plays a very large part in whether or not they become infected with heartworm. And I wouldn't say Massachusetts has a low incidence of heartworm, especially southeastern MA. Maybe moderate to lower high range.

As for alternative methods to treat HW, I haven't used any myself. The only ones I've heard of were Heartworm Free, Black walnut and paratox.

 

...and of the thousands of dogs that we have gotten, only 2 tested positive for heartworm.

It's not uncommon for a dog to test negative and then end up HW+. My own pet tested negative for HW when he arrived at the shelter. 6 months later he tested positive (less than 1 week after I adopted him).

For further info about the accuracy of testing, see: American Heartworm Society | Canine Heartworm

 

As our moderator stated "This is the Holistic Alternatives and Remedies Section.
This is the section to ask questions about holistic alternatives and remedies... and to suggest holistic alternatives and remedies to those asking.
If you have no suggestions on Holistic Alternatives and Remedies, please do not post here. If the OP wanted advice on or to discuss conventional medicine surely they would have posted there.

WHY am I having to tell the SAME people over and over again to keep to the applied sections?"

Your commentary was in the wrong section as we are not discussing allopathic medicine.

 

Yes. Thank you for quoting Liz.

If you don't agree with someone, keep the snarky comments to yourself, please.

 

I think TT is having a bad day, all comments seem to be a bit snarky today.

 

Sort of smells suspicously like MD? Just a thought that crossed my mind......