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OT: Monthly Heartworm Pill For Dogs

zappaa

zappaa

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Jul 27, 2001
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Montclair NJ
I just used the last monthly pill.
My Vet won't renew my prescription without a full examination including stool and blood tests of my dog...I believe it's unnecessary and expensive.

I'll do anything for Coco, but I have no interest in paying into the machine if it's not necessary.

Am I wrong?
 
Put our 14+ yo black lab down a few months ago. Got to the point where I took her to vet only if she was not herself and told the vet no X-rays or any of those money making tests. Gotta be smart about it and not get sucked into the doom and gloom some vets portray because the remodeling job at the vet we went to had to be paid for somehow. And I second the suggestion of online purchasing of heart worm pills.
 
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zappaa said:
Ah ha...
Click to expand...

Dale,
Find another vet. We get our prescription for our Shih Tzu refilled without any blood or poop work by our vet. And we also don't give him HW meds in the winter.
A friend of mine has the brother of our dog. When they were both young, he took his to a vet who told him that his pup was gonna die if he didn't have an operation that would cost thousands of dollars. He went to another vet for a second opinion, got some steroid-type pills for the dog's back and he's been fine ever since. That was like 7 years ago. I don't know where that first vet had offices, but my friend lives in Belleville.
Find another vet.
 
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Kbee3 said:
Weren't their problems with quality control on some of those heart meds one could buy online ?
Something about problems with production in China ?
Click to expand...
I wasn't aware of that, I'll have to look into that. I know they sell major brands like Harts but they also have generics which I would be leery of. The breeder of our dog recommended them.
 
Just renewed for my Golden Retriever. You only need a blood test, because if by chance she has the heart worm, and you started her on the pills before other treatment, it could kill your dog by clogging the blood stream with dead heart worm and causing a stroke.
 
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This is true. As long as there's no interruption you can order online I get mine from Australia. Made by the same company ...Novartis...some slight additional ingredients ..ie for tapeworm. I have been doing this for years
 
zappaa said:
I just used the last monthly pill.
My Vet won't renew my prescription without a full examination including stool and blood tests of my dog...I believe it's unnecessary and expensive.

I'll do anything for Coco, but I have no interest in paying into the machine if it's not necessary.

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
Yes, if your dog has heartworms and you give them heartworm pills it could be deadly. Thus why you need the examination and a blood sample test. They need to make sure your dog doesn't have heartworm. If it does they treat it with different medication till it's remedied. Guys I own a farm with many animals and from years of experience with many vets know what I'm talking about here.

DO NOT GIVE YOUR DOG HEARTWORM PILLS WITHOUT THE EXAMINATION YOU COULD KILL YOUR LOVED ONE. [/QUOTE]
 
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I have had dogs and never gave them heart worm medicine. Non of them ever got heart worm. It is a new parasite problem?
 
Extra Point said:
I don't fully understand why the mosquito doesn't transmit heart worms to people.
Click to expand...
We can it's just very rare. Our immune system is able to fight it off. Put simply we're just a poor host. But dogs, cats are the perfect hosts. You must have gotten extremely lucky that your dogs didn't get it without the preventative treatment. Or that they never got bit by a mosquito carrying the disease. Are you sure how they died? It affects the heart, lungs and major organs.
 
koleszar said:
We can it's just very rare. Our immune system is able to fight it off. Put simply we're just a poor host. But dogs, cats are the perfect hosts. You must have gotten extremely lucky that your dogs didn't get it without the preventative treatment. Or that they never got bit by a mosquito carrying the disease. Are you sure how they died? It affects the heart, lungs and major organs.
Click to expand...
They all lived to old age, two ended up getting cancer. The others just got too old and ended up being put down.
 
zappaa said:
I just used the last monthly pill.
My Vet won't renew my prescription without a full examination including stool and blood tests of my dog...I believe it's unnecessary and expensive.

I'll do anything for Coco, but I have no interest in paying into the machine if it's not necessary.

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
No your not wrong Zap. But it depends on what you feed your dog and if you let your dog room in your yard unsupervised.
Scarlet is 10. Way above average for a Great Dane. With my Vet's approval she has not had a shot of anything since she was 6. Scarlet only eats good dry dog food and Milk Bones. She can room the back yard only when I'm around so I make sure she doesn't eat or rub in other animals crap.
At an advance age all the shots and pills are worse then anything else
 
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Extra Point said:
Would applying deet to a dogs coat be safer than giving them the worm medicine?
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Possibly, the preventive medicine for heartworm and Lyme's disease aren't the best thing for them. Put I guess you have to pick your poison literally. A long 10 to 14 year death with preventative medicine or the chance of a quick death. Our Great Pyrenees, guard our animals outside always, so we have no choice but to poison them slowly.
 
koleszar said:
Possibly, the preventive medicine for heartworm and Lyme's disease aren't the best thing for them. Put I guess you have to pick your poison literally. A long 10 to 14 year death with preventative medicine or the chance of a quick death. Our Great Pyrenees, guard our animals outside always, so we have no choice but to poison them slowly.
Click to expand...
There has to be a balance between the size of your dog. If you have a giant dog with a short life span as I do, you have to back off. If you have a tiny yapper that can live way past 10 years than protect them with pills and shots longer. But as you approach their avg age back off. All this stuff is poison in some form or another
 
zappaa said:
I just used the last monthly pill.
My Vet won't renew my prescription without a full examination including stool and blood tests of my dog...I believe it's unnecessary and expensive.

I'll do anything for Coco, but I have no interest in paying into the machine if it's not necessary.

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
Heartworm med is preventative. Exam serves no purpose at all other than $$$$.
 
ruready4somefootball said:
Just renewed for my Golden Retriever. You only need a blood test, because if by chance she has the heart worm, and you started her on the pills before other treatment, it could kill your dog by clogging the blood stream with dead heart worm and causing a stroke.
Click to expand...

I used to work for a vet pre Cook College. Back then the heartworm pill was once a day. That was a bit of a pain. My very intelligent "Terri-Poo" wouldn't take the pill unless it was wrapped in human food!

I learned to do heartworm tests (helped get me best med lab student at HS graduation). I was taught that if you give heartworm medication to a dog with heartworm it could kill him right off the bat. I didn't realize why as the above "mechansim" the above poster posted.

That said once I though I saw heartworm and wanted to show my vet but she was very busy. Then our new meddlesome secretary told me not to bother the vet. After 20 minutes or so I told the vet. Checked the microcope and there was heartworm (meant likely bother dogs had). The vet immediately called the owner who luckily hadn't given the dogs the pills yet and the owner had to drive back 30-45 minutes to the office. Made the vet look bad and of course she wasn't too happy with me (apologized for letting the secretary influence me). She also chewed out the secretary.

Tough call whether to change the vet. If you are poor that's one thing. You may want to say something like "I wish you gave me enough for the year to test him or her. If you don't trust your vet, change the vet. Just don't be one those persons though, who puts down a dog because you don't want him anymore or just because he's old and has the sniffles-and you want to save money.

If you REALLY still have questions I can try emailing my cousin-a vet who works with both large and small animals.
 
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koleszar said:
Yes, if your dog has heartworms and you give them heartworm pills it could be deadly. Thus why you need the examination and a blood sample test. They need to make sure your dog doesn't have heartworm. If it does they treat it with different medication till it's remedied. Guys I own a farm with many animals and from years of experience with many vets know what I'm talking about here.

DO NOT GIVE YOUR DOG HEARTWORM PILLS WITHOUT THE EXAMINATION YOU COULD KILL YOUR LOVED ONE.
Click to expand...

If that were the case, I could have killed my dog by giving her the last pill of the prescription 10 days ago.
 
Any one use heart-worm shots for their dogs. They last 6 months but don't have the full protection against some of the other parasites the monthly pill does.
Don't think Zap and some of the other dog owners would want it, because vet has to check your dog out before giving it and when time comes for it again 6 months later.
 
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MADHAT1 said:
Any one use heart-worm shots for their dogs. They last 6 months but don't have the full protection against some of the other parasites the monthly pill does.
Don't think Zap and some of the other dog owners would want it, because vet has to check your dog out before giving it and when time comes for it again 6 months later.
Click to expand...

Thought I heard about something longer term.
 
zappaa said:
If that were the case, I could have killed my dog by giving her the last pill of the prescription 10 days ago.
Click to expand...
Well really no. There is an incubation period for heartworms and the preventative measure only kills the larvae. The idea is if you have them checked regularly(prescription time frame) and any have made it to adult stage and your dog has heartworm they will be able to begin treating it.

The blood like ruready4 stated (he's right on the money here) will not then become clogged enough to cause a stroke. If you just keep going and going while your dog Cocco has heartworm the blood could become clogged over time. My exaggerated statement was to make people stop and think about what they are actually doing. Sorry if I alarmed you

ruready4somefootball said:
Just renewed for my Golden Retriever. You only need a blood test, because if by chance she has the heart worm, and you started her on the pills before other treatment, it could kill your dog by clogging the blood stream with dead heart worm and causing a stroke.
Click to expand...
 
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