My dog has heartworm

[1Parker1]

Thanks.



Yeah that's going to be the chore. We are fortunate that we both work from home. The biggest trouble is going to be keeping him from running up and down the stairs, which he does recklessly and wildly everyday for no reason

His heart wasn't enlarged or anything in the X-ray and the lungs were mostly good... so hopefully it goes smoothly. These couple weeks of antibotics are supposed to help the treatment be easier on him. Hopefully it won't be that horrible.

Get one of those baby barrier doors for the stairs, kitchen, etc.

[travis2]

Just get it done and do the treatments. All will be well. We've had to go through this as well.

[midgetonadonkey]

One of my mom's dogs is going on 7 or 8 years after she first got diagnosed with heartworms. Your dog will be alright. Good thing it was caught early.

[Sonia_TX]

Deuce is adorable. He reminds me of my black lab, Tyson. As your quote says "Do What You Gotta Do" and he'll be just fine.

[td4mvp21]

This happened to my dog like a year or two ago, she's a black lab. We had to keep her inactive for a month and we had no idea how to do that because she was pretty wild. She was an outside dog and we just brought her inside and kept her in one room all the time and she just laid down and rested most of the time. She did pretty good. She's fine now and, like with your dog, they caught it early. Hope your dog recovers well and good luck

[Pistons < Spurs]

Get well soon Deuce!!!

[SpursWoman]

Get well soon, Looter!

[Shelly]

Get well soon, Deuce!

[tlongII]

Take care of your dog dammit! Unbeavable.

[stretch]

For the flipside of this...I got a 90 year old grandma, she eats bacon and eggs every morning for breakfast, she eats freaking everthing...including all the stuff they say you shouldn't eat...and she's still going strong. She's been overweight since about 1940(and uses the same skillet that she had back in 1940)....anything cooked in her kitchen gets a huge ass batch of old grease poured on it...even if I am cooking something for myself she'll sneak in there and throw that grease on it...it's good too.

What does this have to do with dogs?


Because she never takes her dogs to the vet, they live outside all the time, they never get bathed(other than a good spraying with the water hose) or treated for fleas...they are all overweight because they have big food bowl that's never empty...plus she'll give them table scraps like mofo...including whole plates of freezer dried ground beef...

Their water bowl is this big bowl in the backyard that's got this thick coating off moss in it(and hasn't been rinsed and cleaned since about 1965)...


And she's never taken a damn dog to the vet in her life...




And every freaking dog she has lives to be 15-18 years old. I mean every one of them...not just her dogs but her cats live to be like 20(she does take the cats to the vet though to get them spayed and neutered and for rabies shots, since hte fence won't keep them in).


I don't know what she does ..but I've seen too many of her dogs(and cats) live way past the age dogs are supposed to live to think it's just a fluke. Every dog she has lives to be 15 minimum. Heartworms, or not. And the mosquitoes in her back yard are bad...and so are the fleas(those dogs are always loaded with fleas)...I am pretty sure they get heartworms because of all those mosquitoes and feas)but they live long lives and they are happy ass dogs, that eat good and that are never alone(because since her dogs all live to be 15 she usually has 4 or 5 of them at a time)...

Maybe it's the moss in the water bowl...but something makes those dogs live long. I had a couple of dogs get sick when they got old and I moved them over to her house...sure enough, they got better and lived longer than I thought they would. There's something to what she does.


Make of this info what you will...

[miss paxton]

Years ago we adopted a chocolate lab mix and they discovered he had heartworms in the checkup they do right afterwards. At the time I recall the treatment involved arsenic, which sounds awful. You're right, the hard part is keeping them quiet. We crated him but he absolutely hated it and I ended up just keeping him in our bedroom with the door shut and staying with him when he went outside so he couldn't run. He lived for nine years after that, and he was no puppy when we got him.

[LuvBones]

Kori I know how you're feeling.. I'm treating one of our dogs for that right now. He's about a month and a half into his treatment. It does suck knowing it's going to be months before they can run around like normal again. It's very hard to keep him still, and he's ran around outside a few times. He looks excellent though, he's taking the treatment very well. If your dog went through Katrina then this will be nothing for him. I wish you the best! The treatment they have now for heartworms is a lot better so don't worry!

[LuvBones]

Also, like Whott was pointing out.. I never understood how some of the dogs we see at the clinic I work for are on a raw diet, have all their vaccines, are completely pampered and end up dying at 6 years old. So many dogs that we see have cancer and tumors... it's just crazy! My dad had dogs in Mexico that never saw a vet and lived to be very, very old!

[RashoFan]

Long Live Duece! Get well soon!
We are doing heartworm treatment on all of our cats just in case.

[marini martini]

Long Live Duece! Get well soon!
We are doing heartworm treatment on all of our cats just in case.

Cats????????????? I didn't know they could get heartworms

Nevermind, just googled & they do

[Kori Ellis]

I'm bumping this thread to give an update.

Deuce hasn't even been able to start the heartworm treatment shots yet.

There's something wrong with his platelet count.

Normally, it's supposed to be 250K-500K.

Last month it was 140K. They gave him 3 weeks of antibotics and it should have improved.

Last week it was under 50K.

If it gets below 40K, then it's dangerous and he could start spontaneously bleeding.

They thought the platelet test machine could have been reading it wrong (if it was clumping too much) but they sent his blood to a special lab and unfortunately the count was accurate.

Now, I am waiting to talk to the vet about what else could be wrong. They have already tested for the basic other stuff.

At least he still doesn't have any symptoms.

[duncan228]

I'm so sorry Kori. It's good that he has no symptoms but it must be so hard to not know. It sounds like you're doing everything you can for him. I hope you find some answers and Deuce gets well.

[mookie2001]

I dont think americans should be allowed to own dogs as pets

[Pistons < Spurs]

Hang in there Deuce!

Hopefully they quickly diagnose what the problem is and get him back on the road to recovery.

[balli]

I don't really know you, but I'm sorry. I'll pray for deuces' full recovery.

[manufor3]

My dog, Deuce, has heartworm. I don't want any lectures about me neglecting his prevention treatment. And I certainly don't want to hear about any horror stories of your dog dying from heartworm in the past. (In fact, I'll probably ban you if you post such a thing ).

Basically the deal is that he doesn't have any symptoms. But when I went to pick him up from the boarder/vet after we came back from Vegas, they ran a routine blood test and found it. Today, they did the chest/heart X-ray, plus a bunch of bloodwork and it looks like they caught it early enough. But the next 3 months are going to suck.

He has to be on antibotics for the next few weeks to get his platelet count up. Then he'll undergo 2 days of shots/treatment in the hospital. Then for a month, we can't let him run or get active (I don't know how I'll manage that). This period will be the dangerous part because if the heartworms travel into his lungs, liver, etc, something bad will happen

Then after that month, 2 more days of shots, then another month rest. Basically we'll have to be home with him pretty much all the time to keep him calm - so we won't be able to go anywhere.

Anyway, it freakin' sucks

Make sure your pets stay on their prevention treatments.

That's all.

--Kori

aww thats sad

[mrsmaalox]

Gosh that's tough! Now the heartworm diagnosis is for sure? Is it possible this blood dyscrasia has skewed that result? I hope this gets figured out soon, it must be awful for you!

[Kori Ellis]

Gosh that's tough! Now the heartworm diagnosis is for sure? Is it possible this blood dyscrasia has skewed that result? I hope this gets figured out soon, it must be awful for you!

Yeah the heartworm diagnosis has been confirmed by blood tests and x-rays.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes. I'm sure they will figure it out soon. Hopefully it's something minor that they can treat by medication. I don't want his platelets to keep dropping so rapidly.

[Ginofan]

Deuce will definitely be in my prayers, get well soon! Please keep us updated when you can Kori.

[spurschick]

Oy! It sucks when the kids get sick. Hang in there.