To know “how effective is heartworm treatment” it is better to know, what is heartworm? “Heartworm”, is parasite which spreads from mosquito bites from one host to another host. Primarily these worms stay at lungs arteries but sometimes, when the worms grow up, they move towards right side of the heart and which leads to severe diseases to host which is fatal sometimes. Heart worm chose dogs to be their host, generally but cats are becoming the target. Apart from dogs and cats, the other mammals like wolves, foxes, sea-lions, are also some time affected with this parasite.
Where the risk of heartworm is more
The disease has become more prone to the areas where there are more mosquitoes. Generally,tropical regions have more mosquito than other regions, so these parasites attack the animals of tropical and temperate regions. But these parasites are spreading country wide. This is due to the reason that some people take their infected animals from one place to another and hence the parasite get the scope to grow in that region also.
Symptoms of heartworm infected animals
The dogs generally suffer from mild cough, become lazy, and they have loss of appetite. Hence they have weight loss. Slowly, when the parasites increase inside the dog’s body, the risk increases and there are possibilities that the heart worms moves toward the right side of heart. This leads to swollen belly of dog. This is due to the reason that the fluid accumulates inside dog’s stomach. This accumulated fluid may lead to heart blockage and leads to death also. Sometimes when the dog excretes dark colored urine, it is also sign of heartworm infection.
How to test detect the heartworms inside the dog or other host?
The first easy way to detect the heartworm inside host is to filter the blood. This is because the adult heartworms give birth to their young ones which are called as “Microfilaria” into the host’s blood directly. You can easily filter the blood to detect whether it is affected with the heartworm or not. But this filtration is not the perfect test to detect the presence of heartworm inside host’s body. This is because unless the numbers of heartworm is more this test is a failure. So, it can be detected at early stage. But another test is “Antigen Test”. In this test, protein released from the female heartworms is detected and their presence is tested, but the same test cannot be detected for male heartworms. Since, the antigen test is failure as it is only applicable for female heartworms, you must go for the antibody test. Antibody test can help you to detect the heartworm in both the men and women.
How to avoid heartworm infection from dogs
To keep the dogs and other animals away from heartworm infection you must do annual health check- up for dogs. This will help you to detect the heartworm infection in early stage and hence you go for the treatment early. Also you must try to keep the dog way from mosquito as far as possible, because we all know that prevention is always better than cure.
Medicines to cure heartworm
There are few medicines which can useful to cure heartworm infection. Your veterinarian may prescribe these medicines to the affected animals. These tablets are generally given as daily doses. These medicines generally kill the larvae of heartworm. The daily doses are necessary because the heartworm can grow up rapidly. They grow to their adult stage in just four days. So, before that you need to kill the larvae, because the adult heartworms do not die with the medicines.
Diagnosis of heartworm diseases
For better diagnosis, you may opt for the radiographs and ultra sounds. This diagnosis is important for dogs or other host who are staying at places where there is no mosquito. This is because, the dogs staying at such places are not taken to the veterinary hospitals for regular check up. So, if they are affected with heartworm they are not detected in the early stage. No medicines are used to cure them, and hence the condition of the host becomes more severe, which is fatal sometimes. So, it is quite effective have radiographs and ultrasounds to detect the most effected of heart. So, hope this article helps you to know “how effective is heartworm treatment” is, to detect the presence of heart worm at early stage to save your pet’s life.