Q: What do you think of testing my dog every six months for heartworm instead of giving monthly heartworm pills?

A: This practice is not advised. To understand better, read the following scenarios.

If you get a positive test result on your dog, this means your dog has already been infected for 5-7 months and by definition, has adult worms living in their heart and/or lungs. A positive test result means you and your dog must face treatment of a potentially fatal disease. The treatment is expensive and dogs can have severe side effects from the medications used or from the dying heartworms.

If you get a negative test result, most likely your dog is not currently infected, but remember—no test is 100% and although uncommon, false negative heartworm test results can occur. This most often happens if dogs are infected with very few worms, the worms are still immature (common if you miss the right date for testing), only male worms are present (the test is only accurate for female worms), or the test was done incorrectly. This may mean that your dog goes incorrectly diagnosed as “heartworm negative”, increasing his risk for fatal complications from heartworm disease and serving as a source to infect other dogs.

No one likes to give medication unnecessarily, however, heartworm disease is prevalent in every U.S. state (except Alaska ) and kills dogs and cats every year. The best news is it is completely preventable. There are many options for heartworm prevention and many of the available medications also include routine dewormers for other common parasites affecting dogs and cats. Ask your veterinarian what prevention plan is best for your dog or cat.

Visit the American Heartworm Society for more information on heartworm disease in dogs and cats and to view current recommendations.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Ask a Vet, Dr Donna Spector. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.