Heartworms in Dogs

Heartworm disease is an infection in dogs, cats, coyotes and foxes. Even sea lions and humans may also be affected by heartworm disease. Heartworm disease is caused by the roundworm parasite, Dirofilaria immitis. Unlike other worms that infect the host through ingestion or entering the host through the skin, the heartworm disease is transmitted by mosquito bites.

When the mosquito has bitten a dog or cat with the heartworm disease, it carries the larvae of the parasite along with the blood that it has extracted for the first victim. The mosquito then moves to bite another victim and injects the heartworm disease parasite into the bloodstream of the second victim. This is the start of the heartworm disease in the second victim.

Upon suspecting that a mosquito carrying the heartworm disease bit your dog, you can consult your dog’s veterinarian to ask on preventative measures against the parasite. Preventative measures may also be done when it is the local breeding season of mosquitoes and you want to make sure that even if your dog gets bitten by a mosquito, the heartworm disease will not develop in your dog.

Heartworm is called such because at the later larval stage of the heartworm disease, the larvae migrate to the heart and develops into the adult stage. At its adult stage, the heartworm disease parasite can stay in your dog’s heart for several years and cause congestive heart failure, which kills your dog.

In some rare cases, the larva of the heartworm disease may also migrate to other organs of the dog’s body such as the lungs, the liver, the kidney, the arteries of the legs, the eyes and even the dog’s brain. Because of this migration to other organs, the heartworm disease may also cause other organ failures.

In order to diagnose the heartworm disease parasite, bloods sample has to be extracted from your dog. The blood sample may be analyzed through several methods in order to identify if the dog is positive for heartworm disease infection. Also, if the dog is positive, it has to be determined what form of the parasite is already living in the host. Different forms of the heartworm disease parasite require different methods of treatment.

Once the heartworm disease parasite was identified in the dog’s blood, the dog is usually given Ivermectin, to treat against the larval forms of the worm. This treatment has to continue every thirty days for twelve months in order to kill all the larval forms of the organism.

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