Most dogs can be safely leash-walked during the treatment recovery period and providing appropriate chew toys can help relieve some of that stored up physical energy.
Short, slow leash walks (5-10 minutes) are appropriate for urinating and defecating, 3-4 times a day. Dogs who are allowed to run or play during this time can develop life-threatening problems similar to a massive stroke.
Keeping Your Heartworm Positive Dog Happy
Give several; short leash walks during the off-temperature times of the day. These are SHORT walks, 10 minutes max at a leisurely pace. Provide more exploration and sniffing activities than actual walking.
Myth: Heartworm disease is contagious for pets.
Truth: You should be concerned if we diagnose one of your pets with heartworm disease, but you do not need to quarantine your infected pet. Heartworms must go through a mosquito to develop into adults, so heartworm-positive pets are safe to be around.
The exercise restriction during melarsomine treatment is so important. As the heartworms die, they float around in the bloodstream and lodge in the walls of blood vessels. If your dog exercises too hard, the fragments can get shoved into narrowing blood vessels potentially causing a blockage/embolism and even death.
Strict rest is imperative for 6-8 weeks. This means that your pet can be leashed walked outside to urinate and defecated, but must come back inside to rest. Do not allow your pet to run, jump, climb stairs, or play rough with other dogs or children.
Enforced Rest is ESSENTIAL! Positively NO Strenuous Exercise for 8 weeks! The heartworms will die over the next 6 weeks. As they die and are broken down, pieces of them could lodge in other parts of the body's blood vessels, causing unnecessary complications–if your pet's activity is too strenuous.
But your dog's normal physical activities must be restricted as soon as the diagnosis is confirmed, because physical exertion increases the rate at which the heartworms cause damage in the heart and lungs. The more severe the symptoms, the less activity your dog should have.
Circulating heartworm antigen appears in the blood as early as five months post-infection in a small percentage of dogs, but most dogs are not antigen positive until seven months post-infection. Yes, contrary to popular belief, a dog infected six months previously can be negative on an antigen test.
Dogs with heartworm disease can live high-quality lives as long as they are given appropriate care. After completing treatment and following your veterinarian's recommenda- tions on heartworm disease testing and prevention, the chances of any long-term effects are very low.
Even if heartworm infection is treated, we all know it does serious, permanent damage to the body. This in-depth look at that damage will renew your commitment to consistent prevention recommendations for your veterinary patients.
There is some risk involved in treating dogs with heartworms, although fatalities are rare. "A new drug is available that does not have as many side effects, allowing successful treatment of more than 95% of dogs with heartworms."
The dog may be required to stay at the hospital for 3-4 days. After treatment, the adult worms die and are carried by the blood to the lungs where they lodge in small blood vessels. There they decompose and are absorbed by the body over a period of several months.
Since the mosquito is needed to carry the microfilariae, heartworm disease is not contagious from one dog to another dog. People also cannot get heartworms from dogs. Dogs and humans can only get heartworms from infected mosquitos.
Dogs with heartworm disease, for example, require exercise restriction before and heartworm treatment, as well as for a short time after treatment. Physical activity increases the likelihood of adult worms causing a pulmonary thromboembolism, which may be fatal. Limiting a dog's physical activity decreases this risk.
Heartworm Positive
False positive tests occasionally occur, so it is important that you consult your veterinarian for follow-up advice. A second test will probably be done. Heartworm is a serious, even life threatening disease, but it can be treated.
Heartworm disease is a common disease in dogs, cats, and ferrets that is preventable and treatable (if caught early).
A positive test result confirms the patient has adult heartworms. It is likely these worms survived the adulticidal treatment, but their presence could also signal a new infection if the owner wasn't compliant in administering heartworm preventives during and after adulticide therapy.
If the dog's heart rate is increased by exercise or excitement, the worm pieces can be forced into the tiny blood vessels of the lungs, increasing the chances of complications.
There is no reason to allow running, jumping, or other physical activity at any time for 8 weeks after the start of the injectable heartworm adulticide treatment.
Heartworms can also cause nosebleeds, pneumonia, high blood pressure, seizures, blindness, and excessive sleeping.
Short walks are tolerated by most dogs with mild to moderate heart disease, but excessive activity can worsen heart failure or trigger irregular heart rhythms.
Since the treatment involves killing the heartworms while they're still in your dog's body, it's crucial to make sure he's inactive during and after treatment — meaning no running, jumping and playing.
Myth #3: If my pet has heartworms, I will see them in her feces. Although many worm types, such as roundworms and tiny hookworms, are shed in your pet's feces, heartworms do not live in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and are not found in feces.