Back off to the Vet

I am back off to the vet with Blitz today. He is not tolerating his antibiotics. (I think??)

He has tossed up every time after his medicines. Vet thought it was his pain medicine and had me stop that. But he continues to toss up about 10-15 minutes after getting his clavamox.

Poor guy! Very worried. His is already thin and he hasn't kept much food down since his dental.

Taking Holly with me. Going to get the heartworm test on her too. Could she be so lucky as to be negative ??? *Wishful thinking*

Hope all goes well at the vets. Poor Blitz

Thinking of you all, Shannon, and hoping Blitz and Holly will both pull through this ordeal. What a horrible thing to have happen :xfngr:

YAY!!! Holly Tested Negative!!!! :rah:

They still want her retested in 7 months since it takes 7 months from the infection of heart worms for a test to show positive.

As for Blitz:
She said his vitals were okay. He has lost a pound since he went in for the dental She pulled him off the Clavamox since he has a sensitivity to it. Put in his records to avoid it in the future. She said his gums look GREAT and that just using the oral rinse after every meal should be enough.

She also sent home Doxycycline to start in a few days for treatment of the heart worms. (Sure hope it doesn't upset his stomach like the Clavmox!!!!) It's been many years since I have delt with a heartworm positive dog. Treatment sure has changed!

Apparently you give Doxycycline for 1 month and then for 1 week out of every month for 3-4 months. This kills of a bacteria that has a symbiotic relationship with the heartworms. By killing off the bacteria it shrinks the heartworms and will eventually start killing them. This is combined with a specific heartworm preventive that way when we do the treatment in 3-6 months the risk and side effects will be much lower. The estimate for treatment is $650-$750 :yikes

Google wolbachia - Your vet is up to date; I had intended to ask you to ask the vet about wolbachia.

http://www.dogaware.com/health/heartworm.html#wolbachia

Be aware that doxy can be very hard on dogs - major GI upset. It can also burn the esophagus - always give with food. Feed a little bit, give doxy and immediately give more food so that the doxy doesn't burn the esophagus.

How old is Flash again? I adopted a dog who was hw positive many years ago. He was young and hadn't had heartworm a long time and he was just fine and lived to be 15. But other rescue dogs I've known haven't done that well after treatment because of the large amount of damage that had already been done to their hearts - these were mostly older dogs that had apparently been positive for a long time.

Interestingly, heartworm damage can cause pulmonary hypertension. This is high blood pressure in only the vasculature of the lungs. The mediation used to treat PH is sildenafil - which is viagra. I have had two dogs with PH - a Cavalier that was in end stage heart failure (but lived to be 16 1/2) and a 15 year old shih tzu with moderate valvular disease and no heart failure but that developed PH we believe from a pulmonary thromboembolism (clot). Both took sildenafil. The Cavalier did very well and was put to sleep for reasons other than heart/lung disease. But the shih tzu did not respond well to meds and was put to sleep due to her severe PH after only about a month or so after diagnosis.

Pat

Forgot to say - I presume vet is going to use immiticide for the heartworms after the doxy regime.

Pat

Blitz is 4 years old.

My vet talked about all 3 methods of treatments and recommended me to the same site DogAware.

Right now we are going to do the heartguard for 3-4 months while using the pulsed Doxy treatment. Then she wants to do a chest X-Ray.

I think I want to then do the treatment where the dog gets a total of 3 injections spaced out. An inital injections of Immiticide. Then after 30 days two injections of Immitide are given 24 hours apart. I seem to feel more comfortable with it.

Although, I feel my vet slightly pushing towards the slow kill method. Where we keep him on a pulsating doxy treatment with heartguard and retest in a year. She kept telling me she had seen MANY cases where the dogs test negative within 1 year but it can take up to 3 years.

Although this treatment could save me $500, my major concern with this is having a 4 year old Cavalier. I am highly worried about MVD and I feel the longer he has the heartworms the more damage to the heart. I have been reading up on it and see many success stories. Even read of a few of dogs testing negative in 6-8 months.

My vet seems to feel you never REALLY know which treatment will be best and all have equal risk and side effects. I think the ultimate decision will be made when we do the X-Ray in 3-4 months. Unless he develops health problems that prevent the faster treatment I think that is what I'm going to go with.

If anyone has any experience treating heartworms in Cavaliers I could use some information on how the dogs handled the treatment.