You’ve kept your pet on prevention diligently all year long, so why is the #veterinarian telling you that your dog’s heartworm test needs to be checked?
𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐯𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲:
❣️ Possibility of missed or late doses.
❣️ Possibility that pet spit up the pill or it was not properly absorbed.
❣️ Possibility that our preventatives are not 100% effective.
❣️ Possibility of infection by Ivermectin-resistant heartworm strains.
❣️ Product guarantees that are only valid if testing is performed annually.
It is important to ensure that pet’s are free of circulating microfilaria (baby heartworms in the blood) prior to giving a heartworm preventative. Otherwise, all the baby worms dying at once in the blood stream can 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐜𝐤, and can even be fatal.
I can not stress enough the importance of receiving preventative medication, monthly, year ROUND, like clockwork. Remember heartworm prevention works backwards to kill the microfilaria injected by mosquitoes in the subcutaneous tissues last month which is why you can not stop when it’s cold because you will have at least 1 month lapse in protection. Also many people want to pick up scripts for cheaper preventatives. Please keep in mind, we do not carry those here because there is now a 30% or higher reported resistance in the mosquito population against medications like Heartgard and Triheart which is why we carry Interceptor Plus less then 7% resistance! We are one of the few hospitals studying this right now in Michigan.