l.lyle
Banned
Registered: Mar 2009
Location: s.c.
Posts: 6961 |
Re: Misconception!
quote:
Originally posted by Barnyard
Ivermectin, is not actually a preventative! The purpose of the Iver. is to kill the possible infestation of the larvae that may have occurred over the last 30 days. The reason honest vets say you don't have to give it every month, is because the larvae & the young worm are vulnerable to the Iver. up until 6mo. of age. So theroretically you could dose your dogs every 2 or 3 mo,'s & still be safe, although I wouldn't recomend it!
People constantly use the term preventative when in fact according to my vet you are just killing the larvae from the prior 30 day period. It does not have the residual characteristics that we think it does. It is in fact a good inexpensive wormer that has been used for years. The other micoseption is that it will kill adult heartworm & kill your dog. For the most part this is untrue. I was always under the impression that once they got heartworm, they continue to multiply! "NOT TRUE"! If your dog gets infected, they will only end up with as many heartworm as the host mosquito transfered. What happens is that it has to go through the cycle of the host. So if you have a mosquito bite a dog, then that dog becomes infected, the mosquito's will continue to tranfer the micro. back & forth thus completing the cycle & eventually creating more adult heartworm in your dog until it finally has visual results such as coughing, & overall lack of energy! Don't take my word for it! Find a vet you can trust & ask him. WARNING! A young vet that thinks it might cost him business down the road while he is trying to build a practise might be reluctant to be forthright with the whole story! JMO!
Thank's John
You're right. I think the reason it might be called a preventative is because the vets refer to the lrval stage as filaria and I was under the impression that stage lasted for 9 months. The Ivermeck gets the filaria but not the worm so in essence it prevents the worm. I have started some dogs on it when they were older. They probably already had heart worms. But my vet said he hasn't had them die of heartworms. He figures the worms just live out their life and die off one at a time so they don't get an acculation of them as if you did nothing. One of my dogs is 13 and I didn't get him till he was 2. My vet gives them antihistamine when he starts an older dog. I don't know if that's because of the first dose of Ivermeck or because there would be alot of dead filaria in his system. At one time Long years ago I worked for a vet and they would give injections for three days in a row in the front leg vein that would kill the filaria and the worms. That was some bad stuff. If any of it missed the vein, the dogs leg would swell and the dog would lick till he licked the hair and hide off. Some times it would take months to cure that. Even without that problem you had to keep the dog quiet for a month because all the dead worms could get together and float to the heart and kill the dog. It was some bad stuff.
Last edited by l.lyle on 03-29-2010 at 05:18 AM
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08-04-2009 04:21 AM
