[losul]

Betsy, Thnx much, all the words and support definitely helped me get through my initial shock and panic stage. I made the mistake of watching that video the other day, Dr. Turner I think, where he surgically removed 86 1 foot long worms from that poor dogs heart, and all I could think was I wanted those friggin things out of Turbo NOW.

I should have been paying more attention to all the talk a few months ago about the HW preventatives. I think it was on the off topic thread and went on for a week or two. I’m going to have to look for that discussion and read it.

I was lame to think I would just casually keep doing what I had been doing and my dog wouldn’t ever get heartworms. As much as I hate it, once Turbo is cleared I will probably have to keep him on preventative year round, on the full dosage, and maybe even checked 2X year, I can’t ever risk this happening again. There are alot of mosquitos here, I’m considered within the Mississippi valley, and part of my property is within a flood plain, actually the majority is now included in the flood plain, since they remapped after the Great Flood. Probably the mosquitos aren’t near so bad in your area.

Shawna, I hope I can manage to make the right decisions going forward. Thnx

About the Dr Byron Blaghorn that my vet mentioned. I found that yes he has an impressive bio, but I wasn’t so impressed by the study he conducted. The study was limited in size, they tested 4 different HWP’s and found that Advantage multi was the only one that had 100% efficacy against 1 certain strain of HW larvae after a single dosage. Apparently that strain has never again been found in the wild, and apparently it was not even the supposed resistant strains found in the Mississippi river delta and valley. The study was paid for by Bayer Pharma and I understand that the Dr. also received a fee from Bayer. Bayer publicized this study ALL over the place, but they didn’t publicize the fact that all 4 HWP’s had 100% efficacy after 3 doses.

I’m not sold on advantage multi. And I don’t like the included flea insecticide. I get so much conflicting information, which do I believe?
I can’t find any info on multi and doxy alone being used in a slow kill method, and not sure on it’s effectiveness at weakening/killing adult worms or it’s actual reliability to clear microfilariae. So much conflicting info. Plus I’m not sold on it’s safety. Is it better to use a drug that accumulates and builds up in the body (moxidectin) or one that does it’s job quickly and leaves the body rather quickly (such as ivermectin)?

• This reply was modified 11 years, 9 months ago by losul.