Heartworm Prevention and Treatment

Heartworm Prevention and Heartworm Treatment

If you own a cat or dog, you know that heartworms are one of the most dangerous parasites that can negatively impact the health of your pet and can even lead to death. Heartworms are difficult to treat once they invade your pet's body. The best defense against this pesky parasite is to get heartworm prevention instead of heartworm treatment. Nevertheless, if your pet has heartworms or you want to protect them from heartworms, there is help available through a veterinarian on our veterinary team

At White Marsh Animal Hospital serving White Marsh, MD, we are here to protect the health of our beloved animals. To do so, we want to help your cat or dog live free of parasites by starting them on heartworm prevention. If you're curious about heartworms and want to learn more about this parasite, read on below for more information.

Heartworm Prevention and Treatment

What Are Heartworms?

Heartworms are a type of parasite that, as the name suggests, attaches to the heart muscle of your pet leading to the loss of muscle tissue, organ failure, even death. Your pet will look fatigued and might experience extreme weight loss, coughing, and vomiting if they are infected with heartworms.

These parasites can infect both cats and dogs. In dogs, the way to transmit heartworms is through a mosquito bite. Therefore, it is important to protect your pet if they are outdoors often or if you live near a still body of water. These can all be breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and can put your pet's health in danger.

How Effective Is Heartworm Treatment?

If your pet is infected with heartworms, one of the treatments your veterinarian can provide a series of injections. This is a type of medication that helps kill off adult heartworms. However, it's important to note that this can be expensive, and it might not be 100 percent effective at helping to get rid of heartworms.

What you should do instead is focus on heartworm prevention. It's easy to prevent heartworms with the help of a chewy tablet or topical medicine that can help prevent these parasites from infecting your cat or dog.

Get Heartworm Treatment for Parasites from a Veterinarian on Our Veterinary Team

Whether you're in need of heartworm treatment or heartworm prevention, we have you covered at White Marsh Animal Hospital serving White Marsh, MD. Call us at (410) 335-8400 to schedule your appointment with a veterinarian at our animal hospital!

Location

Find us on the map