Natural Heartworm Prevention For Dogs & Cats

pet health Apr 29, 2024

NATURAL HEARTWORM PREVENTION FOR PETS SUMMARY

Heartworm disease is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that can affect dogs and cats. While natural remedies may help manage heartworm infections, prevention is still the best approach to avoiding the disease.

It is important to assess the risk of heartworm disease in the region where you live before considering any treatment options. If heartworm disease is prevalent in your area, it is recommended to seek veterinary advice for the best preventative options, but make sure to watch the video for natural remedies that can also be utilized.

Herbal supplements such as garlic, ginger, and black walnut hulls have been shown to have anti-parasitic properties that may help fight heartworm infections. It is important to note that while these herbs may have some benefits, their effectiveness as a sole preventative method for heartworm disease has not been proven, but can be part of an integrative approach in a high-risk area.

Here are some of the supplements mentioned in the video:

Check out the full transcript down below and make sure to watch the video for more information on assessing your pet's heartworm risk and get natural remedies to help strengthen their immune system and prevent heartworm disease naturally in dogs and cats.

MORE NATURAL PET HEALTH INFORMATION

1. Grab your FREE PDF on how to improve your pet's nutrition easily to achieve longevity and lower your vet bills.

Sign up for your free guide to receive simple information, brands and advice on how to feed your dogs and cats the best diet for longevity Click here to get your guide!

2. Inquire about our Healthy Holistic Pet For Life Blueprint program for even more guidance with your pets.

You may be spending hours and hours researching what is the best way to raise your puppy and other fur family and feeling lost, stuck, and confused on what is the best path forward. Many pets are developing diseases early in life that are expensive, shortening their lives, and are stressful for pet parents to endure watching their pets not feel well. We’ve created a program that guides you through the 5 pillars of health to help you gain confidence in the essential areas of pet health that will help reduce disease from occurring, keep your pets healthy and happy, reduce vet bills and help you feel empowered and confident as a pet parent to tackle anything. The best part is you gain access to an incredible worldwide community of pet parents and weekly 2-hour Q&A’s with Dr. Katie to gain further clarification and get your questions answered. If you’d like to learn more, make sure to schedule a call with us here: Healthy Holistic Pet For Life Application

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Are you using heartworm preventatives every single month, all year round? Have you ever wondered if that's truly necessary? Or maybe you're like many pet parents that are worried about the side effects from those conventional drugs and what harm those may be causing your pet? I'm Dr. Katie Woodley, the Natural Pet Doctor. I'm a holistic veterinarian and I'm on a mission to make sure you as a pet parent have options of integrating natural care into your pet's life. In this short video, you're gonna learn about what heartworm is, how heartworm can be transmitted to your pets, but most importantly, how you can take a safe, natural approach with your pet to keep them protected all year round. And you're gonna learn some real neat tips and tricks on what you can do to make sure that your pet stays protected. So make sure you hit that subscribe button down below so that you can get access to all of our videos that are released every single week, and I hope you enjoy.

So this is all about heartworm some of the natural and conventional remedies that are out there. So we're gonna talk about what the preventatives are. What exactly do they do? The life cycle of heartworm.

What is heartworm disease?

So what exactly is heartworm disease? So heartworm is actually caused by a variety of roundworm called Dirofilari immitis. So it's actually a true worm and it's spread by mosquitoes. So a lot of people think, oh, they ingest like the worms, they get it from the environment. That's not the case. Heartworm comes from mosquitoes and dogs and cats can only get heartworm disease from infected mosquitoes. So not every type of mosquito can actually carry DIYer. And not every mosquito out there is infected with heartworm. So there's a lot of different varieties of mosquitoes. And so you may not even have the strain of mosquito necessary to carry the heartworm that dro species to pass it on to your pets.

The biggest thing too, the biggest misconception also is that your pets can't get it from other types of animals, from feces or from their moms. So a lot of people are confused. They think, you know, the, the mother had heartworm, she passed it on to the puppies while she was pregnant or while she was nursing. That is not the case. That is the case for other roundworms where the mother can pass them in through the milk or she passes them while she's pregnant to those puppies, to those kittens, which is one of the reasons why veterinarians recco recommend deworming. Frequently the mosquitoes have to also meet certain requirements. So like I said, they have to be a certain like species, but they also, the females, they have to be females. So say there's a male heartworm and it's, there's a male heartworm in your dog, right?

That is not going to cause any problems. It's just going to be dead. It doesn't do anything. If now a female heartworm develops from the larva that was injected from the mosquito and a female adult heartworm develops, we have a problem because now they can breed together. That is the biggest misconception that people have. It's only the female adult worms that are the biggest problem they must be of a species that allows development of those worms in the cells of the body. So remember, that's the mosquitoes. Not all species do that. And they also have to be a species that feeds on mammals. Not all mosquitoes feed on mammals. The other thing too, and we're gonna go more into the next slide with the life cycle, is the mosquito must have bitten an animal that was infected with stage one. So we call that L one.

So larva one heartworms about two weeks prior. So the larva has to develop to stage three, the larva stage, it takes two weeks to develop to a stage that can infect the pet. So two weeks time, this is important, we'll go into that. The mosquito then has to bite your dog or your cat. And then what happens is when the larva reach stage L four L five, this takes about three to four months under the right conditions. Then it travels to the bloodstream, goes to the lungs, the heart, that's when we see those clinical signs. Congestive heart failure, coughing, breathing issues. And so if your pet's immune system doesn't destroy them, which a lot of pets will actually inhibit the heartworm larva from actually transmitting into the bloodstream, they'll get rid of the infection naturally with a strong immune system. Not always, but this is one of the key things.

So then what happens is they reach maturity, which is the l l six stage, the adult stage and males grow to about six inches in length. Females grow to 12 inches in length. They get really big. So we see those nasty heartworm pictures where there's worms in the heart and they're really, really big. That's what those adult heartworms look like and that's why they're so nasty and can kill pets. However, when we look at the life cycle and how it works through the body, what tissues it travels through, it takes a long time. So that's a good thing for us. It's a bad thing for the heart room cuz we can fight it more easily with natural preventative, uh, herbal medicines. With conventional treatments too. There are harsher, uh, conventional treatments also that I know a lot of people don't wanna do because they're afraid of the side effects and for good reason, they do cause a lot of awful side effects.

So then, when we look at this life cycle, I want you to, we're gonna go through the dog because it's more common in dogs. Yes, cats can develop heartworm and it's cats. When they get heartworm disease, it is going to be more deadly for them unfortunately. So we have the mosquito, right? They have, they've gone through that two week incubation period. They've bitten another mammal that had that L one larva stage, the two week period. Now what they're doing is they have this larva that's infected. They, they feed on your dog and they're injecting the larva into the tissue. And then what happens is that larva develops there and it takes about two months or so and there's some rough ranges about I would say two, two to four months is roughly the range that the larva is in the tissue, it's not in the bloodstream yet.

This is what your preventative treatments are treating. So that's the misnomer. Your preventatives that you're supposed to be giving once a month are actually treating the last 30 days worth of larva that your pet had been injected with. So this is where we can use preventatives and this is where we stop it. Now what happens if the immune system isn't strong enough to fight it off? If we're not using conventional medicine, the, we're not using herbal remedies to kill that larva either, then they develop into an adult. So then what we ha what happens is, is we have the microfilaria, those go into the bloodstream and then they develop into a mature adult, typically five to seven years. So that's when we get like the 12 inch long female worm that's living in the heart. This is where you tend to see, okay, we have heartworm positive.

Now microfilaria is found in the blood. This is the antigen test that your veterinarian is running at your annual wellness visit or they should be running. That is when we test this, we can't actually test for a positive larval stage in the tissue. And that is why your vet says once a year because it takes about six to seven months for your pet to develop the microfilaria stage that will show up positive on an antigen or a microfilaria test. That is key to know. And this is where it gets really confusing cuz there's these different life stages. But this is, this is so important and I think a lot of pet parents miss this point and we're gonna talk a little bit more about that. So get your pen and paper. I want you guys to write this down. Of course you have the replay afterwards in our community, these are important facts though.

So there has to be the right temperature for these mosquitoes. If it, it's not the right temperature that larva is not going to develop in from the L one to the L three stage. We also have to have humidity and standing water. So if you live in a, like I do now, Colorado doesn't get any moisture anymore. We don't have as many mosquitoes. The thing is though is where I am in northern Colorado, we have a lot of lakes, we have a lot of standing water. So I see a lot more mosquitoes up here than I would when I lived down in Colorado Springs that didn't have all those standing bodies of water. But we have to have these two requirements. So if you're in an area that's a desert and you don't have humidity, you don't have standing water, we're gonna talk about what you can get away with for your pet more safely than say someone who's in Florida, someone who's in Texas or lives along the Gulf coast in the us.

So let's talk about temperature. So we need that two week period, that's how long that L one to L three stage takes within that mosquito to develop into an effective larval stage that can then be transmitted to your pet. The temperature can't go below 57 degrees at any point in time. So if it does, the maturation cycle is actually halted, it stops. That is key. This is where we can utilize this information to tweak when we give the medications or when we use herbal remedies. Um, or when we combine maybe the two together. There's a lot of different ways to do it. So a study from Washington State University in 2006 actually showed that the full development of the larva requires the equivalent of a steady 24 hour daily temperature in excess of 64 degrees for approximately one month. So that was really interesting. But I would go with the two weeks be on the safe side.

You do not want your dog to get heartworm. That is the thing you don't, and it's really common in some areas and in a lot of areas it's not, it's not super common in Colorado, thank goodness. But you can track those temperatures and if you're noticing that we're going below 57 degrees, a majority of that time heartworm is not going to be infected to your pets through the mosquitoes. Even if there are mosquitoes present. That is key. That is something to know and take note of. This is an, this gives you an idea of how common heartworm is. So these are all cases. So this is actually from the heartworm, American Heartworm Society website. So you can go there too, you can get information. They are going to tell you to give heartworm preventative medicine every single month, all year round. But you can look, so like for me, I look in the middle and I'm like, okay, I'm in Colorado.

And yes, I've seen heartworm positive cases, I've had a couple, we get a lot of rescue animals that come from the south, from somewhere else, from Texas. And so those animals tend to come and bring it with them. And so that's the majority is like the rescue, the adopted dogs that we tend to see heartworm positive dogs in. Now say you live down in those dark red areas, there's a hundred plus cases per clinic. That is a really, really high number. Those are the areas where we're gonna talk about conventional treatment and what you can use safely to help them at a different time span than the 30 days. Cause this is where you have lots of mosquitoes, you have high temperatures throughout the year, your pet is at risk, your pet is at a really high risk. And guess what? Our tests don't show that your pet has heartworm until six months in.

That sucks. So we don't want that to happen, but there's ways that we can help prevent that.

Testing for Heartworm Disease

So heartworm testing, I touched on this a little bit. The beginning, there's two tests, the two main tests that will only pick up adult heartworms, not the larva, not that first stage that's entering your pet's body. We have the antigen test. So this is that snap test that your vet will run in the clinic. They draw a little bit of blood, they add the dilutant, the blue dilutant and it takes about like 10 minutes to run. Um, so this is going to be usually done, this should be done at least once a year. This can only identify female adult heartworms. So, and then also that heartworm antigen has to be in the blood for at least five months. So it's not detecting that early stage, that larval tissue stage.

And so most dogs, most cats, they're not gonna show antigen until after seven months after infection. And it, it has a really high false negative rate because it's only picking up female adult heart, heart worms. So let's say your pet only has one or two of them. So they have a low worm burden. This test is not going to pick them up and some pets, if they have like a lot of heart worms, what can happen is, is their body is forming antibodies against the antigen because it's a foreign thing in the body and they form complexes together and it inactivates how it shows up as a positive on the test show. So it'll show up as a false negative in those cases too, which is not good because we need to know if that pet has a serious issue. And then the other test that is the common one that is sent out to the labs to confirm if there's an antigen test or if there's a high suspicion that there is a heartworm positive case, they'll send the blood work out and you can actually see the micro valeria when there's a lot of them in the blood under a microscope.

It's really crazy. You can see the little worms like floating around and swimming around and moving. Not good. That should not be in your, in your pet's body. And so the American Heartworm Society actually recommends doing the micro valeria test once a year instead of that antigen test because it is more sensitive, it has less false negatives. However, a lot of vet clinics are still gonna do the antigen test because it's really, really simple to do and easy to run. There is a test that I did see come up in some of the research that I was doing in Canada that checks for the D n A of the like heartworm. So it picks up larva but it's really difficult to get ahold of. The vet clinics have to send it to Canada. So obviously right now with borders and things being shut down because of the pandemic, not probably not going to happen realistically, but that's something to potentially look into and bring to your vet's attention in the future so that way you can identify when your pet has the larva stage and then you can use conventional treatments to kill those larva before they turn into the micro stage in the bloodstream in the adult worms.

Heartworm Preventatives

All right, heartworm preventatives, this is where it gets really controversial and this is where when we're looking at your pet from a holistic perspective, this makes people not wanna give this and there's good reasons and then there's also good reasons and better reasons for certain cases. So remember each pet is different. Each pet is an individual. It depends on risk, risk to benefit ratio. That is everything in medicine. There is a time and a place. So keep that in mind. So when I'm talking about preventatives, I'm talking about your interceptor, your heart guard. This is that monthly chew or pro heart which is either a six month or a 12 month injectable or your topicals. So I have a list of all of the preventatives that are out there and there's a lot of different ones. And so what these do, they're actually treating the month prior.

So we call them preventatives, but they're actually treating the larval stage in your, in the tissues of your dog or your cat. So they poison the larva at that micro stage. So when I say microfilaria, it's, it's actually the larval stage, like the first L one, L two and that causes them to die. So that's a big confusion point where you're giving this as a preventative, you're actually treating the last 30 days. So it's labeled for monthly usage typically unless you're doing injections, which I do not recommend because pro heart has killed a lot of pets. There's a lot of side effects. It's been often on the market. If your pet has a side effect, guess what, you can't take it away. So that I do not recommend pro-heart. It is convenient. I do not recommend it though. And the fact that the 12 months just came back on the market really scares me because I see a lot of side effects that happen like a month or two afterwards and you can't specifically say it's because of that, but nothing else change.

So it makes me question, okay, I think these are causing something in the pet's body, it's triggering autoimmune issues, that type of thing. The biggest thing too to keep in mind when we're looking at using this is talking about using the actual drugs, the actual prevent heartworm preventative medications. Keep in mind the mis the temperature. So if you have your temperature staying above 57 degrees day and night, so consistently for around two weeks, that's when you would start this medication four to six weeks after that. Because remember you're treating the month prior so you're not going to start it right at the start of like the warm season if you're not doing it year round. Um, so that's something to be aware of. You have to be very careful though because remember where mosquitoes go, if they're under the house, they're hiding somewhere else. It could be warmer than what your, your, you believe the temperature to be.

So just be ear on the side of the of caution because you don't want your pets to get sick. But keeping in mind it takes about two to four months for that larva to develop into the micro stage and enter the bloodstream so you have a little bit of room to work with because your heartworm preventatives are going to, well should kill the the larval stage in the tissue. I know this is kind of confusing, I'm throwing around a lot of terms so feel free to write questions down below and when we're done, I'll go through some of those briefly. There is a lot of different heartworm preventatives. If you are using a conventional medicine or you're like worried or you're in Florida, you're in Texas, you're in that gulf coast, you're in that area on that map that I showed with the incidents where it is like bright dark red.

Seriously think about doing this protocol, we're gonna talk about the safe heart protocol, uh, next, which is something that isn't talked about a lot on the traditional veterinary medicine side, but this would be something where you can use these at lower dosages to help prevent heartworm disease because you're treating the larval stage that the mosquitoes most likely have and they're passing through it into your pet. So this, when I look at this, the thing is, is okay, I don't necessarily want all of those drugs, right? So you'll see a lot of those like Heartgard plus, your Ivermectin, Simparica Trio. I think one of our group members talked about that or asked about that and what I thought about it, the thing is, is if we're looking at how do we prevent heartworm, do we really need all these things? Yes, some of those areas are gonna have lots of flea.

So you'll notice that um, your sentinel will kill flea eggs or help kill flea eggs also. So that might be beneficial so that your pets aren't developing things like tape worms and having allergies and other problems from fleas. Now there's a lot of natural things we can do for fleas. So make sure you check out my blog posts, the natural remedies for fleas and ticks. So what I typically recommend for pet parents, especially when we're looking at a more holistic natural approach is if you're in these high risk areas, use a single ingredient medication that has been around for a long time. Heart guard interceptor. So interceptor, if you have a cauli breed you're worried about um, certain certain breeds will have an MDR one gene mutation and will react to ivermectin then use your interceptor. So interceptor is like my go-to because even if those dogs have MDR one mutations and they don't metabolize certain drugs properly, they don't react to the mild mycin in the interceptor.

So this is a good one that's been around for a long time. And guess what I'm gonna show actually this real quick. So this is even more so at the top you'll notice there's injectable options. So that's that pro heart. Just don't do it, please don't do it. Don't do pro heart injections, it kills pets. I mean there's all potential risks as we know. That's why you're here and why you're worried you don't wanna put poisons into your pet. Totally understand that. Pro heart though is not not ideal. The topicals, it's a chemical, it's a combination. Chemical revolution, there's a lot of resistance with heartworm and revolution is one of the most common ones that has resistance. So I wouldn't use that. And I see a lot of pets have topical reactions to revolution. They lose hair, they look like they had a burn. It's irritating.

So use, if you need to use a conventional heartworm product because you're in a high risk area interceptor. So heart guard or interceptor. So those would be the two I would look at. And then so those are cats for your preventatives, for your cats too. So you can use interceptive for your cats if you're in, if you're in a heartworm area, cats can get this too. And remember, they, they die from this. This is not good for them. The treatment is not good for them. Um, it's really difficult to treat heartworm and cats. So what is the safe heart protocol? This is not mentioned and this is something where you can take a picture of this, take it to your veterinarian. Um, so this is using that Melba Mycin. This is an interceptor and this, so it's the active ingredient that kills the larva stage.

And this has been approved by the F D A at one fifth the regular dosage to kill heartworms only. So most of these medications are at a high, a much higher dosage because they're also killing any intestinal parasites too. So it's also taking out round worms, whip worms, hook worms. Um, some of them take out tapeworms too if they have pros qual included in like with melva mycin or um, in your heart guard like plus products. So if it says plus it's including prosa qual or something similar to take out tapeworms. But when we lower the dosage, so we're lowering the chemical we're putting in, there's been studies that show that it still kills the larval stage, which is great, right? So we're potentially, we're lowering the risk of adverse effects but we're still achieving the results that we want. So we can prevent heartworm at much lower doses and con the needed if we don't necessarily need to control intestinal parasites.

Safe Heart Protocol for Heartworm Prevention

And this will depend on every single pet, right? Every scenario is going to be a little bit different. I put the actual recommended dosage because this is what your vet can look at and calculate for your pet. So for heartworm prevention, for Milbemycin, it's 0.05 mgs per kg or sorry per pound 0.1, mgs per kg. So typically if I'm thinking about it right off the top of my head, most of these drugs are actually at like six MIGS per keg. So that is a huge increase but it's to kill the intestinal parasites. So this has actually been shown to be effective when given every 45 days. So now what we can do, so this is where if you're at a high risk, yes you can do this too. I would test more frequently testing that antigen twice a year, making sure that we're picking up if that pet for some reason this isn't working.

Um, and then what we can do now is we can look, okay, why, why would we need to give this, right? We have two weeks of higher temperatures, higher than 57 degrees and then we can give this So 45 days after that period of time then we start this protocol and then you need to make sure that you're setting reminders and that's why the 30 days works, that's why it's the recommendation because it's easier for people to comply with. But studies have shown 45 to 60 days you can kill the larval stage by giving this. So it's a weird kind of convoluted way to look at this, but this is a way that we can reduce the dosage of the chemical you are worried about to reduce the adverse side effects. Look at alongside temperatures, look at your area, the risk of heartworm, and then treat your pet and keep them safe, which is what I'm all about...now, natural heartworm preventatives.

Natural Heartworm Preventatives

So there's a couple that are really like they pop up over and over and over again. And so what I did is I put them up here and I put their ingredients and we're gonna talk just briefly on those. So the first one is only natural pet HW protect. So it has ginger, black walnut, wormwood, Andrographis, oat parsley. So there's a lot of things in there that support immune health, gut health, the detox and then have like anti parasite in them. And then the for like the Andrographis that has a lot of cardiovascular effects. So that's a western herb also. So this is a western herbal formula. Now the biggest problem with this is if you have a pet that has a weaker immune system so they're already at a higher risk, like their body's not gonna fight off heartworm naturally. So if they have liver disease, kidney disease, you can't give black walnut and wormwood long term to these pets without causing more issues.

The other thing is too is this is really cold. It's a really cold formula. So when we look at herbs, we look at the energetic properties of them, this is putting a lot of cold energy into the GI system. And it's interesting too when you look at the reviews of this product, like there's some really like bad reviews cuz they're like, my dog didn't tolerate this, they got diarrhea. And I'm like that's why this is a strong formula. It is not meant to be given every day of the year, year after year. So the thing also with Amber naturally H W F Clean heart formula. So they have a different approach, it's a more gentle approach. It does have some anti parasite treatment in it. It supports the heart. The Hawthorne's really good for the cardiovascular system. The biggest thing that I would say is that these are good to use.

I would say especially the Clean Heart formula would be good to use alongside your extended out safe heart protocol. I would worry about this preventing heartworm in a high risk area. So these would be things that you can use in a low risk area during those higher temperature periods. If I lived in Florida, I'd be a little uncomfortable giving this all year round. For one, it's the, especially the HW Protect is gonna be super strong for your pet and you're probably gonna develop or create other health problems. So that's something to be aware of. The clean heart, you can probably give that more long term. However, like I said, if you're in those areas, I would look at some other options. We're gonna talk about heartworm, no nosodes. So a lot of people will use this alongside some of those a other natural remedies. So like the clean heart those, there's also ways to use Chinese herbs to help resolve underlying imbalances for that pet.

You're supporting the immune system, you're making it stronger to fight off heartworm naturally. So heartworm nosodes, you'd wanna work with a homeopathic veterinarian on how to give that, when to give it how frequently to give it. Keeping in mind even uh, one of the biggest holistic homeopathic veterinarians out there will Fal Conner, he even mentioned he's, he's had cases develop heartworm. It's not a hundred percent guarantee. So if you're in an area, this is my disclaimer, if you are in an area where there's a lot of heartworm, I would go with lower dosages of conventional safer like your interceptor and use it over that longer period of time versus every single month. And then we're gonna talk at the, I think it's in the next slide actually, about what else you can do to support your pet's body. These are the things you need to know, you need to look at.

This is how you assess the risk to benefit ratio of using a conventional drug versus going all natural. What is the risk of heartworm disease in your area? Go back to that incident chart and are you in an area where it is like dark purple? I would really consider potentially using something that's gonna be a little bit stronger cuz heart worm is not for the weak and it can kill pets over the long term. Yes, it takes a long time and there's a lot of natural remedies we can do to treat adult heart worms. But it creates, there's inflammation, it puts stress on the body. If we can avoid getting to that point, it'll be much better for your pet. We also need to look at the potential side effects of chemical preventative drugs. So I say preventative, remember we're treating the month prior, but what are those side effects?

If you're gonna be told to give it every 30 days, are you in an area where you should be giving it every 30 days? Are you being told to use pro heart? That is highly toxic and if your pet has an adverse reaction, you can't remove an injection. So you need to look at what are the pros and cons of these and assess it from a more objective, not just a subjective approach where I hate drugs, I don't wanna give them no, we need to look at what does your pet need, what is the environment like and how do we support their overall health? We can look at other alternatives to these products that you can use alone or in conjunction with them. So some of the ones that we just talked about, detox agents to help your body's, your pet's body, typically your dogs that are on this recover if necessary, which we're gonna talk about next.

Keeping your pet in an awesome and immune system is the most important foundation for good health and helping them get rid of any potential. Larval infections, things like that. Any intestinal parasites, if they come across it, this is key. You look at like the wolves, coyotes, are they dropping dead from heartworm? No they're not. But they're also not being exposed to all the environmental toxins, the vaccines, the crap that's put in the food, they're not being exposed to that. So their immune systems tend to be stronger than our household pets who are being exposed to chemicals over 85,000 toxins every single day. If you wanna learn more about toxins, go to our YouTube channel. And I just posted a video about environmental toxins and what you can do. It's astounding what we are exposed to and what our pets are exposed to.

Also, also here is a big thing that I didn't mention with the preventatives. You don't just give preventatives if you are using conventional drugs. And this would go for if you're using stronger herbs too, you need to test prior to starting these medications. Remember the tests only show if your pet has an adult heartworm. They're at the later stages already. If you give these stronger drugs, especially in those higher, like if you gave the full dosage, you can create many side effects. What can happen is that it causes a die off and then your pet has like an anaphylactic reaction. It can lead to pulmonary embolism. There are all sorts of problems that can happen. So make sure you're getting your pets tested. If you're taking a more holistic approach, I definitely recommend testing at least every six months to make sure that you're potentially picking up an infection that happened and is passed into that micro stage.

Natural Environmental Treatment To Reduce Heartworm Disease Risk

Mosquitoes, that's how, that's how your pet contracts them. You need to reduce mosquitoes or try to, yes, I get like Florida, Texas, like there's just bugs, right? It's really difficult to get rid of. It can be really hard to get rid of fleas. Like you know, you, it's like warfare on these things. But with mosquitoes, let's think about it like if we put more bird houses around, bat houses around our property, if you can, not everyone can do this, but for swallows, for bats, they eat them. So that'll help. So putting, if you have standing body like ponds or lakes or anything, if you can put minnows in there, they'll eat the mosquito larva. So like utilizing nature to help reduce the mosquito population, you can use essential oils, cedarwood, lemongrass, citronella, rosemary, basil. There's a lot of really great natural remedies that are safe for you, safe for your pets when you use them appropriately to help reduce the burden of mosquitoes.

Wondercide is a great company that has a lot of different products for treating your yard. Um, treating pets like there's a lot of great things in that company, so I would definitely check those out. Veteran science has veteran repel wipes that utilizes essential oils that you can wipe down your dog before they go outside. Guess what? You live in like an area where, yeah, okay, we all go inside when the mosquitoes are worse, right? But your dog still to go outside to go to the bathroom usually. So you're like sending them out into the mosquito infested yard. But what you can do is you can wipe them down with these wipes prior to them going and the mosquitoes will be less likely to land on them and infect them. Detox. If you're having to give these conventional drugs, see if you can use that safe heart protocol.

But also if you're having to use these, what can you do to help support your pet's overall immune health. You can use homeopathics. So Thuja, you can use it on the first day. You have to give the meds and then for a couple days after that will help detox any reaction to the chemicals. How do we support the immune health? We can give antioxidants, we help reduce inflammation that can happen from the body naturally processing those drugs. Vitamin E is a great one. So for a small dog, so like your little chihuahuas, your less than 25 pounds, a hundred international units per day and then your big dog. So say over 75, 70 pounds and higher is gonna be 400 international units per day. Just get the human variety from your your health store. Um, and you can give that every single day. If you're using fish oils, omega-3 fatty acids, this is a supplement that you should be adding in anyways because it acts as an antioxidant to those omega three s.

So it helps with the body and the way it processes those. So a lot of pets should be on omega three s anyways cuz it's not being supplemented in their food, especially if they're on a kibble diet. Support the liver. This is what's detoxing those chemicals. That's what's processing the chemicals. So by using things like milk thistle, dandelion, burdock root for that week, after giving that medication, you're going to help the body. You're not getting rid of it where it doesn't work, but what you're doing is you're helping them. Keeping in mind the body's not storing this. When you give that drug, it treats the 30 days prior, it doesn't stay in the body. So say your pet gets bit that next day after you give something, they're still going to have that larva injected into their body and that's when the next 45 day dose is going to treat that.

So keep that in mind. It's not stored, but we're putting extra burden on the body. So we need to support the detox pathways to help your pet stay healthy. So animal essentials detox blend is a really good product that I like. Um, and then also feeding a biologically appropriate diet. Is your cat on either wet food or raw diet? Is your dog eating kibble? Let's see if we can transition them to a balanced homecooked diet or transition them to a freeze-dried raw or even a raw diet. Something that's going to reduce inflammation. Provide all those proteins, those biologically available proteins that your pet needs for optimal health versus feeding a processed food diet that creates more inflammation in the body and suppresses the immune health. It makes them more at risk of not being able to fight off these things heartworm and other diseases naturally.

*Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your own veterinarian or doctor. The information contained in thenaturalpetdoctor.com is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply ideas contained in thenaturalpetdoctor.com, you are taking full responsibility for your actions. Please consult your veterinarian for medical advice for your own pets. Dr. Katie Woodley cannot answer specific questions about your pet's medical issues or make medical recommendations for your pet without first establishing a veterinarian-client-patient relationship.