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Heartworms - sad update
- Dec 12, 2007 at 12:43 PM
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- Comments (4) Total Views (108) Everyone can see this journal post.
My beagle mix, Bella has heartworms. She is an inside dog that spends hardly any time outside, so I never thought of putting her on a HW preventive. She had diarehea, so we took her to the vet. $50.00 worth of meds, and 1 week later, she still wasn't better. Her stomach looked swollen, and she had begun coughing. $116.00 worth of meds, blood work, and x-rays later, and we had a diagnosis of heartworms. The 2nd set of meds (4 different ones), is just to get her blood levels in the normal range, so that they can then begin to treat the heartworms. That treatment consists of 3 days at the vet's, and a series of injections into the muscle of the lower back over a 2 day period. The injections are so painful that she has to be given a sedative and pain killer before each shot. I could not feel more guilty. The rest of the treatment will be about $1,000. Luckily, we are finished Christmas shopping, or there would be a lot of unhappy people! Right now, I am re-doing our budget (or rather throwing it out!) to figure out where this money is coming from. I'm not too worried about the money, because we will do whatever we have to.
So, in short, HW preventive is $12.00-$20.00 for 6 months worth of meds. Please put your dog on it, if they aren't already. Bella, and my 3 other dogs will all be on it when this is over.
***UPDATE:
Well, Bella has completed the HW treatment. She went to the vet's on Dec. 26, and came home on Dec. 28th. Luckily, our vet doesn't charge anything near what the websites I looked at quoted. Maybe it is because we are in a fairly small town, who knows. Anyway, her treatment was only 175.00. She has to go back on January 18th for a oral booster. Then she has to go back February 8th, for a HW test. If it is negative, then she goes back in April for a final test. If she is still negative, they will start her on HW preventaive. The 1st two visits won't cost anything, they are included in the price of the treatment. She is pretty sore, but doing well. And, we are very happy to have her home.
********************Update
I have so not been wanting to do this update, so this will be short. On January 18th, we took Bell to the vet to get her oral booster of heatworm medicine. This was the last of the HW meds she needed. The morning of the 19th, I woke up and she was so weak she couldn't move. We rushed her to the vet and he said she was dehydrated and put her on IV fluids (which had to be given orally at first b/c they couldn't find her veins), antibiotics, and steroids. He said he would keep her the weekend. He updated us later that day that she was eating & drinking, but her breathing was labored. The next day (Sunday) he said she was eating, drinking, wagging her tail, walking around in her cage, and her breathing was a little better. He called back at 11:30 that night and said Bella had died. He thinks she had a reaction to the oral booster which apparently isn't that uncommon. We picked her up when they opened the next morning and buried her. We are still in shock and I cannot even express how sad and guilty I feel. I know that non-animal people won't understand, but, I know that many of you will.
Here is my girl:
Comments:
((((((HUGS)))))))))))) Prayers being said for your Bella! I also have 4 dogs and they are like family, I know I would do whatever it took to make them well. The week of Thanksgiving they all had colds....1 with an upper resp. infection, cough & a sore throat, one with coughing & hacking up mucous for over 24 hours and 2 with coughs. It was JUST like having sick kids. I stayed up all night with the 1 until we got him to the vet and up all night with the mucous hacker (LOL) until we got her on meds and she showed signs of improvement. It didn't cost as much as it will to get your Bella better but it was $110 and we did what needed done. They depend on us. ((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))
I'm srry about your puppy dog! DF's dog recently passed (old age) and less than a week later his cat also went. Needless to say I cried for both even though I've only known them a short time. I told my mom not to tell me when my childhood pup goes...I don't think I could handle it. As it is he's basically the only reason why I ever want to go visit them!
Oh and btw... don't feel guilty about the heartworms. When I was a kid my parents had our dog, Lucky, on preventitive meds and he got them anyway. And he's an inside dog, so the meds don't always help either.
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- deadheadjen
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