The Carolinas’ subtropical climate attracts many people to make their homes here. Unfortunately, our climate also attracts swarms of mosquitoes that can infect your dog or cat with heartworm disease, which damages pets’ lungs and circulatory system and can be fatal.
Heartworm disease incidence
North and South Carolina consistently rank among the top 10 states for heartworm disease, with the coastal areas the hardest hit because of their marshy areas where mosquitoes breed. The American Heartworm Society’s (AHS) most recent heartworm incidence map, based on a 2023 survey of veterinary practices and shelters nationwide, shows that the high-density areas for heartworm disease have expanded in the Carolinas.
Heartworm life cycle
Pets become infected with heartworm disease when an infected mosquito bites and transfers microscopic larvae (i.e., microfilariae) to the pet. The microfilariae travel through the pet’s bloodstream for about six months and take up residence in the heart and large vessels. There they mature into foot-long worms that reproduce—a dog’s heart can be filled with 30 to 100 worms—and cause respiratory and cardiac issues that can be life-threatening.
A year-round problem
While many people think of spring and summer as the mosquito seasons, pets in South Carolina—including those who never or rarely go outdoors—need a year-round heartworm preventive, since winter here is seldom harsh enough to banish all the little bloodsuckers. Only one missed dose of prevention allows a mosquito to infect your pet.
Your furry friends also need annual heartworm tests, because some mosquito strains have become resistant to prevention medications. Early disease detection allows for the most successful treatment, and you should never hesitate to enlist our veterinary team at Fort Mill Animal Hospital to help you win the battle against this killer disease.
The importance of prevention
Heart disease prevention has many advantages over treatment, including:
- Easier on pets and owners — One injection of a heartworm preventive can protect a dog for a year or a cat for six months. Protection is also available in monthly topical and chewable forms. Some heartworm preventives have the extra advantage of warding off fleas, ticks, and some intestinal parasites.
If you don’t use a preventive, and your dog gets heartworm disease, the only treatment is long, painful, and expensive. Your dog will have to endure injections deep into their back muscles that usually cause severe pain, swelling, and loss of appetite. Also, a dog being treated for heartworm disease must be severely exercise-restricted for at least four weeks to prevent the broken-up dead worms from clotting and creating a blockage.
Cats are affected differently and usually only harbor a few worms that mostly damage the lungs, causing heartworm associated respiratory disease (HARD). No treatment is available for cats, and the first disease sign is often sudden death. Therefore, prevention in cats is vital.
- Easier on the budget — Heartworm disease prevention is much less expensive than treatment. Preventives can cost from $70 to $200 for 12 months, but medications, veterinary fees, X-rays, lab tests, and post-treatment preventives can cost $1,200 to $1,800.
- Minimal complications — Prevention medication stops the larvae from maturing to adult worms, which inflame the blood vessels and block blood flow, leading to clots in the lungs and heart failure and sometimes damaging the kidneys and liver. Preventives have few or no side effects, but they must be administered regularly, with no missed doses.
Preventives not only mean pets do not have to endure the painful heart disease treatments, but they also do not suffer the side effects, which include allergic reactions that can cause swelling, itching, hives, or difficulty breathing, injection site inflammation or pain, blood vessel blockages, and inflamed lungs and breathing problems.
- Early detection of other problems — The test used to diagnose canine heartworm disease also tests for tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and anaplasmosis.
Heartworms are scary, but your dog or cat is in good hands at our Fear Free practice. Call our veterinary team at Fort Mill Animal Hospital to make an appointment for your pet’s heartworm testing and prevention plan. Mosquitoes may be plentiful in our community, but we want them banished from our pets.
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