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With Spring peeking around the corner, we will be seeing mosquitoes. Unfortunately some of these pest like our cats as much as they like us.
Heartworm disease is spread from infected dogs to cat via a mosquitoes bite. For every 100 dogs infected there will be 10-20 cats infected. The spreading of Heartworms is similar to Zika or malaria.
We have written about heartworm disease in a previous post which you can read here.
We have seen some heartworm positive cats in our practices and felt this was a good time to discuss prevention. Did you know more cats are positive for heartworm disease than are positive for either Feline Leukemia or the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV)?
UPDATES
We have learned that the disease is more fatal than once thought. Some cases of asthma are actually secondary lesions to heartworm disease. Heartworm circulating larva cause extensive damage to the lungs – Heartworm Associated Respiratory Disease (HARD).
Heartworm preventatives such as Heartgard and Revolution have retro protection. This means that if your cat was exposed 3 months ago, the preventive will protect them from getting heartworm disease.
The treatment used in dogs to eliminate Heartworms is not approved in cats. Using it in cats may result in death.
With Heartworm disease, there is a concurrent bacterial infection, Wolbachia. This has been shown in dogs, but the jury is still out for cats. The treatment is Doxycycline. We commonly use this antibiotic in cats with asthma. The current thinking is that it does not hurt and may potentially have benefit to our cats.
COST
The cost for the topical product, Revolution is $12.50/month or $0.41/day. Revolution also deworms and protects against fleas
The cost for the oral product, Heartgard is $7.12/month or $0.25/day. Heartgard only protects against heartworm disease
FINAL THOUGHTS
One update, we do NOT have is a more sensitive test for Feline Heartworm disease. That test is still in the works. Given that Heartworms are potentially fatal, hard to diagnosis, and incurable in cats, inexpensive prevention seems to be the best solution.
To learn more about Feline Heartworm disease from the American Hearworm Society (AHS) click here.
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