Heartworm disease is one of those peculiar things that is regarded as a silent killer because it often takes time for its symptoms to reflect on dogs. Sometimes it takes a couple of months, which makes it difficult to prejudge whether your furry companion is suffering from this dangerous disease. This disease commences with a mosquito sting and ends with a prolonged, expensive treatment that can even take the life of your furry pal. Sometimes it might take time for the symptoms to appear, but by that time the worm might reach the stage of maturity i.e.; approximately six months.
Warning Signs That Point Your Dog Is Suffering From Heartworms
A Soft, Dry Cough
Heartworm makes its way into the lungs and commences to multiply in the lungs and its surrounding veins. This might cause the dog to cough after exercising and may even end up with fainting even after light exercising.
Inactivity / Lethargy
The dog might seem to become tired very soon. He would try to avoid going outside or avoid any physical activity. Due to heartworm infection their immune system gets weakened, which would make it intricate to be active even to conduct small tasks.
Weight Loss
Even minor physical activities like eating can become an intricate task with draining chores.
Rapid Or Difficult Breathing
Apart from coughing, dogs might also suffer from breathing problems when the worms get into the lungs and surrounding veins of the pet. This can make fluid build-up close to the blood vessels in the dogs which makes it hard for the lungs to oxygenate the blood.
Bell-shaped Chest
The chest might show bell-shaped appearance which can cause adult heartworm infection. This can result in loss of weight and anorexia leading to fluid build-up in response to the parasite’s presence.
Allergic Reaction
Dogs can also depict symptoms that are close to allergic reaction or asthmatic symptoms due to the presence of heartworms or their offspring.
Collapse
Due to wide array of heartworms in the heart it results in obstruction of blood flow that is accompanied by a collapse. It can also result in shock and red blood cell destruction. This can make the dog highly critical.
Some other prominent symptoms include:
- Blindness
- Excessive sleeping
- Increased blood pressure
- Lameness
- Nosebleeds
- Secondary pneumonia
- Seizures
Lameness, blindness and seizures, in dogs happen when the heartworms instead of going to the heart or lungs enter in places like the brain or eyes although it is quite infrequent. These symptoms can even be signs of other diseases. Hence, it becomes very intricate to identify heartworm infection in dogs. Hence, veterinarians use specialised tools to identify whether the dog is actually suffering from heartworm disease.
The treatment of heartworm disease is not only expensive, but also very painful for the doggy. Hence, it is advisable to prevent this disease by regularly administering heartworm preventative treatment to the dog. So, is your dog suffering from any of these warning signs of heartworms?
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