Some Heartworms Are Resistant In Spite Of Preventatives, Study

Among the worst diseases your dog can get is heartworm. In order to recover from it, you need time and a plan of drugs from your veterinarian, as well as the owners care and vaccinations.

It would be best to prevent it from ever happening.

However, preventatives are not effective, according to The Whole Dog Journal.

One strain of heartworms has actually built up resistance against it.

Research also shows that the "most popular preventative", Heartgard, is not 100 per cent effective, even though its labels claim that.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine has told Heartgard's to replace the wrong claim, according to Whole Dog Journal.

The heartworm is usually in the adult form, which multiply and start tiny little microfilaria in a juvenile stage. This can get transferred to the next dog from mosquito bites.

While it would help to kill microfilaria and more heartworms in juvenile stages before they grow, parasitology experts show that "the slow kill method" might make them resistant, just like antibiotics work with humans.

Hence, in spite of preventatives, there are always one or two from hundreds of millions of tiny little microfilaria that can manage to slip through the gates. They then become larvae and produce more resistant microfilaria.

Still, all you can do is continue to battle the resistant strains, and do not stop or balk at anything to prevent it, according to hngn.