VETERINARY
ASSOCIATES STONEFIELDWednesday, July 06, 2005
Summertime is Parasite Time!!
This is a story about how a superb pet owner accidentally allowed their 5 year old Black Lab Mix female to get hookworm disease.
I happened to be standing at the reception desk one Saturday morning when the first appointment of the day walked in, the gentleman and his pet (we will call the patient Lucky). Announced they were there for their annual.
We often get questions from clients about why we should keep doing fecal (for intestinal worms) and heartworm tests every year especially when their dogs are “on” heartworm prevention. One of the big reasons is communication which will become evident further in this story. My technician asked the man if he had his dog on heartworm prevention and he automatically responded yes I am sure she is!
They proceeded to the exam room and my technician pulled the blood for the heartworm test, and a stool sample for the fecal test.
I examined the patient and she looked great and got my standard abbreviation in the chart for a healthy patient’s physical exam, which is PE-NAF. This stands for Physical Examination No Abnormal Findings. I asked the gentleman again if he had his heartworm prevention and he said yes he had plenty, so I invited him to move onto the reception desk and start checking out and I would retrieve his test results for him, expecting this very healthy APPEARING dog to be parasite free. NOT!!! She had hookworms!! So I walked back to the desk and asked the man again if he was sure Lucky was getting her once monthly pills for heartworm disease prevention, he said, ”Well, my wife does all of this, so I cannot say 100% she gets it every month, but I thought she did.”
I explained to the client that the current heartworm product of choice in our hospital is Triheart, a liver flavored treat that prevents not only heartworms but also prevents the intestinal worms known as hookworms, roundworms and whipworms. Therefore Lucky must not be getting her heartworm pill once monthly. We had to then give an oral dewormer to kill the current infection, and we will repeat this treatment in 3 weeks. Three weeks from the last treatment we will test Lucky’s stools again to make sure we have cleared Lucky’s system of this parasite. Since Lucky appeared so healthy I ordered no further testing for anemia. Hookworms live attached to the intestinal wall, and they feed themselves by secreting an anticoagulant at the point of attachment to your dogs’ intestinal wall. Ignored long enough this would have resulted in severe anemia (low red blood cells) and serious illness. Should Lucky have been cut or injured and needed immediate surgery she would have been a very risky surgery patient because her blood would not clot appropriately, and she would have been so anemic she would have been a serious surgical and anesthetic risk. I sold the client a six months supply of Lucky’s appropriate strength of Triheart and sent them on their way, with an appointment in three weeks for the second deworming procedure.
Another very important function we have as your veterinarian is to keep your family safe as well; children can contract these worms, usually from the yard. The dog goes poopy on the lawn, the eggs become mature and hatch into microscopic larvae in your soil, where this time of year we let our kids run around bare-footed and play in the yard. The larvae penetrate the skin of the child and these larvae (baby worms) migrate under the skin. The parasite is confused, because it is in the wrong host, had this been another dogs foot the worm would have migrated to the intestine. In the child, an aberrant (wrong) host, the larvae stay under the skin, usually on the skin of the belly or underside of the arms. This condition is called Cutaneous Larval Migrans, and you can learn more than you want to know about this disease at http://www.cdc.gov/. While this condition is usually not fatal it is often hard to diagnose, and then there is the expense of treatment, and parents get scared to death because their beloved pet has given their child a disease. These diseases are called “zoonotic” diseases that means diseases transmissible from animals to humans.
So now you see how important it is for good communication to occur within the family. You must KNOW that Lucky gets her heartworm pill once monthly. And now you see that we are testing your dog at least once yearly to keep not only your pet but your entire family happy and healthy.
Also do not forget to use your flea/tick prevention, Frontline Top Spot Plus, once monthly as well. This can be applied to the skin behind the back of the head, the same day of the month that you give your Triheart. Fleas carry tapeworms, when your pet ingests a flea, the tapeworm egg in the flea’s belly hatches into a worm and this firmly attaches to your pet’s intestine. Signs of tapeworms can be vomiting, diarrhea and weight loss, and severe weight loss even when they are eating ravenously. This is because the tapeworms are eating all of your dog’s meals!
Children can get tapeworms too, while this is much less common than the aforementioned hookworm disease in children, it can occur and it is much harder to diagnose and treat. So keep those fleas out of the house and off your pet by using the Frontline religiously. Another snafu I see often is that an owner is treating the dogs of the house with Frontline but not the cat, this does not work! You must treat every susceptible mammal in the house for this to keep your flea population to as near zero as possible. I have had owner’s come in very angry because they have been paying all this money for Frontline for their dog and they still have fleas! My first question is always, “Do you have a cat? Then you now know the answer to the next question, are you treating your cat with Frontline too?
Have a Great, Flea and Parasite Free Summer!
Sammy Vaughn
This is a story about how a superb pet owner accidentally allowed their 5 year old Black Lab Mix female to get hookworm disease.
I happened to be standing at the reception desk one Saturday morning when the first appointment of the day walked in, the gentleman and his pet (we will call the patient Lucky). Announced they were there for their annual.
We often get questions from clients about why we should keep doing fecal (for intestinal worms) and heartworm tests every year especially when their dogs are “on” heartworm prevention. One of the big reasons is communication which will become evident further in this story. My technician asked the man if he had his dog on heartworm prevention and he automatically responded yes I am sure she is!
They proceeded to the exam room and my technician pulled the blood for the heartworm test, and a stool sample for the fecal test.
I examined the patient and she looked great and got my standard abbreviation in the chart for a healthy patient’s physical exam, which is PE-NAF. This stands for Physical Examination No Abnormal Findings. I asked the gentleman again if he had his heartworm prevention and he said yes he had plenty, so I invited him to move onto the reception desk and start checking out and I would retrieve his test results for him, expecting this very healthy APPEARING dog to be parasite free. NOT!!! She had hookworms!! So I walked back to the desk and asked the man again if he was sure Lucky was getting her once monthly pills for heartworm disease prevention, he said, ”Well, my wife does all of this, so I cannot say 100% she gets it every month, but I thought she did.”
I explained to the client that the current heartworm product of choice in our hospital is Triheart, a liver flavored treat that prevents not only heartworms but also prevents the intestinal worms known as hookworms, roundworms and whipworms. Therefore Lucky must not be getting her heartworm pill once monthly. We had to then give an oral dewormer to kill the current infection, and we will repeat this treatment in 3 weeks. Three weeks from the last treatment we will test Lucky’s stools again to make sure we have cleared Lucky’s system of this parasite. Since Lucky appeared so healthy I ordered no further testing for anemia. Hookworms live attached to the intestinal wall, and they feed themselves by secreting an anticoagulant at the point of attachment to your dogs’ intestinal wall. Ignored long enough this would have resulted in severe anemia (low red blood cells) and serious illness. Should Lucky have been cut or injured and needed immediate surgery she would have been a very risky surgery patient because her blood would not clot appropriately, and she would have been so anemic she would have been a serious surgical and anesthetic risk. I sold the client a six months supply of Lucky’s appropriate strength of Triheart and sent them on their way, with an appointment in three weeks for the second deworming procedure.
Another very important function we have as your veterinarian is to keep your family safe as well; children can contract these worms, usually from the yard. The dog goes poopy on the lawn, the eggs become mature and hatch into microscopic larvae in your soil, where this time of year we let our kids run around bare-footed and play in the yard. The larvae penetrate the skin of the child and these larvae (baby worms) migrate under the skin. The parasite is confused, because it is in the wrong host, had this been another dogs foot the worm would have migrated to the intestine. In the child, an aberrant (wrong) host, the larvae stay under the skin, usually on the skin of the belly or underside of the arms. This condition is called Cutaneous Larval Migrans, and you can learn more than you want to know about this disease at http://www.cdc.gov/. While this condition is usually not fatal it is often hard to diagnose, and then there is the expense of treatment, and parents get scared to death because their beloved pet has given their child a disease. These diseases are called “zoonotic” diseases that means diseases transmissible from animals to humans.
So now you see how important it is for good communication to occur within the family. You must KNOW that Lucky gets her heartworm pill once monthly. And now you see that we are testing your dog at least once yearly to keep not only your pet but your entire family happy and healthy.
Also do not forget to use your flea/tick prevention, Frontline Top Spot Plus, once monthly as well. This can be applied to the skin behind the back of the head, the same day of the month that you give your Triheart. Fleas carry tapeworms, when your pet ingests a flea, the tapeworm egg in the flea’s belly hatches into a worm and this firmly attaches to your pet’s intestine. Signs of tapeworms can be vomiting, diarrhea and weight loss, and severe weight loss even when they are eating ravenously. This is because the tapeworms are eating all of your dog’s meals!
Children can get tapeworms too, while this is much less common than the aforementioned hookworm disease in children, it can occur and it is much harder to diagnose and treat. So keep those fleas out of the house and off your pet by using the Frontline religiously. Another snafu I see often is that an owner is treating the dogs of the house with Frontline but not the cat, this does not work! You must treat every susceptible mammal in the house for this to keep your flea population to as near zero as possible. I have had owner’s come in very angry because they have been paying all this money for Frontline for their dog and they still have fleas! My first question is always, “Do you have a cat? Then you now know the answer to the next question, are you treating your cat with Frontline too?
Have a Great, Flea and Parasite Free Summer!
Sammy Vaughn
Comments:
I'd like to note that Tri Heart Plus doesn't control whips, but Interceptor does. =)
--Julie Donan, a VAS client
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--Julie Donan, a VAS client
