I just wanted to drop a quick note about Heartworm TREATMENT. I am not talking about the monthly prevention (Heartgard, Interceptor, etc). I'm talking about the medication we use to treat your dog if it actually gets heartworms. The medication is called Immiticide, it comes as an injection that is administered in your dogs back muscles. The problem and concern right now is that Merial has experienced a technical issue at the plant where the FDA-approved version of the drug is manufactured, and it's inventory ran out in August of this year. In simple terms this means if your dog gets heartworms, we have no way of treating it!!! The monthly prevention DOES NOT treat heartworms, it PREVENTS them. The prevention works by killing the baby heartworms before they are able to becomes adult worms.
I have been advising all my clients to be very diligent about giving their heartworm prevention every month. They are currently working on importing a limited amount of Immiticide from Merial's European supplier. Please call your veterinarian with any questions or concerns.
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