To My Dog's Vet: No, I don't have to buy HeartGuard from you!

I don’t know how bad mosquitoes are in S. Cal., but if you don’t use heartworm preventative in Georgia you’ve got a really good chance of ending up with a dog with heartworms. My first dog as a child died of them. As a vet tech, I saw many, many cases. The treatment for heartworms is much better than it used to be, but it’s still dangerous - pieces of the dead worms can break off and cause problems. If the worms are not treated they continue to breed until the heart is literally full of them. Treatment is also very expensive - I think it was over $500 for the boxer belonging to a friend of mine.

Ivermectin is safe for most dogs in the correct dosage; I don’t think collies or collie mixes can take it. That’s why it comes from the vet instead of PetSmart. The preventative works by killing one stage of the heartworm; it does not kill adults.

Of course it’s your dog and your money; if you choose not to use preventative no one can make you. If I had dogs I would use it, and I don’t like to medicate any animal more than absolutely necessary.

I thought I wrote something about certain areas - checks - nope, I guess I just thought it. You can’t read my thoughts? :cool: Yes, if I lived in the deep south I’d have a lot of trouble with this issue as I don’t know that I could give my kids something like that every month. Mosquitoes in S Cal are almost non-existent if for no other reason than we don’t have much in the way of non-man made water!

So, the same as less than a years worth of preventative?

Well, that’s the company line, but there are many dogs who have bad reactions who are not collies or collie mixes (table two). I had one dog who had seizures and a cat who had one seizure after using a “safe” flea/tick medication, and have had to deal with owners of dogs with weird, totally unknown-in-a-breed health issues that “came out of no where”. Such as a retriever that died of a heart condition that supposedly only toy dogs get. I had a dog die of lymphoma and while studying it I found that a common weed & feed put on lawns has been linked to it in dogs. Basically, I don’t give anything to my dogs that I cannot safely take myself.

Heartworm is a non-issue here, there is simply no reason to feed my dogs and cat poison every month. Particularly anything that also has something for intestinal worms in it, since those are not dangerous to healthy animals. If I have to run some Nemex down a dog twice during it’s lifetime, so much better than doing it every month.

It has nothing to do with money - I’m the one that spent 10’s of thousands on that dog with lymphoma!

Wow - if less than a year’s worth of preventative is $500 I’m sure glad I don’t have to give it to my cats! They do make it for cats now, but since heartworm disease is seldom fatal in cats I don’t give it. For some reason cats seldom get more that one or two worms; not a heartful.

I wasn’t trying to imply you are a bad doggie momma! And no, you didn’t mention the lack of mosquitoes in S. Cal. May I send you a few? I have plenty to spare!

I don’t understand the contention of the Vet’s receptionist that postal regulations do not permit mailing medicines. Mine are always mailed to me by my pharmacist. At least in that, I believe that she is incorrect.

Bob (first post in a pit thread).

Your contention is silly in the first place (I know there’s little chance of a response). It is almost* always in the rational self interest of a consumer to find the best deal on a product (cost/benefit analysis of quality and price), just as it is almost always in the rational self interest of a producer or distributor to extract as much profit as possible from their customers. It is possible for there to exist a temporary disequilibrium caused by more efficient sources. Faulting the consumer for benefiting from them is pointless. The short term gains of early adopters just push the system back into equilibrium by forcing competitors to adopt the more efficient methods, which everyone stands to gain from.

*Barring tragedy of the Commons and boycotting certain companies.

No, she’s full of shit. The pricing varies based on your dog’s weight, but it’s less than $10/month for a freaking mastiff. It’s more generally in the $6-8 range. And treatment, at least around here, is more in the $800 range.

I am the receptionist/drug pusher at a vet’s office.

  1. Snap 4dx is the heartworm test you guys are talking about. It tests for heartworm, lyme, ehrlichia, and anaplasmosis. It has to be given once a year ( or every other year with a waiver signed on the off year and only if the preventative is being given year round) for a heartworm preventative prescription to be written.

If the last heartworm test was given in December, you don’t need another test. We don’t even do heartworm tests on dogs until they’re a year old because it takes around 6 months or so for the infection to even show up on the test so we wait for the first annual exam after puppy shots are done.
2. Heartguard (from Merial) is available prescription only. My vet will not mail any prescription, heartguard or not, but I don’t know if this is her policy, state policy, or postal policy. She will absolutely NOT send a prescription to an online vendor and it has NOTHING to do with her profits.

Online vendors get their drugs from untrustworthy means. They do not ever get them from the vendor. The medication is scanned when it leaves the vendor so they can track where they sent it. If they get a call from someone with medication from an online source and they trace it to a vet, they will stop selling to that vet (I’m not positive but I think they also get in trouble with the vet board).

Anyway, medication of any kind bought from an online veterinary supply source is NOT backed by any warranty and your vet and the manufacturer will not guarantee its efficacy. This is why my boss wont deal with them.

If you buy your Heartguard from your vet and your pet still gets heartworm, Merial has a policy in place for dealing with it. If you buy it from an online source, they will basically tell you to get lost.
3. Buying online doesn’t necessarily cost less. For instance:

Heartguard - We have coupons from Merial. If a client buys a year supply of Heartguard from us (2 boxes), they will get a $12 refund check in the mail from Merial.

Frontline - For every 3 month supply you buy, you will get a 1 month supply free. This is not an office sale. This is a Merial deal. Depending on the size you use and the cost in your area, you could save about $20 by buying a 3 month supply (and getting 4) from your vet.

Other meds - we also have vendor supplied rebates and free vials for Vectra, Revolution, Advantix, Comfortis, and Iverhart.

So, double check with your vet to see if they’re doing any of the vendor promotions because you might end up paying less than you would online and you will still get the benefit of the vendor warranty, along with the peace of mind knowing that your medication isn’t expired or improperly stored.

I just checked my last bill. I got a 1 year supply of Heartguard in the 20-50 pound range. It cost me about $88 and I will be getting the refund check in the mail so in reality a 1 year supply cost me about $76.00. Of course, a 1 year supply only lasts 4 months because I have 3 dogs. :cool:

I realize this is a zombie but reasons not to buy online are relevant, even 8 years later. :smiley:

$88 a year is cheap insurance in my opinion, and I’d want the vet involved in the process for my mutt Bentley. Just my 2 cents.

Congodwarf, thanks for giving me new information! I haven’t worked in a vet’s office for 10 years so I’m kind of out of touch with current pricing! I didn’t know Merial invalidates the warranty if the Heartgard isn’t purchased from a vet; that’s good to know and information I will give to a friend who gets her meds online.

Since I only have cats I don’t have to deal with Heartgard, but I go through a lot of Advantage, and the free vial offers save me a bundle. In addition, I have to use Revolution for one of my cats - he’s so much over Advantage’s top weight listing I don’t trust it - and my vet usually just gives me that one free. Keeping the cats totally indoors and keeping the outside of the house treated with sevin dust means I only have to treat twice a year or so, but with 7 cats it adds up!

Indeed, I heard poor buddy died from a bad heartworm infection he caught in January '05. They valiently tried to save him with medicine purchased from 1800petmeds.com, but alas, the pills turned out to be nothing more than M&M’s.

Update: Buddy is 11 now. He spent this past weekend at our lakehouse boating and chasing rabbits. Good weekend to be a beagle. He is currently napping; he doesn’t recover as quickly as he used to.

I did chuckle when I saw a sign at my (new) vet’s office that said that the pharma companies are no longer producing medicines to treat heartworm, so either treat them year-round or risk them dying!! Yeah, whatever. I still don’t treat Buddy in the dead of winter.

In subsequent years, I have also learned the hard way that OTC flea medicine is useless, so I now buy the prescription strength. Between his annual shots, Frontline, heartworm prevention (not HeartGuard, but I can’t remember the name) and Rimadyl (occasionally, for arthritis), Buddy sets me back ~$400 per annual visit. Dumb dog. Still I love him.

I don’t know how poor people afford pets. But if the internet helps them alleviate the cost of medicines, then I’m STILL all for them.

Umm, :confused:

You need to buy the heartwork PREVENTION medicine because they aren’t making the heartworm treatment should you not succeed in preventing, and the dog ends up with heartworms.

I wonder what success rate the treatment had to justify not making it at all.

Heartworm positive dogs can be treated w/ Ivermectin (+ Doxycycline), just with different dosing procedures than preventative dosing.

And it wasn’t so much the success rate as the actual need for it, because it was expensive and hard on the dog. Ivermectin is a slower treatment, but effective if the infection isn’t massive.

(What sensitive dogs like collies are treated with, that I don’t know)

Maybe there’s never a truly mosquito-free interval in southern Ohio, but I guarantee there’s one - a good long one - in Ontario. So, unless a new more robust mosquito has arrived that can withstand sustained temps in the teens and twenty’s (degree F), or worse, whyTF did my dog’s vet insist on testing for heartworm every May? Notice I said “did my dog’s vet”, as in past tense . . .

Too many cat ladies. Cannot keep track. Urk.

I have a good vet. They wanted to fill the script. I said I want the script so I can shop around. They said bring in the price and they will match it. I asked what they charged first.
Turned out, they charge less then all the prices I found online

Since we’re all here anyway, does anyone have an opinion on Trifexis? It’s a new all in one (heartworm, intestinal worms, fleas) monthly tablet. My vet is pushing it pretty hard. The Bay Area isn’t exactly a thriving heartworm hotspot, nor do my indoor dogs get a lot of fleas or worms. But we do hit the dog parks and off leash hiking areas a bit, so they’re exposed to poop.

It’s pretty expensive, but I’m giving my two ~20lb basenjis half of the 20-40lb weight range tablets. Wonder what the vets will say about THAT…!

Milbemycin oxime (Interceptor, Sentinel) can be used instead. Heck, there are more preventive drugs that are not just Ivermectin, and new ones are probably still beind developed. The thing is that ivermectin is much cheaper in general than Interceptor (or so they claim).

For all your heartworm questions, the #1 website to consult is, at least in the US of course:

American Heartworm Society

Digging through some other search engines, it seems the primary adulticide (Immiticide) is available, but just on a case by case (ie, the vet cannot ask for a whole lot, but gets what it needs to treat a specific animal).

Also, the guidelines have changed and what a few years ago was a “slow treatment for sick dogs” is now more “standard treatment for asymptomatic or symptomatic dogs”. The whole idea is to make it much more safer for the dog.

And some of us don’t even label ourselves as such. Four cats rule my house. As you might expect, there are frequent challenges to the throne.