Comments on Reason #3 to Fire Your Vet: Ignoring Trifexis Side Effects

Looking for information on treating lungworm. My lab was diagnosed with lungworm in September and treated with Panacur which didn’t completely rid her of the parasite. On November 6 she was started on Advantage multi as it is known to be a treatment/preventative. Shortly after she started having strange behavior and 26 days later had her first witnessed seizure in the middle of the night. She saw an ER VET the night of the seizure and was allowed to come home after 24 hours and no more seizures. I was given the ok to give her the spot on as it was safe. I had not yet made the connection. I gave her the second dose. Two days later when I got home from work she was wobbling and unsteady. She even stumbled and fell while going to potty. She improved that night. 7 days later I came home to find her and she had apparently had a seizure...she couldn’t walk and her feet were drawn up. Vet prescribed Valium.later that evening she was completely normal. No seizures since and an internal medicine vet said seizures were due to the Moxidectin. The only thing left to treat the lungworm that I know of is Interceptor plus. A neuro vet said this was safe to use. I’m worried of another seizure but know the lungworm has to be treated. Do know anything else that would work or think the interceptor plus is ok?

Thanks
Tiffany

Hello Dr. Falconer,

I lost two dogs in 2018 and this year in March. they were both 13 years old Shih Tzu.
After reading this article I strongly believe that Trifexis was what caused their deaths. They both started having really bad seizures when I gave the heartworm guard Trifexis. One of my dogs also started to have neuro damage. I didn't think that the medication was the problem for a long time. After my first dog died, I started suspecting the medication. I gradually then completely stopped giving trifexis to my other dog and the seizures subsided. I do believe it was just too late because after sometime of his seizure free life, he dies of a seizure. They were both very healthy dogs and it breaks my heart that I might have given them something that may have harmed their bodies.

Now I have a new Maltese puppy. I do not want to give anything to harm my puppy but at the same time I want to prevent heartworm. I know when I go to the vet clinic they will want him on a heartworm guard. So my question is, what is the safest heartworm prevention?

Thank you.

My dog was experiencing lack of appetite and seemed a little bit down, the only different thing in his routine was that his doctor prescribed him Trifexis. After reading all the articles on it, I am now scared. Could he die or get a serious illness from one dose? It was his first time ever taking it and I’m not considering doing it ever again seeing how he got. Will he get better?

Our dog Lily is a 7 year old mixed Pit/Whippet. She has been on Trifexis for two years now and only takes the medication 6 months out of the year. Has had issues with not wanting to eat the day after taking Trifexis but seemed fine after that. She hates taking this med. We don't think she has ever received a "full" dose of this until 10 days ago. My daughter would see bits of the medication in her food bowl every time but was not concerned that Lily did not get a full dose. Well this time she swallowed the entire pill. The next day she did not eat and was lethargic which is new. She seemed to rally a little the day after that and ate a small amount but was not drinking fluids. By the third day she was still lethargic and not eating or wanting to drink. My daughter had to give her liquids by syringe and rubbed some honey on her gums. This perked her up and she was able to eat once that day. During this her eyes were glassy and and she just wanted to sleep. My daughter contacted her vet who told us to continue to give her water by syringe if necessary and gave my daughter some things to monitor for. She did not have any fever, vomiting or diarrhea. She seemed to come out of the lethargy after 5 days and is drinking better but is only eating once a day. She adamantly refused to eat from her dog bowl. She is also refusing her normal dry food. My daughter has gotten her to eat some cooked chicken from a plate and she will eat about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup per day. My daughter took her to the vet and he said to get a second opinion. He did not test her for anything. He thinks she is having a reaction to the Trifexis (duh). He is a new vet for Lily. My daughter is in the process of changing vet's because the practice Lily was going to was so large. Lily has an appointment with her regular vet practice tonight and hopefully they will do a full exam including lab work. We are worried sick. This dog is my daughter's support dog and they live 3 hours away.

My 6mon old puppy has had 2 seizures after taking Trifexis. He had 1 on 5/6/20 and today 5/16/20. My niece did some research this morning and noticed the side effects. I’m a new mommy and trusted my pup to be taking care of but I have failed. The seizures are heartbreaking to watch. I removed him off the meds

Very interesting read. I have a 4 year old Pitt who was diagnosed with Lymphoma today. We have always used other HW medication, but in June we moved to a new area (new vet)- they recommended Trifexis. We gave it to him December 19. Within weeks of the pill, he was developing strange symptoms- increased thrust and urination. His bloodwork came back that he was hypercalcemic and his lymph nodes were increasing in swelling while we continued testing over the last few months.
He has never had any previous health concerns. Obviously I have discontinued the use of this medication, but I am on high alarm that I know the cause of this lymphoma. Nothing else has changed- healthy dog, pill, cancerous dog within a month.
How can there not be a correlation?!

I've never had issue with trifexis or comfortis,or interceptor plus,not even when accidentally overdosing a couple of dogs.I think people just want an explanation to their dog death and will blame the first convenient source they can think of, I've had my entire kennel on trifexis and my cats on comfortis.I've used interceptor plus in between.I've been doing this for years.No issues what so ever.

I feel like an idiot not knowing any of this but I just gave my 2 year old cavaliers their dose of Trifexis last night! This morning at 5 am they both became incredibly clingy, one more than the other and there is slight shaking going on. No vomiting yet, Is there anything I should do or could we still be safe at this point? I will never ever give them Trifexis again after reading this!

As I lie here on the floor at 4:30am trying to comfort my dog, knowing he won't be with us much longer, I thought I would add my opinion. My husband and I believe Trifexis has killed our dog. When he was 7, we started him on Trifexis as recommended by one of the vets in the practice we use. The night of his second dose, he had a massive grand mal seizure. We took him to the vet and the first thing this Dr asked was "is he on Trifexis?" Um, red flag anyone? He has had seizures for a year now. Once on the anti-seizure meds he could never come off. A couple of nights ago he had two seizures. He's never really recovered this time. All of his blood work came back good but, neurologically, not so much. I would say "lowering the threshold for seizure" equates to causing seizure. Trifexis, even in just two doses more than a year ago, killed my dog's brain. And my heart.

Interesting that you speak of money grubbing Dr WhiteCoat then conveniently offer your alternative for $50-100.

My 5 month old Aussie began to have seizures this past weekend. $1500.00 later and they still don't know why (all tests normal). Our vet referred us to a neurologist, Which we haven't been to yet, because I'm not ready to pay $2500.00 for an MRI. You would think that the vet and the emergency room staff would have maybe told us it could be the Trifexis, but no, I have to hear from my mother in laws neighbor that Trifexis caused seizures for her dog too. Now that I have read this, and the comments I'm in shock and awe that this poison is given by a vet. I'm ashamed I didn't do research before I gave it to her, Stupid me trusted the vets recommendation.

Many thanks for this post! I realize that this is an older Post and that it may not be responded to but I have to try. January 29th 2019 our 28 lb Jack Russell Australian cattle dog mix became ill. Maya started shivering, was lethargic would not touch her food and was disoriented. We took her to the emergency hospital they ran a few tests and found that all of her tests were normal could not find any issues they gave her fluids under the skin and told us to go to the vet the next day for another panel to make sure that she's all right. we took her to the regular vet the next day and they ran every test under the sun in a full panel blood screen and could not find anything wrong with her. The vet prescribed gabapentin. She did recover after several days. I have no clue what the issue was. On a side note we do administer trifexis on the 15th of every month. So this was several days after that she had issues. Now roll around to February 26th and The same symptoms start to appear. However the difference was that approximately 3 days prior to the 26th she was excessively drinking water. Her dish is about a quart and a half water bowl and she would go through that in a day and it used to take her a couple of days to go through it. Then on the 26th she started the same symptoms the shivering, lethargic, not touching her food and disoriented. We took her to the vet the vet took tests again tested for pancreatitis all came back negative with the exception of having a fever of 102 the doctor prescribed rimadyl. Now my thought is that with a human with all these symptoms they would probably prescribe an antibiotic so I thought the same for a dog but not with Maya they prescribed a medication that is for osteoarthritis?? Did not make sense to me. Maya's condition worsened and over the next couple of days had to call the vet back and take Maya back in for more tests. Maya started vomiting.when we took her to the vet her temperature was 104 they kept her and administered fluids to her for 2 days and sent her home with antibiotics. Maya could not keep antibiotics down kept throwing them up. I did not know what to do my husband and I looked online for solutions of how we can help her because we were about to lose her and came across bentonite clay and detox for our pets. I took a syringe needle needleles of course and administered the bentonite clay mixed with colloidal silver to her and she threw up afterwards so I administered more and she was able to keep that down. From that point on everyday Maya has been getting better and better with daily doses of the bentonite clay and colloidal silver. it's been slow but this past week has been great progress and today she is the bouncy girl that we know and love. I cannot help but wonder if the trifexis may have had something to do with this but it is such a delayed reaction if so. Has anyone else experienced these types of symptoms with such a delay after administering the trifexis? Everything that Maya has with the exception of the water intake points to it. We still have no idea what made her so sick. We all know dogs will be dogs and she could have gotten into anything in the backyard but it's just uncanny that it's two months in a row now within two weeks of administering trifexis each time.

Can Trifexis cause nerve damage? My 9 pound little boy suddenly has a nerve on his back that is driving him nuts. When I rub my hand down his back, his skin jumps like a spasm. Then he “attacks” it like it’s itching him to death! He’s been on Trifexis for a couple yrs. And, he just had his first dental cleaning. I ran across this site looking for possibly side effects from Trifexis and/or anesthesia.

Good reply Doctor Will!
And I’m sorry, after spending 600$ at the Emergency veterinary hospital last night and $200 a visit at the vet plus dumping money into the laps of the pharmaceutical companies for years to poison my dogs.... I don’t mind throwing a couple of bucks your way! Oh, and by the way, I’m kind of in a hurry! Hearing that these dogs are expiring so quickly! My Standatd poodle has been reluctantly taking Hartgard from me for the last couple of years and his appetite has suffered he’s occasionally lost his lunch... last night about 45 minutes after the dose he began vomiting and didn’t stop. When he began vomiting blood, stomach lining and mucous and I noticed him having trouble defecating with blood in it as well (diarrhea) we rushed him to the ER hospital at 2am worrying about bloat of all things! They gave him a shot of antinausea Med and an iv bubble after determining that it wasn’t Addison’s disease but he had been poisoned N.C. his liver enzymes were high. I knew it was the HG N.C. of the time frame and previous nausea!
Now he won’t take Gatorade or water from me. No rice or chicken. It’s only been a day, but HE KNOWS, that I gave him that poison. I hid it in peanut butter and he’s not going to take anything else. He was going to eat his kibble when we got home but I took it away. He’s my service dog. We’re inseparable and I’m devestated! He’s lost his trust in me and he tried to tell me. I need to clean his liver and restore his intestinal flora but don’t know where to start.... B12? I have sublingual, I have milk thistle, Kefir, He won’t take anything hidden in anything. He’s nauseous but won’t even take peppermint. Will it pass or should we go to our regular vet for more cerenia?

If you are trying to release animals from the grips of these drugs, and truly want to help people, why is there a cost for the alternate information? I’m just learning of the effects of Trifexis and Apoquel...

Hello, I'm writing for a friend. She had 3 very healthy and well-cared for adult dogs around 3-5 yrs of age who were given Nexgard on April 3rd. By the end of the month, all 3 dogs had developed deafness as confirmed by 2 separate veterinary exams. It appears the deafness is irreversible. She contacted the pharmaceutical company and they deny any correlation between the drug and the health effects. Are you aware of any similar cases?

I am very interested to know if there have been any other issues with this drug. I have a 4 tear old lab/pit mix who within a month of being sterilized,vaccinated, and given triphexis ended up with lymphoma. She was a rescue and had never had any issues until then..

I need help, my dog absolutely hates Trifexis, my husband crushes it up in a can of food and she will go days without eating just to avoid it. I refuse to make her eat it anymore. Which is why I am doing research and came across this page :( I need help with what to give my baby for heartworm, fleas and ticks etc. Would love to go natural, any suggestions. She is a 2 yr old german shepherd :) Please advise.

How do you suggest treating a heartworm dog?

I just want to make your readers aware that there are Facebook groups for three of these products: Does Bravecto Kill Dogs? Does Trifexis Kill Dogs and Does Nexgard Kill Dogs? You can see similar patterns of side effects reported worldwide on these groups.