Will Falconer, DVM Moderator
Hey Perry,
HW positive animals can be treated in two ways without resorting to the standard toxic drug approach:
- The best approach is to hire a homeopathic vet who's trained in curing chronic disease. It's a given that any dog the "allows" parasites to be present has some chronic disease that's feeding their susceptibility to worms. This approach takes appointments, usually monthly, where the vet chooses remedies that fit your dog (no one remedy fits all) and usually in six months, the test will have gone negative. I explain how to find a good vet to do this at the AVH link on this page (video accompanying makes choosing a vet easy).. The advantages of this approach are: you end up with a very healthy dog who's less likely to get any parasites for some time.
- A worm focused approach has been working for people, I'm told. A supplement is out there on the internet called HWF (name has changed now and then, but a search should find this in association with the word "heartworm" or "heart worm.") This is cheaper and doesn't get your dog any healthier or more resistant, it just attacks the worm with herbs. I have no experience with it and don't recommend it, but I'm passing it on from others' experiences they've mentioned to me.
It's also important to know that "Time is on your side!" A heartworm positive dog is rarely on "death's doorstep." Most are free of symptoms but just have a positive test, meaning there could be three worms or 30, but the dog is living normally with the parasite present. I speak more about this in my ebook/course called “Vital Animals Don’t Get Heartworms! The Drug-Free Prevention Program That Works”.
Best of health to you and all those in your care,
WF