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Originally Posted by ladyjane  First of all, I am SO sorry about your loss. I am also sorry about the way you were treated. As for the vet saying they are not at fault, maybe not legally, but I can tell you that a back to back treatment like she got is not really recommended any more. Some vets still do it, but it is terribly rough on these pups.  Nothing that can be done now, but I would probably be looking around for another vet if this one is doing such things. Is he AAHA accredited? If not, again, I would start shopping for one that is. My vet gives four months of Heartgard...then one injection...and the other is one month later. That is the recommended protocol now! There are other things done, but that is just a quick explanation.
Here is a link with information about heartworms and treatment: American Heartworm Society | Canine Guidelines
Hope was lucky to have had someone in her life that tried to help her in the best way she knew.....poor baby...it is so sad that she even got heartworms. A cheap monthly dose of heartworm preventative would have prevented it. I am so sorry. |
I'm not sure about AAHA accredited. The whole mess happened so fast. I got her at the end of August and took her to our vet for a look over a couple days later. Then we were scheduled to go back that next week for teeth cleaning and blood work for heart worms. That was when we found out about her being positive. The vet explained that the medication used to kill the heartworms was no longer being made. So they did the slow kill method of doxycycline and advantage multi . I let with a 6 month pack of advantage and the doxy.
I posted on facebook about the whole thing and a member of a resuce that i am friends with ,called me to let me know that they had already checked all of the okc surronding areas and farther out for the medication because they had a couple yorkies with heartworms. They knew of one vet who had one vial left but it expired in just a couple days. So if I wanted it was available and she would let the vet know that their resuce was declining it.
So that is how it came about that her not getting the pre treatment. She did okay during that first month for crate rest. she did have coughing episodes and then inflamatory pneumonia. But showed great signs of improvent. But Nov. 12 she started these episodes of staggering and collasping. We were in and out over thoses last weeks on lots of different meds but our vet kept saying that that it was complications to the treatment but she should recover. I asked about the staggering and falling and even specificlly asked this is something that would kill her because sometimes it was really bad i would go pick her put and she would be awake and breathing but lifeless she couldn;t even hold up her head. The last week. On nov 19 she didn't eat for 2 days and she would vomit most times she drank up they said it was the enalapril mixed with the Theophyline (spelling) so to stop the Theophyline. she started eating and made such great inprovement i truly thought we were in the clear. Thanksgiving she woke up and wouldn't eat but i thought it was cause i tried to sneak alittle dry food in her chicken, rice, and broth. she collasped for the last time that night and it was a bad episode so i put her in her crate to drink and she vomited again that was when she stopped breathing and we started CPR after she was gone I just sat an held her for over an hour.