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Poor Bailey. This dog has been through so much. She came from a very abusive situation down south. And now she has been diagnosed with heartworm. She had her first shot this morning and she is crying a lot.
Your thoughts, prayers, jingles are requested.
And any ideas to help her through this are also appreciated.

Did your vet give you anything in the form of sedation and/or pain control to help her through this? My herd (dogs & horses) is/are sending well wishes. I've seen my fair share of dogs through this but it's not easy on them at all and not all make it. Fortunately the majority of them do. If there is anything that should convince people to use prevention on their animals watching an animal go through treatment should be convincing enough but sadly that's not always the case. Doing what you can environmentally to provide her peace, quiet and comfort will also help.

She is currently on aspirin. I am also giving her benedryl to just let her sleep through most of it, I hope. It is HEARTBREAKING. She reminds me of when I was going through chemo. Poor baby.
She is just a little over a year old at this point. So, she has youth on her side. She is currently sleeping in her favorite hidey hole aka the foot space under my desk. And thankfully, my boss is letting me work from home for the next three days to help her through this.

You are so right about convincing people to prevent it. Watching this is horrible....I've never had a dog with it because of course, I use preventative!

Healing vibes coming your young pups way.

I never knew heartworm was painful.

Hayburner wrote:Healing vibes coming your young pups way.

I never knew heartworm was painful.

The treatment for it sure seems to be. My heart just breaks for this girl. She has been through so much.

Oh no! Poor Bailey! It is so hard to see them hurting.

First of all Chancellor thank you so much from a southerner that has been involved in rescue for adopting one in need. Yes HWs are endemic here in the south and many dogs end up with them from poor owners or other lack of care i.e. strays.

I've been through HW treatment with quite a few of my fosters over the years. My vet always gave them a pain injection at the time of the imiticide injection and then oral pain meds for a few days. I have not had any issues with pain with my fosters though I did have one freak out from the pain injection itself. Ended up sedating her and then not giving her the injection for pain for the other imiticide injections just oral pain meds. I did have some issues giving HW prevention to a couple of mine post treatment, vet prescribed steroids to get them through their issue. All of mine in 6 months then tested neg for HWs after treatment.

I fully agree about HW prevention is much better way to go. Expense for one. It is extremely expensive to treat HWs as opposed to preventing them. I know some dogs do not tolerate the treatment well. I've been lucky even with my strong positive for 3 years foster dog (long torrid story that happens more than it should in the rescue world around here) came through with no issues from treatment.

Jingles that your pup comes through just fine.

Since she is on aspirin it would be too risky to try to switch her over to either another more effective NSAID for dogs or prednisone at this point. The only safe way to do such a switch is to observe a wash out period between medications. I don't think that is an option. There are better medications with some sedation effect than benadryl which are available and safe to use during this treatment. Personally I would give either gabapentin or tramadol along with the aspirin which might help with some of the pain as well as achieve some mild sedation. Both suggestions are relatively inexpensive. I have also used butorphanol for pain and sedation in cases that required it.

I had no idea it was painful either, hoping she get's through it soon.

Best wishes for the poor dog

Poor Poor Bailey. This second day is really hard on her. She started crying on the way home from the vet. And it was a long trip made longer by road construction! She is resting somewhat comfortably right now and just moaning. But she was crying out this morning. Made me cry.

How's she doing now Chancellor? Yes, down here HW is rampant, and the vets are so familiar with treatment..I've never had to go through it with any of my fosters..one was too sick to handle it due to other reasons and she was put down for something unrelated before we got to that point...but in prepping myself for it, I did learn it is really tough on the dogs. I forget all the specifics, but down here they do a month of Doxy prior to the first injection, and there is pain management throughout. Maybe if your vet hasn't added in other pain control yet, and if Bailey is past the pain stage, the vet will add in for the subsequent doses? Thanks for saving her!!

She is MUCH better. The second day was terrible. She was crying and wailing in pain. Made for interesting conference calls that day.
After about 2pm that day, though, she was fine. She stopped crying and seemed nearly normal. It's now been a week and she is doing great.
Now I just have to keep her quiet...better living through chemistry!

Chancellor wrote:She is MUCH better. The second day was terrible. She was crying and wailing in pain. Made for interesting conference calls that day.
After about 2pm that day, though, she was fine. She stopped crying and seemed nearly normal. It's now been a week and she is doing great.
Now I just have to keep her quiet...better living through chemistry!

That's wonderful! Will she need subsequent injections? Again, I forget all I learned and thankfully didn't need to use, but isn't there another injection sometimes, like a month or so later? Poor girl, glad she got through the rough stage! And yes, keeping quiet...ugh! With knee surgeries, and PROLONGED crate rest, our vet had us use trazadone for one of our dogs.

In four months, she gets tested again. Assuming she is heartworm negative, she is done.

poor dear. sending her much love