Understanding Heartworm Disease in Cats
How do cats get heartworm disease?
Great question. Actually, it's very similar to how dogs get heartworm disease. Dogs and cats both get it in the same way. A mosquito flies around, lands, and wants to take a little blood meal, as they often do. When they take that blood meal, they have some immature heartworms in their saliva. That saliva then goes in through the skin and can get into the blood vessels of our cats or dogs.
Down here, especially in the south, we see mosquitoes all year round, so unfortunately, there is a risk of being exposed to a mosquito that has these heartworm larvae or immature forms of heartworms. For dogs, our protocol and recommendation is to test every dog every two years as long as they've been on a year-round heartworm preventative program. We'll test them every two years to ensure they're still negative. No medication is 100% effective, so we just want to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks and that everyone is still safe and protected.
For cats, we don't do the heartworm test before starting them on prevention. Cats get heartworms a little differently than dogs do. They both get exposed the same way, but dogs show signs because adult worms start replicating and increasing in number, which builds up in their lung areas and vessels, possibly even backing up towards their heart. Cats typically only get one or two heartworms. When we test them, we're looking for a protein that an adult female makes.
For dogs, if you have 50 worms, you're likely to have at least one female. What if I only have one adult worm? There's a 50/50 chance it's male or female. If I test a cat and it has an adult male heartworm, I won't detect it on that test. We may do heartworm testing on cats occasionally if there's a reason, usually if a cat is showing clinical signs that suggest heartworm disease. Then we want to determine if it's heartworm disease or something else causing the issue. That's the big difference between cats and dogs. For dogs, we always test for heartworms, but for cats, we don't, though we still want to prevent the disease because it can cause a lot of inflammation, especially in the lungs and vessels near the heart.
What are the signs of cat heartworm disease?
Dogs can show signs like exercise intolerance or coughing, which are typical of heartworm disease. Cats, however, exhibit more respiratory signs. You'll see them coughing more frequently, which is one of the first early signs. Their respiratory rate might increase, and they may not exercise as much. These are the signs we can observe in cats.
Does my indoor cat need heartworm prevention?
What about my cat that never goes outside? I don't know about you, but I've definitely been bitten by a mosquito while in bed. We have mosquitoes in our house too, unfortunately. It's good even for an indoor cat to have protection because they still have that risk. Here in North Carolina and South Carolina, there's a lot of heartworm disease. We diagnose it all the time, so we want to ensure we can prevent our cats from being exposed to these potentially dangerous heartworms.
How do we prevent heartworm disease in cats?
It's pretty easy. We just need to get them on heartworm prevention. There are monthly products available, including some topical ones that are easy to apply between the fur on the back of the neck. You apply a few drops of liquid there, it absorbs into the skin, and then even if the mosquito carrying immature heartworms bites the cat, it won't develop into an adult worm. This way, we don't have to worry about the consequences of adult heartworms. It's easy to prevent, but a hassle to diagnose and treat if they actually get it.
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