Natural Heartworm Treatment
Read more from this site on heartworm
treatment and preventative.
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Natural heartworm remedies are cheaper that vet treatment, and do not
require that you keep your dog still for several months. Natural heartworm
treatment is especially helpful for dogs who may be too old, fragile, or sick
to undergo the vet treatment.
Check out
Bandit's
Heartworm Preventative/Treatment, which has cured heartworms in many
dogs and is much cheaper than most vets charge for treatment.
Some of the herbs people are using to treat heartworms are: rosemary, thyme,
mint, sage, clove, garlic, hawthorne berry (heart healthy herb), milk
thistle extract, dried cranberry fruit, wormwood or wormwood complex, and
dried black walnut hull (extremely potent.)
Many of these herbs have been used for thousands of years to kill parasites
in humans (which is where wormwood gets its name.)
When I went to a natural food store to look for herbs to treat heartworms, I
came across a product called Paragone, which is designed to kill parasites
in humans. The capsules contain all of the above herbs and more. I
administered Paragone to Buddy, a heartworm-positive beagle, 5 days a week
for 2 months. I gave Buddy 1/6 the
dosage suggested for humans, as Buddy weighed 25 pounds (about 1/6th the
weight of a person. Basically, I just followed package directions but
reduced the dosage down based on the dog's weight.) Buddy stayed totally happy and hyper and active during
the two months and showed no adverse symptoms at all.
The verdict? I don't know, because I adopted Buddy to another family. We
kept in touch, but I never did find out how subsequent heartworm tests
turned out. However, a friend of mine has used herbal treatment very
successfully in a number of heartworm positive dogs. The dogs went from
having a high-load of heartworms to a low-load or none.
After giving natural remedies, it can still
take six months or more for all of the antigens (adult worms) to disappear
from the bloodstream. So you have to wait at least six months after herbal
treatment to get the dog tested and find out if the adult worms are gone.
If nothing else, you can try to kill adult heartworms by adding a clove of
fresh garlic and black walnut hull to your dog's food a few times a week,
for a few months at a time. Black walnut hull has historically been
used as a wormer for humans and animals (Use 1/4 of a 500 mg capsule for
dogs 5-25 pounds and 1/2 a capsule for dogs 25 lbs and up. Black walnut hull
can be toxic if you give too much, so be careful.)
NOTE: The information on this page is not meant to diagnose or prescribe
for you. The decision to use, or not to use, any information on this page
is the sole responsibility of the reader. Opinions expressed here are
those of the site owner.
