There are a wide variety of worms that can infect your cats and dogs:
Roundworms,
Tapeworms
Hookworms
Whipworms
Heartworms
One of the nastiest and deadliest worms is the roundworm called Spirocerca Lupi.
Spirocerca Lupi is a worm that completes it's life cycle in dogs and causes severe, potentially life threatening diseases. Your dog can be exposed to this worm from eating beetles or small animals such as mice, rats, lizards or birds. These “intermediate” or “travelling hosts” can carry worm larvae which are ingested by your dog when they eat them. The larvae which are now in your dog’s digestive tract move through the intestinal walls and into your dog’s bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, the worm larvae will migrate all around your dogs body resulting in disease.
The most common path the Spirocerca Lupi larvae take is towards the aorta, which is one of the large blood vessels of the heart. Here they burrow into the walls of this huge blood vessel where the larvae will mature into adult worms. These young adult worms then leave the aorta, weakening the vessel walls and causing large blister like lesions called aneurisms. Aneurisms are very dangerous as they may rupture and cause your dog to bleed to death. From the aorta the adult worms migrate back to the oesophagus where they form large nodules inside the oesophagus wall. They then start to lay eggs. The nodules within the oesophagus are initially small and they gradually increase in size.
As these lumps grow, your dog may show signs the following clinical symptoms
Intermittent fever,
Vomiting or regurgitation of food because it gets difficult to swallow,
A poor appetite,
Weight loss
Lethargy.
Anaemia ( some of the nodules may bleed, which can cause a very dark or even black stool .)
The nodules in the oesophagus may turn cancerous.
Sudden death can occur if an aneurism in the aorta ruptures, causing your dog to bleed out in seconds.
Diagnosis of Spirocerca Lupi is usually made by endoscopy, which involves placing a camera down the oesophagus so that we can visualise the nodules and worms in the oesophagus. This is the best method for diagnosis as we can diagnose infection with Spirocerca Lupi early on in the disease process which makes treatment more successful. Chest X-rays can also be helpful later on in the disease process . Examination of your dogs poo can be done using special techniques to find worm eggs in the faeces but sometimes this is not as sensitive.
The treatment of Spirocerca Lupi takes quite a while, we start with daily or weekly treatments for 6 to 8 weeks, after this we then start monthly treatments for several months. If your dog is left untreated it will eventually succumb to the disease. The earlier the treatment is started, the more successful it is.
Using topical treatment such as Advocate or oral deworming called Milbemax tablets on a monthly basis is a very effective preventative measure. Removing faeces from your garden regularly will also help to reduce the amount of beetles being attracted into the garden and reduces the chance of your dog accidentally ingesting a beetle.
ความคิดเห็น