Can cats get heartwom?
Yes, cats can get heartworm disease. In fact, heartworm disease in cats can be, excuse the pun, catastrophic. It's a worse disease in cats than it is in dogs.
What is heartworm in cats?
Heartworm in cats, just like in dogs, is spread by a mosquito. A mosquito bites the cat, infecting them with these worms that then migrate to the lungs. The difference with cats is they tend to have a hyper-reactive response to these worms in the lungs, resulting in much worse clinical signs. Sometimes we may think it's a bad case of asthma. Heartworm disease, the adult worms rarely develop in a cat, and when they do, there are very few of them. That makes sense; a dog's heart can house a lot of worms, but a cat's heart cannot. The cat tends to fight back more than the dog, which might seem beneficial, and it does make the cat more resistant to heartworm. However, when they fight back severely in the lungs, it can cause fatal lung disease.
How do cats get heartworm?
As mentioned, it takes a mosquito bite. In case they only have cats and don't want to watch a dog video, a mosquito bites the cat, carrying the heartworm. It's the same heartworm dogs can get. A mosquito can bite an infected dog, then fly over and bite a cat. There we go, they share.
Are there certain kinds of mosquitoes that can transmit heartworm?
I'm throwing this question in on him. Are there certain kinds of mosquitoes that can transmit, or do all mosquitoes have that talent? Many mosquitoes have that talent. I will never tell you all of them. Let's put it that way. I'm never going to be sitting there looking at them to see if it's the right kind. I know we got some big ones at home. It's terrible. I live outside Albemarle. We grow big mosquitoes. That's all I can say.
What are the symptoms of heartworms in cats?
With heartworm disease in cats, we tend to see pulmonary signs, lung signs. Respiratory difficulty is the biggest issue. Another strange sign is cats tend to vomit a lot when they have heartworm disease. Respiratory issues are the biggest thing we see.
How is cat heartworm diagnosed?
The frustration with cat heartworm disease is because they don't tend to form these adult worms, they're much harder to diagnose. Our tests primarily detect female worms. If a cat has one or two male worms, they'll show up negative on our test. Even if they only have one female worm, they will likely show up negative on the test. We still recommend testing because it can help, but there is a send-out blood test that can also help. We do chest X-rays on cats. You can do an echocardiogram on cats, and sometimes you still can't find the heartworm because one heartworm is frequently fatal in cats. Prevention is better than treating the disease.
Can heartworm be treated in cats?
That's the unfortunate thing. While we have a protocol for dogs that works nicely, in cats, unfortunately, that protocol is fatal. We have a disease that's fatal and a treatment that's fatal. There are no good options. I tell people all the time, we can prevent the disease in your cat, but we can't treat it.
What are the long-term effects of heartworm in cats?
To say the long-term, you'd be fortunate to have long-term effects in cats because most cats don't survive heartworm disease. If they do, they'll almost surely have permanent lung issues and breathing problems for their life.
How can I prevent cat heartworm disease?
Cat heartworm disease can be prevented with an oral tablet, like in dogs, once a month, which we don't tend to do much because cats can be finicky when we try to pill them. They can be a little more difficult to medicate, so we tend to use topical products. There are several on the market. You apply the liquid to the skin on the top of the neck. It prevents heartworm disease and usually many other things like fleas, ticks, mites, and intestinal parasites. All of them are very good at preventing the disease. Never give your cat flea prevention or heartworm prevention meant for a dog. They don't get along, and it could be very problematic.
Is heartworm prevention safe for cats?
Heartworm prevention is very safe for cats. The worst thing we see is an occasional cat having a reaction to the skin where the product is applied. That's actually quite rare. We don't see it much.
How often should my cat be tested for heartworms?
The testing for cat heartworms is frustrating. Honestly, we just don't do it unless we are concerned that the cat might have heartworm disease. Rarely do we test for it.
Can indoor cats get heartworm?
Sure. All it takes is a mosquito bite. Mosquitoes get in the house. NC State did a study several years ago, and 35% of the positive cats they had were strictly indoor cats, which doesn't make much sense, but that was their study. I know our RVT Jesse, when they did their work in school, said a lot of the cats they dissected had heartworms in their heart already. That's kind of scary.
What should I do if I suspect my cat has heartworms?
Take them to your vet. We need to see what the clinical signs are with the cat and see if there's anything we can do to make them more comfortable.
Are there any breeds of cats that are more susceptible to heartworms than others?
Unfortunately, the worm doesn't care. If it's a cat, it'll be happy to try to live there. Now, they are not the favored host. They don't reproduce in a cat like they do in a dog, but that doesn't mean they're not fatal in a cat.
Can heartworm be transmitted from a cat to a human?
It cannot directly. It takes a mosquito bite. There are less than 100 people ever diagnosed with any heartworm, and they're usually strange migrations of the larvae into different places. It's not a disease that we even worry about in people. Sounds like intestinal parasite weirdness, you know, your eyeballs and stuff like that.
What is the difference between heartworm in cats and dogs?
You kind of answered that. With dogs, it's treatable and more easily detectable. With cats, it can be fatal. That's the main difference. It's a biggie: life and death.
How effective are heartworm preventatives for cats?
They are extremely effective. They do a great job by doing nothing more than putting a liquid on the cat's neck once a month. But you have to do it once a month. There's no such thing as milking six weeks out of it. That's cheating, and it's not effective. We have a lot of people who try to eke it out to six weeks to make it last longer or don't do it in the winter. No, that's not a good idea. It's not a terribly expensive product, and it's definitely worth preventing these diseases in your cat, especially if you do it for nothing else but to keep fleas off because your cat, even though they're inside, can pick up fleas like crazy, and you don't know because they groom them off, but then they show up in other places in your house.
What health complications can heartworm in cats cause or worsen?
We talked about respiratory issues. Respiratory issues are the biggest concern. As far as secondary effects with other organ systems, there really aren't any. It's just what it does here and now. Can we even get this cat controlled?
What should I do if my cat misses a dose of heartworm prevention?
Apply it as soon as you remember. Heartworm testing in cats is problematic; it just does a poor job. Because cats are what we call dead-end hosts, the heartworms don't reproduce in the cats. We don't have to worry about the side effect that we have to worry about in dogs. If you miss a dose in your cat, apply it as soon as you remember.
Are there natural ways to prevent heartworm in cats?
Once again, I'm not a fan of all of our natural products out there. They don't have to prove anything and can say whatever they want. There's not a natural product I would trust to prevent heartworm in any pet. Heartworm prevention products must show efficacy with lots of tests for safety and efficacy. There's your answer.
How is heartworm disease monitored and managed in cats?
We try to manage it with anti-inflammatories, sometimes with bronchodilators to help open up the lungs. That's about all we can do. There's just not a whole lot to be done for these cats.
If you have questions or concerns about your cat or think your cat's not quite feeling well and you want to find out what's wrong, it may not be heartworms, it may be heartworms, or maybe something else. They need to see the vet to see what's going on, make them comfortable, healthy, and happy, and that's what we try to do with everybody.
If you have questions about cat heartworm disease, we would love to answer them for you. Please give us a call at the office at 704-802-1280, or you can email us at [email protected]. Our staff would love to talk with you!
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