Heartworm Support for Dogs: Natural Prevention and Recovery

The heartworm "remedy" currently offered by the vets is, in my view, utter NONSENSE. My vote is that no dog should EVER be subjected to this medieval hocum that you must mortgage your home to afford. Common sense indicates that this business of injecting toxic poisons into the dog, then mandating that the dog must be forced into non-movement for months (months! ) is insanity. This treatment needs to be made illegal. Many dogs die from this and the cruelty involved is hard to think about.

It is now 5 yrs. later and my boy is doing great! My advice would be to get the dog off the Sentinel yesterday. It is simply not needed and is not innocuous, but rather, overtly harmful.

I have treated several dogs since then following this natural prescription excepting now I also add Goldenseal. I believe that any antiparasitic natural herb/substance/food can be put into the mix so long as it is palatable to the dog. I have had 100% success with all dogs so far. I do not promise it to heal any dog, but I would be surprised if it didn't.

I would like to add that during this treatment, especially at the beginning, I do pray to my Higher Power asking for the worms to leave my dog and I pray as often as I possibly can.

My baby (almost 8yr old german shepard mix) had began losing weight but yet still ate and drank her food like normal(in fact was always first to eat but never or has ever been a goobler down my food in one whole sitting kinda of lady).So I thought she had what my other child maribelle had (not enough fluids)I pulled her in a gaver her pedilight and made sure she got fattey foods like raw meat and cooked chicken which did help for a bit.I then noticed that her stomach began to buldge wich bothered me alot.(keep in mind her personality never changed nor her eating and drinking habbits. She has "alot of spunk considering"-the vet)So I decided that she had to go to the vet ASAP. When I got there the vet said I can tell you right now she's got the classis traits of worms.(which I began to tear up from) Upon further blood test and stool samples I found out my little girl not only had worms but ADVANCED heartworms.(my heart broke! My little baby girl who I raised as a pup was sick and all I could hear the vet tell me was "yes, very serious case..not many make it") He gave her a shot to help her release the fluids that had been building up and me some pills to help continue while we wait till tomorrow to get the result on how much damage the worms have done. So I took her home and decided what I was going to do basically they told me she was going to die and all I could think about was how could I just put down my child! MY baby! (by this time I was a dam wreck and going through the greiving stages like a idiot)but then my sister told me about her husbands friend who's dog had adavance heartworms and he gave him garlic and BOOM no more worms.(which didnt sound crazy I mean garlic and hearts go hand in hand)So I did some research and came across this site via youtube video and knew from other testimonies I could say my baby or sure as hell try! So I'm doing this deworming thang!!

Now I am giving her the pills ( LASIX) to help her relive the fluids(from the vets today).My question is before starting the deqorming proccess does it matter if her liver and stuff is damage?And should I still go to the vet just to have her tummy pumped to get the fluids out and THEN began the deworming treatment?

Also should I still give her Lasix while on her natural treatment or wait till the fuids gone then stop giving lasix and then begin the treatment?

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH FOR YOU HELP!!!!! Xoxox

Can you tell us exactly what you did? I know a lot of readers will appreciate having your first hand instructions!

Can you tell us the age and weight of your dog? And how many drops wormwood to how many drops black walnut hull? Or did you use something other than tinctures? And how often did you dose - morning and evening or once per day or ?? And can you tell us for how long / how many weeks you treated?

Thank you!!

I have been reading everyone's comments on the miracles of BWH, Wormwood & garlic and am ready to try this. My questions are: do you have to keep the dog quiet on bedrest for weeks at a time during this protocol? I also see that Dr. Hulda Clark's (I studied her classes when I was in Nutrition school in NY) protocol suggests gradually adding the BWH tincture and then wormwood, then the cloves in week intervals. If I purchase the combined tincture does it change the outcome or is the procedure any different?

I was always told that adding garlic to a dog's diet would kill them. Most vets in my area do not practice holistically and would much rather prescribe expensive and dangerous medicines. So I am going this alone. Any help/guidance would be greatly appreciated. This is a wonderful site, you helped put my heart as ease for the first time in days...

Namaste, Carmen

Weight 31-75 lbs
3 Artemisia capsules given at night before bed and upon waking in the morning on an empty stomach
1 COQ10 softgel capsule mixed with food at the a.m. meal
2 HSII capsules mixed with food at a.m. and p.m. meals
1/2 capsule Black Walnut capsules mixed with food once per day 5 days per week

HS II is an herbal combination designed for the circulatory system, and more particularly, the heart. It is based on three herbs: hawthorn berries, capsicum and garlic - a simple combination. But sometimes simple things can help prevent complications later. Hawthorn berry is a "bitter" that is famous in Europe as a heart stimulant. But more than that, it assists the body in strengthening all the heart tissues and is considered by herbalists to be a specific heart tonic. Hawthorn's nutritional effects are felt very slowly, and much of its overall benefit seems to be related to certain flavonoids it contains. These help the body open up constricted blood vessels, having a general dilating effect. This is a partial explanation of how it is also believed to help lower blood pressure, since cramped or constricted blood vessels automatically increase blood pressure. Another result would be to increase blood flow tothe heart.

Capsicum is an aromatic herb that promotes blood flow to the extremities. It contains valuable nutrients like vitamins A, B, and C with iron and calcium. Although it tastes very hot, capsicum is actually harmless to the stomach lining. Not only does capsicum stimulate digestive juices, but it is also considered a nervine herb, which is beneficial for a healthy heart rhythm.

Garlic is one of the oldest of all herbs used by man. It is an aromatic herb and is reported to have beneficial effects for both the circulatory and immune systems. It helps the body to normalize blood pressure while improving blood circulation at the same time. HS II is excellent herbal nutrition for a weakened circulatory system.

Question: How much of the herbs should I use for PREVENTION?
Answer: A general guideline to follow is:

Under 5 lbs - 1/4 capsule Artemisia and a sprinkle of Black Walnut capsule [equivalent to an eighth of the capsule
5-10 lbs - 1/2 to one capsule Artemisia and a 1/4 of Black Walnut capsule
11-25 lbs - 2 capsules Artemisia and 1/4 capsule Black Walnut
26-50 lbs - 2-3 capsules Artemisia and 1/2 capsule Black Walnut
51 lbs and over - 3 capsules Artemisia and 1/2 capsule Black Walnut

Artemisia is given the first week of every month once a day, preferably at night. The Black Walnut is given 5 days a week all month long mixed with food at a meal.

At the annual check up this summer, the male dog infection was about the same; the female is worse.

Do you have reports from people that say this doesn't work for their dogs?

I came upon this site , which about 2 weeks ago. Brenda from CA wrote something that really caught my attention (she has posted in several places here) she rescued a dog and cured him of heartworms by feeding him VRM2-sm made by biochallege. my dog has been on this medicine (which is all natural and mind you SO VERY VERY CHEAP) for 5 days. every day I see small changes. VRM2 is a natural parasite detox that kills small foreign bodies in the blood & tissues. normally you'd see progress in as little as 3 days, but since Sadie was so bad off with heartworm (estimated to be stage 5) it took a little longer. but like I said I'm only on day 5 and her coughing has almost diminished. I know it's working. if I were you, I'd definitely order VRM2-sm from Bio Challenge. if you contact me maybe I can give you a little more information in detail, or feel free to look over all the entires on this site I'm sure you will come across Brenda's posts. if it wasn't for her my dog would be dead right now.

The black walnut hull had and is killing the baby heartworm larve and we only had adult heartword pieces in the heartworm ( blood test ).Zeus only lost 2lbs during this period. The vet could not recommend how many mg. to give your dog, but what we were doing is WORKING. Right now our English Mastiff is Taking 400mg of wormwood black walnut complex. His weight is 146lbs. 5 days of meds. 3 days off, with no side effect.

Here's something important that everybody should know because I ask the vet this. Will dead heart worms still make the blood draw from your dog still test positive? Yes it will. When heart worms die, they travel down into the lungs, it is normal for your dog to pant and sneeze. sneezing is a lot better, it removes the worms from the lungs faster. Zeus, is back eating like a small horse. we put his meds in a piece of cheese and he loves it. this treatment may take a little longer, but it's all natural and there's no ARSENIC. Zeus runs and plays outside. It's important that you watch carefully for side affects, diarrhea, vomiting, change your doses. I can't tell the doses for your dog.Bbut the products I've mention are working for us. Just be careful

My point being: Instead of putting my dog through the trauma of the Arsenic/Ivermectin method and then try to keep the dog confined for 2-3 weeks (with a verty active dog I might add! ), then the thought of possibly killing my dog with this method, and lastly the $3,000.00 expense for this process that might kill my dog - but they would still want their money.... I thought I would try my method first!

Best part it worked!

Not too sure about using this method on smaller dogs as my dog is a larger hunting dog breed. Not too sure about using this method on an older that is clearly showing signs of being severely infected with heartworm. Here is my history & method I used. I bought my dog at 8 weeks old, and she was also only two years old when she tested positive, she had been on the heartworm meds since the Vet said she was old enough to start taking them. I chose to give them to her only April- September when the main mosquito problem existed. She had been heartworm tested once before(the previous Spring) & negative - during her annual exam, & shots. I had used my 6 mo. Of heartworm meds. Over the Spring/Summer & the next Spring when I brought her in for her checkup, shots, and new meds... She came up positive for heartworm. I knew she could not have been infected long enough with heartworm - as she did not show any signs yet. No cough, no tiredness/lethargy, and no bad coat/skin. I even had her retested for heartworm at another vet - that used a different lab from the first vet. She came up positive again. For that reason I chose my method......

Over the years, from seeing the vet "tubeworm" my horses for worms - a process where the vet 1. Places the recommended amount of dewormer & water forming a solution in a clean pail, 2. Places a plastic clear tube up the horses nose, and/or down the throat of the horse into the intestines of the horse. 3. Gets the wormer med. mixture into the belly of the horse. This is done by first getting the liquid wormer from the pail into the horse by starting the syphoning method with the vet's own mouth, then letting the solution/mixture go into horse until the dewormer was in the horse stomach, and pail empty of solution. Several times when one of my horses "acted up" during this process I would see... the vet have a mouthful of this mixture as he syphoned it! His reply: "hasn't killed me yet, and I bet I'll never have worms! " We even did this procedure to foals.

As years went by, the drug companies came out with paste wormers where one could buy a prefilled tube of medicated de-worm paste and "shoot" the paste into the back of the horses open mouth. This was so much easier than taking the life of the vet or oneself in jeopardy while trying to coax the "tube" down the horses throat!

This oral ivermectin equine paste comes in a tube that has weight measurements on it by 100lb increments. I decided to do this early in the AM so that if any adverse reactions occurred, the vet would hopefully be open. My dog weighs about 70lbs. I chose to start out at 100 lbs. - moving the dial to the 100 lb measurement and making sure it was tightly closed for this amount only! (Past experience taught me to double check the dials tightness - from foal worming a couple times the plunger moved passed the designated weight I chose - but I caught it in time. ) I opened her mouth and shot the paste into the back of her mouth, then grabbed her mouth and held it shut so that she could not spit the paste the out, but could swallow and move her tongue around. Once I thought the paste was down her throat, I would examine her mouth to make sure. The first time I carefully watched her for hours to make sure she was OK. She handled it fine. Two weeks later I gave her the oral dog pill she would have taken had she not been positive. Two weeks later - gave her the equine paste -100 lbs again. She handled all this fine. No adverse reactions ever- not even diarrhea! I thought for sure she would have diarrhea as the worms passed out in the poop - but no. We did lightly examine her poop with a stick, and could see small things that could have been worms after we gave her the equine ivermectin. From here, I increased the timing to weekly - but still stayed at the 100 lbs. as to not overpower my dog with medicine. Any worm has a life cycle. Usually Larva, Pupa, Adult. With each having their own time frames for each phase in this cycle. I was trying to disrupt the life cycle. Trying to kill off the heartworms - first the youngest ones, then by having the medicine put weekly in the dogs bloodstream - keeping the med. Levels high at all times in the bloodstream to work on the nervous system of the mid life cycles, and then the oldest life cyles - the adult stage heartworms. This seemed to work! At end of 6 months - went and had her retested. The vet called and said the lab had to rerun the test as it was "inconclusive" and the would rerun the test for free to make sure! I took this as a good sign... That the level of heartworms in the blood had gone down to the level between positive and negative. The test came back positive, so I kept her on the same weekly 100lb. Ivermectin equine paste. Six months later tested again & she came back - negative/no more heartworms. Due to this all clear test - I dropped back to giving her just the dog oral heartworm pill, and 1X per month giving her another mouthful of the oral equine paste - 100 lbs. Last time tested - (6 months later again), she tested negative again. Now I have gone back to strictly the oral dog pill. We will see next time what she tests - this test will be a yearly test though.

Hope this helps anyone going through this difficult decision with their own dog. After doing your research on the de-worming process for heartworms in dogs, and you decide to try another route - an unconventional route. More power to you. It was a huge step for me to take. A route that other vets won't tell you to try as it will get them in trouble with their vet license. I was willing to start slow, and go from there. I got lucky - it worked for me. Will one dog recovering be enough for you to try this method? Only YOU can answer that. With humans - when one gets so sick the family sometimes will make a decision to try another route - the drug companies call it "medical research" and the person or family must sign their life away to not seek any damages towards this company for their medical "research" if the outcome is not what one expects. Again - I am not a vet & I can't guarrantee anything! All I can say it worked on my dog. You will have to decide in your own mind if this is something you want to do - you and only you will be willing to take any of the consequences that may arise with your dog. Do your research online, and then decide.

And yes, right from the interwebz.......

Myth #1: Garlic is toxic to dogs.

Lately many articles written in response to the pet food recall, have included ingredient warnings for people who are considering a homemade diet. These warnings are regarding foods that are supposedly toxic to dogs. And right there next to chocolate, they list garlic. The truth is, garlic is indeed toxic to dogs — IF YOU FEED 50 CLOVES OF GARLIC IN ONE SITTING! I would imagine garlic would be toxic to anyone if fed in that quantity. Heck, even water can be deadly if you drink too much of it. Obviously no one would ever feed that much garlic to their dog. Truth is, when fed in reasonable amounts, garlic is a fantastic ingredient to a homemade dog food diet. Not only is it a great natural flea repellent, but garlic is also a tremendous antioxidant and detoxifying agent for dogs. For more information on the benefits of garlic, visit http://sojos.com/garlicarticle.html.

Source: https://www.sojos.com/learn/articles/pet-mythbusters-5-pet-food-myths

You only have to give for 14 DAYS ONLY. For a sm dog under 10lbs, a half cap.,

if over 10lb. to aprox 35 to 40, 1 to 2 caps, and larger dogs 2 to 3 caps a day.

Do not exceed 3 caps.

FOR ONLY 14 DAYS. Find a heart support that is safe to use on dogs to give along with the VRM2. Especially if in the later stages of heartworm.

Do Not feed red meat or pork while giving VRM2

I was the original person that brought VRM-sm to this forum. I am not going to claim I am an expert on the dosage, but I have always said that doing the instructions on the bottle is not designed for dogs, but for humans. Things got so out of hand on here (exaggerated info.) that I pulled most all of my posts a year or so ago.

There are people that have called the manufacture and really-they have not done studies on animals and are not qualified to suggest dosage to a dog. I had a small dog of 7 lbs that was stage 4 with heart-worm and the vet (thank goodness) said they would kill her with their treatment of the (poison) arsenic shots because of how far gone she was and her age. They told me just to take her home and watch her suffer to death. (not in those words, but they implied that) I went home and gathered all the info I could, much like you and wrote down a list of things to get at the health food store like black walnut, woodworm etc. I just got lucky and went to the right place because the woman there recommended VRM2-sm. Her supplier (who has long passed) said to do a run for 14 days (no more) of a half capsule (for a 7lb dog) She also suggested a heart support at a half capsule. So, I mixed this into a very small bit of wet food and gave once a day (better in the eve) for the 14 days. She was cured. You know they are cured when they are that sick and I did not bother to get a blood test. The vet thought the dog was 16 years old when I found her, but she lived another 7 years and died of old age.

I am not telling you to give a half a capsule for every 7 lbs either. The max amount is 2 capsules for an adult human a day so if your dog is 75 plus lbs, I think 2 capsules will be ok. I am just worried about the people on here that are misinformed and would give a 10 lb dog 2 capsules a day in the 3 cycles like on the bottle.

The reason that humans do for 3 cycles is because of possible parasites in the colon and getting the upper and lower colon etc. from what I remember reading. Heart-worm adults live in the heart and in the later stages block the blood flow. The dog coughs frequently, sleeps a lot, and looses weight until the heart is completely blocked and the blood will actually be forced to flow backward destroying the kidneys and liver and killing the dog..

So, since the original dosage that worked for me was one run of 14 days for a 7 lb dog with a good heart support, maybe you should try the same. The dosage will be up to you on what you think for your size of dog, but I think up to 10 lbs (half a cap) 10-30 (one cap) 30-75 (1 and a half) 75-up ( 2 capsules) Give or take and do what you feel more comfortable with.

It is all natural and you will see your dog light up within 3 days and be more playful and alert, but more is not better. If you are determined to get a blood test, it is recommended to wait for 3 to 6 months for all the residue from the heart-worm to leave the system or you may get a false positive. Take care and this product really does work!

I am so happy that you are getting results with the VRM2!

I do have to respectfully clarify the results you are seeing; heartworms do NOT come out of the GI tract - you are likely looking at another type of worm that has infested your dog's intestines. Hearworms when killed off stay in the bloodstream and slowly break up and are filtered out by the lungs and other organs. For this reason it is helpful to provide liver and kidney support and to keep your dog on very limited exercise/stay on crate rest as the heartworms dissolve and are filtered out by the lungs.