When it comes to heartworm, it's a tough call. I realize the concern or fear that people have because obviously, heartworm can be fatal.
But the one thing I encourage everyone to do is to throw away the fear and instead, embrace the joy and love you have for your pet. When you throw away the fear, you can actually become more clear in your decision process.
Marketers know that there are about 6 known ways to get people to buy something:
- Beer commercials use a sense of
belonging and friendship
to sell their product. The beer may taste horrible, but the sense you get from the advertisement is that drinking the beer will help you have friend.
- Playboy and many other companies use sex as the motivator. This is a rather obvious one.
- Of course there is sustenance — we all need to live and survive. What better motivator than sustenance.
- Greed, ego or power is another motivator used to sell certain products.
- Love is another powerful motivator to get people to buy but love is nowhere near as powerful as the last motivator.
- Fear — a powerful tool used to sell something (which a lot of pharmaceutical companies use to sell vaccines and other medications like heartworm, etc).
Obviously, heartworm along with other medications are sold using fear — the fear of your pet getting sick and/or dying — what's more powerful than that. When fear is used as the motivator to sell, the fear clogs all logical thoughts and instead, the mind becomes clouded with confusion. Once this happens, we just buy because the fear overwhelms us.
Even when you let the love for your pet be the motivator you may still choose to use the heartworm medication — but the difference is the decision was decided upon with love rather than fear.
So what I would like to tell you about heartworm is that it is a sign that the body is weak. You've heard the saying before, survival of the fittest
. In nature, the heartworm seeks out the sick and eventually kills the victim.
The strong, however, have a healthy body and immune system that repels such problems. Of course, this is all theory — because we can never know for sure when our pets are at peak
or optimal
health so that they can repel such a problem.
But when you begin feeding a wholesome raw meat diet, then you have taken the first step to building and strengthening the body so the immune system is strong. Furthermore, as the body begins to eat wholesome foods, the environment within the body begins to change — that is, the pH level begins to change, the body starts to become more aerobic (oxygen rich) than anaerobic (oxygen starved), mucous in the body begins to leave — all of which helps to create an environment within the body that heartworm and other parasites do not like and cannot survive in.
When we give medications for heartworm and other parasites, we are unfortunately poisoning our pets. This of course begins to create a vicious cycle whereby the body becomes weak that it must continue to have the medication to prevent such a problem. Furthermore, the medicine can damage the kidneys, weaken the immune system and ultimately kill our pets — ironic in that we are using the medication to prevent a problem but in fact is actually creating health problems.
I am a firm believer in building the constitution of the body whereby it is strong enough to repel such a problem.
From a natural approach, there are homeopathic and even herbal remedies you can give to help not only prevent such a problem, but also to eliminate them.
You know, I like to tell a story about a German veterinarian who, circa 1850, had an epidemic on his hands. All of the sheep, sheepdogs and shepherds were suffering from anthrax. This is long before modern medicine existed. Well, this German vet created the homeopathic remedy for anthrax and cured all of the sheep, all of the sheepdogs and all of the shepherds — not one died.
So what I am trying to say is that there is some great power in natural remedies and if you want to switch from the medications to natural remedies to help get rid of or to prevent heartworm, then consider consulting a holistic vet.
Personally, what I suggest to people who are in areas where there is a potential for heartworm, is that they consult a holistic vet to see what they say or suggest a good natural approach is. Second, I would suggest having a natural heartworm remedy on hand so as soon as you suspect a possible heartworm infection, the remedy can be given immediately.
There are homeopathic remedies known as homeopathic nosodes
and these are essentially homeopathic vaccines. So you would want the homeopathic vaccine for heartworm. This is what the German vet created — the homeopathic vaccine for anthrax.
There are essentially 2 schools of thoughts on how to give a homeopathic nosode (vaccine). Some say you should give as prevention and some say you should only give when there is a problem. Which one is right? Well, it depends on your point of view. If a pet has had heartworm before, then the homeopathic vet may suggest you use it now and then have on hand if needed again in the future.
Myself, I am of the approach that you build the body through diet, nutrition and a healthy lifestyle and then use the remedy only when needed.
One great thing about homeopathy is that you don't always need to consult a homeopathic vet. Instead, you can consult a homeopathic doctor for humans. The remedy that a homeopathic doctor for humans would use would be the same as a homeopathic remedy suggest by homeopathic vet.