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My oldest dog Ginger had Tapeworms about a month ago. Gave her the 4 Tapeworms pills I got from Amazon.com. I just happened to see her poop before and checked on it. She has more Tapeworms.
Should I get more pills for her? Does it take more than one dose of the pills to knock the Tapeworms out?
Thanx in advance for any help.
Do you know how she got the tapeworms? Did she have fleas or did she get ahold of a rabbit or rodent and eat it? If she had fleas, are you sure they're gone? What do the directions say? What you are seeing are tapeworm segments. They are the egg sacs of the tapeworm itself, which apparently is living happily in Ginger's intestines.
Droncit kills the tapeworm head(s) that is attached to the intestinal wall. What you are seeing are proglottids and they drop off the end of the tapeworm, as they contain eggs. They certainly look like a little worm, but they are part of a larger one - they are just segments. As they wiggle out, they fall off the pet's butt, dry up and look like a grain of rice. Flea larvae in the environment ingest the eggs out of these dried proglottids and start the tapeworm lifecycle again. When the pet chews and happens to swallow the flea with the tapeworm egg(s) inside of it, that is how the cycle begins.
Your pet just happened to chew and swallow another infected flea that had a tapeworm larvae inside of it. You DON'T have to retreat after the initial dose, as the medicine kills the worm(s) attached to the intestinal wall at the time, but if your baby is continually chewing and swallowing fleas with tapeworm larvae inside it, your pet CAN get tapeworms again. But, keep your pet on flea preventative (whatever is working best in your area...) to help keep him from swallowing another infected flea. Tapeworms can cause a lot of irritation by itching the , ahem, anal area, but are usually not dangerous unless a pet has a severe case of them.
I have seen vets dispense multi-doses of Droncit before, but as the meds kill the head of the worm(s) and it takes swallowing another flea with an egg inside of it to start another tapeworm, it is just another way to have an owner spend some bucks. If you know that you have an extreme flea infestation and the patient is MORE than likely to ingest more while the infestation is being taken care of, then I could see a vet dispensing another dose for that.....but most well-taken-care-of pets usually just happen to swallow a flea that they happened to pick up in the yard before their flea preventative got it.....
What intestinal parasites require multi-doses? Roundworms, hookworms, whipworms which can have different stages developing in the body.
Most vets will exam your dogs stool and prescribe medicine, only paying for the medicine and the fecal exam. I would call your vet and see if you can drop off a sample.
Most vets will exam your dogs stool and prescribe medicine, only paying for the medicine and the fecal exam. I would call your vet and see if you can drop off a sample.
Vets really seem to be moving away from this pricing model. Many now charge an office visit fee and a fee for the fecal exam. It's not that your total cost is necessarily higher, it's that the drugs are not marked up as much. The feeling is that vets should charge for their professional services, including knowledge gained in 8+ years of college and doctoral-level schooling, rather than for products like medicine and flea preventative.
A good vet will want to examine your animal first if you haven't been there in awhile -- not just its poop, although they'll want to see that too
Thanx everyone. I went back and looked again after I posted and they did not look like the first ones I saw. I did check her a week after the dose of meds and she was clear of them. This time they did not seem to be moving and looked a little bigger and very flat. There were not that many. I am going to hold off and keep and eye on her.
All my dogs are on Frontline but still continue to scratch once in a while.
Thanx again.....
On a side note, my dog was just diagnosed with tapeworms and they RARELY show up in a fecal test. She had three negative fecals and I only knew about the worm because of seeing it come out of her anus and go back in. (yuck!) I also saw a ton of dried up segments in her bedding.
My dog had tapeworms about a month ago also. I called the vet and they prescribed Drontal Plus, which I picked up and fed to the dog (chewable treat formulation). She's also on flea/tick preventive. It worked and there were no lab/office visit charges.
She had had a fecal float and smear the week before, and at first I was really ticked off when I found the segments in her stool because I thought the vet should have seen it. But then I realized that they don't shed in each poop and may not show up in a stool sample.
Fingers crossed for not seeing these again. I use Vectra for flea/tick prevention and it's really effective.
I don't know what you got from Amazon, but if I were you, I would call the vet and get Drontal to treat them again (or whatever they recommend) along with flea prevention if you are not already.
I've found this product from Jeffers Pet Supply to be effective and far less costly than the vet.
Pet Supplies at Jeffers Pet: Online Pet Supplies, Discount Pet Supplies, Pet Supply Stores, Discount Pet Supplies, Pet Vaccines (http://www.jefferspet.com/ssc/product.asp?CID=0&mscssid=SUXWN03RBF1K9P4P8EPW2A82 AER34R49 - broken link)
OK, the ink does not take you to the page for wormer, only the index, but you can find it. It's the brand by Agri-Labs.
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and they did not look like the first ones I saw. I did check her a week after the dose of meds and she was clear of them. This time they did not seem to be moving and looked a little bigger and very flat. There were not that many. I am going to hold off and keep and eye on her.
