Parasite Prevention Pills Or Shots?

[Crypt36]

I hear I should give my cats and dog something to prevent them from getting worms and heartworms in particular.

I suppose I can just treat fleas, lice and ticks whenever I see them... Anything that should be taken care of besides the worms?

Taking my animals over to a vet every month would be a rather long and expensive trip I'd rather avoid, can these things be solved with a pil or liquid in their food instead of injection? What kind of product do you use?

[Nienke]

Heartworm prevention can be done either by pill or by injection. Pills are available as Heartguard and Iversat (and maybe other brands that I'm unaware of). Costs of a 6-pill pack of Heartguard is about twice the price as a 6-pill pack of Iversat. Both contain ivermectin that kill the micro filaria (Heartworm) and Heartguard also contains pyrantel (if I'm not mistaken) against intestinal roundworm.

Although, it says you have to give it once a month, once per 2 months is fine (according Heartguard's own research).

You can also inject ivermectin yourself, but you need to know how, how much, and IF something goes wrong you seem to be far away of a vet's clinic.

When a dog has one or two intestinal worms it's no big deal. In fact it boosts its immune system to take care of the problem itself. Always better. But as too many intestinal worms is not good, you can buy deworm pills. How many depends on the body weight of your dog.

In both cases you can buy a year supply (but look at the expire date).