Jan. 15, 2026

Why healthy pets rarely develop heartworm infections

Bill and his guest Dr. Michael Dym, VMD will discuss how it happens, what they do to the body and how to rid and safeguard against them..

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I mean, you know when you look at the research

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that was done it where you went to school University

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of Pennsylvania on heartworms back in the seventies, because I

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was working with several veterinarians that were involved in that,

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and it was it was interesting that when you look

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at it, it's one species of mosquitoes that carries carries

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it and it you know, if you're going to be

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bit by several of these these several of the same

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species mosquitoes transferring it into the body because you need

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obviously multiple myophilia going up to the heart, because you's

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gonna need males and females, and you know they have

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to breed somehow. And when they get into the bloodstream,

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if you're going to a healthy animal, what happens to

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those Yeah, I don't think you'd eating up. You eat up,

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That's exactly right. And from the initial research that we saw,

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it takes six to nine lunch to migrate to the

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heart because they're battling all this stuff. You would literally

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have to be bits probably fifty or one hundred times

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unless it's a very very low you know, immune suppressed animal,

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wouldn't it. Yeah, No, the low unie suppress is the

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key because again, the clinical cases of heartworm I see

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in practice typically are animals under intense stress, such as

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those coming from shelters or rescues, or animals on you know,

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toxic diets and and being given poisons of that, you know,

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whether they're the injections or whether they're the you know,

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the the preventatives. Those are the animals I see the

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heart worms in. It's not that you know, the animals

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that are in the commercial kibble. You don't see it

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in a fresh meat, fresh fed animal who's on good

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you know, herbal detox and a good lifestyle