Conventional vets often prescribe antiparasitic drugs or dewormers when your adult dog, cat, puppy, or kitten tests positive for intestinal worms.
Many veterinarians will also suggest worm preventatives to help reduce the risk of your pet getting worms. Additionally, many veterinarians and breeders will deworm kittens and puppies at every check-up before six months without testing for parasites.
However, deworming medicines, also known as worming meds, have side effects and can cause long-term problems for our pets. (It is also important to note that healthy adult dogs and puppies shouldn’t need routine deworming.)
Antiparasitic agents work by poisoning the worms, but they aren’t selective with what they destroy within the system. So, these drugs can also kill or destroy the beneficial organisms or bacteria in your dog’s gut.
Additionally, these drugs can cause deeper imbalances beyond the gut – causing dysfunction in the immune system, liver, and kidneys. Lack of beneficial bacteria within the gut microbiome can lead to allergies, inflammation, loss of appetite, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This can affect essential systems like your pet’s digestive and immune systems. It can also affect how your dog absorbs nutrients from food and even supplements, leading to malnourishment and deficiency no matter how high quality the diet is or how often you feed your pet. Additionally, these drugs are processed in the liver like many other prescription drugs, which can harm liver health.
Some Known Side Effects of Deworming Drugs:
- Lethargy
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Loss of appetite
- Seizures
- Liver damage
To learn more about holistic parasite prevention and alternative interventions, check out the post on “A Holistic Approach to Parasites in Pets.