Most cats do just fine with the medication used to prevent heartworm disease. Sometimes it can cause a little skin irritation if you use a topical treatment, or it can cause a little GI upset. However, these are rare occurrences and the medications are generally safe to use.

Unfortunately, there's not really a treatment for heartworms in cats. However, the greater the stage of the heartworm, the more likelihood that it could be fatal.

The main complications of heartworm disease in cats are heart disease, exercise intolerance which results in them wanting to lay around more, coughing, and sudden death.

Heartworm is very uncommon in cats. Cats are not the natural host for heartworms.

Not for testing, but we may recommend going to a cardiologist if they are tested positive.

I still recommend it because there are some signs of resistance in certain cases so we want to make sure that we take care of that immediately.

Heartworm disease can be fatal to cats so the earlier we can detect it, the more likelihood that we can decrease inflammation and keep them healthier and happier longer.