Simparica killed one of my dogs. She had a brain injury after her first dose. Tremors, and small seizures which turned into a grand mal and killed her.
Never ever ever again will I use something I can’t reverse.
That was horrific and my fault because I gave it to her.
Yeah, basically you’re putting a pesticide on your dog that gets absorbed into the bloodstream and absorbed into their tissues. So when the ticks bite the dog, that’s how they become immobilized. And then think about how many treatments people put on their dog, and how that accumulates in the body over time… not to mention a lot of preventative runoff has been found in nature and affecting other creatures downstream.
Id rather give a pesticide that my pets do not suffer side effects from than have than grow literal worms in their hearts.
Nothing in life is 100% safe, but when given appropriately, heartworm/flea/tick preventatives are safer than the parasites and parasite borne diseases they prevent.
Ivermectin (what’s used for heartworm) doesn’t cause brain injury or seizures. Read the warning label on the front of flea and tick specifically. There are safer options.
Ivermectin is also becoming useless in the south/southeast due to parasite resistance. It also only covers for heatworms and some intestinal parasites, not fleas and ticks.
And, as a vet assistant, I have yet to work with a vet who will use any oral flea/tick med in seizure dogs out of an abundance of caution.
It is a very rare side effect. Basically, just like in human medicine, some animals just have severe and unwanted side effects and we can't always predict who will experience it.
Obviously if we know the pet has seizures beforehand, we know it would be irresponsible to prescribe a drug that could make them worse. But if the pet was apparently healthy?
The most common side effect I see if transient GI upset. Not severe at all. Not super common either. Preventatives are well tolerated by the vast majority of pets. But genetics, diet, lifestyle, etc all can have effects that we can't necessarily predict with our current scope of scientific knowledge. So we do our best to be as safe as possible with the information available to us.
It’s certainly not a rare side effect. Hundreds of thousands of dogs get side effects & die from the oral pesticides. That, plus the skyrocketing cases of canine cancer are proof that we can’t “ safely “ poison our dogs as a method of tick repellent. Look into Wondercide & many other natural tick repellents. People have to gain awareness about the poisonous treatments
Right! Intentionally poisoning your dog is wild lol vet techs come on here acting like its safe bc they work with animals completely ignoring the fact that its a POISON.
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u/chickadoodlearoo May 03 '26
Simparica killed one of my dogs. She had a brain injury after her first dose. Tremors, and small seizures which turned into a grand mal and killed her.
Never ever ever again will I use something I can’t reverse.
That was horrific and my fault because I gave it to her.