What are the signs of Whipworm infestation?
Signs may include any or all of the following: Inapparent infestations; nonspecific diarrhea; blood-streaked diarrhea; unthriftiness; weight loss. Most infestations are inapparent. The problem is that Whipworms can precipitate “recurring” diarrhea and colitis. Since the adult Whipworms may not lay eggs everyday, if your veterinarian performs a fecal flatation and looks for Whipworm eggs they might not be found. But the diarrhea keeps coming and going. Like the Hookworm, Whipworms also suck blood, but not nearly as much. What happens is that when the Whipworm buries it’s head in the intestine wall it causes a tremendous inflammatory reaction. The inflammed intestinal wall gets red, erroded and prone to invasion by bacteria. I believe this is the underlying cause of the intermittent diarrhea. We treat the diarrhea with antibiotics and it goes away, only to come back later. We kill the bacteria, but if we miss the Whipworms. The damage to the intestine wall continues allowing recurrant ba
