so after tearing apart the dash and getting the heater out, that I have 177 volts going to each terminal within the heater, does this mean that my DC/DC converter is still working and the heater just went out?.
That doesn't sound right to me. I think the heater should be getting full battery DC voltage which would be 350-400volts. So that makes it sound like the fuse is bad too me. And maybe the lower voltage causes higher current in the heater which is why it commonly fails at the same time.
So if you replace the heater with the fuse bad it is possible it will just blow up your replacement heater.