alergies any organic treatment - Page 1

My 2 years old gsd female has had alergies real bad this year.  she never had them before, but she is scratching all the time, and has no undercoat now.  I haven't had to deal with this in the past so any info anybody would like to share would be great.

she had a cortizone shot (sp?) and it helped for about 2 months, but she is back to looking and feeling bad.

Also those of you that feed BARF diet, this is what she has been on.  I have taken her off of chicken and only give her organic raised lamb and fish.  Ears do look better since doing this, but she still has very ichy skin.  I have also just started giving Apply cyder viniger and rinsing her with it every couple of days.  Of course this will take a bit to start helping but so far nothing. 

I was wanting to know if anyone knows about feeding wild hog year around.  They are rampid around Texas and I have a friend that was asking and I don't know.  The farmers will kill them for destroying land ect and better to use them for something than to let them rot.  Let me know if anyone knows anything.

Thanks

Heather

Been there, done that for over 3 years. Tried steroids and  every holistic and natural remedy in the book - herbs, vitamins, topicals, shampooing, not shampooing, changing food every month, homemade food, you name it, I tried it. Finally gave up , had the dog skin tested and ended up desensitizing him which worked but it took almost a year.  Allergies tend to get worse as dogs age and they can develop new ones too. If you decide to go with the skin testing, I'd strongly recommend you use an area veterinary dermatologist who is familar with local pollens and grasses. You're in Texas, right? Are you near Texas A & M?

Good luck!!

There is a blood test for allergies called The SPOT Test. The lab that runs this test is Spectrum Labs. They will run a test for common environmental allergens in your particular geographic area. In addtion to this, there is a food panel that is done as well. It is quite comprehensive.

Once identified the foods are easy too avoid. It is the environmental allergens that are hard to avoid.

The SPOT Test at least will let you know what it is your dog is allergic to. No more guess work. Once offending elements are identifed you can take action to avoid them to the best of your ability.

If there are environmental allergies you should try to track the pollen counts. Some weather networks run daily pollen counts. 

If you have a good homeopathic vet you can access ,do so. 

Hope this helps.

I'm not familiar with the "spot" test. Had my dog tested with 2 blood tests - RAST and ALISA and neither were nearly as accurate as the skin testing.   Had the RAST done two times with two entirely different results. IMO the most important thing is to use a vet who is experienced in dermatology. It's important to first rule out other reasons for the atopy like scabies, hypothyroidism, primary bacterial infections, etc.. If steroids helped, the odds are that food or parasites are not going to be involved, it will be due to inhaled allergins. 

Bottom line - allergies are a big pain in the butt to diagnose and treat and dogs that suffer with them should not be used for breeding.

thanks everyone.