Constantly itchy...skin allergies - Page 3

Hi there, I have used an 'ointment'  called Camrosa on dogs with skin irritations and it had proven to be very effective. It also seemed to help with bald patches which had developed as a consequence of scratching and irritation. It is a fairly thick substance which seems to ease the irritation while also providing a barrier which enables the skin to heal without further irritation/infection. I am based in Ireland but its likely that  the product is either available or can be shipped worldwide?

Zenit, you dog is only 4 years old which means you are looking at at least another 6 years of dealing with his/her atopy (which is nothing more than a generic name for an itchy dog, not a diagnosis). Your GP vet may be a perfectly great vet, but if he's like 99% of vets in a general practice he is not well eduated in allergies in dogs. You need to bite the bullet and make an appointment with a dermatoglist. May I ask where you live? I may be able to suggest one to you. Is there a local vet school? Trust me, you will end up paying a lot more for supplements, topicals, and food changes than it would cost to have the dog skin tested and desenitized. Yes, you will have to not give the pred for a period of time and it can take up to one year for the vaccine to work, you will still need to use pred as needed and some members of the family will need to give the shots once or twice a month. However you have few choices - skin testing, Atopica, let the dog scratch 24/7, continue with the streroids; odds are you will need to increase the dosage in time.

Trying to boost the immune system sounds like the right thing to do, however allergic dogs have overactive immune systems, so it not going to help at all. Pred works because it surpresses the immune system. If you really want to find out if the atopy is the result of something the dog is ingesting, make your own food for the dog using a few ingredients as possilble. There are many sites on the net that offer recipes. If you decide to do that, forget about the commerical diets, make it yourself and do not give the dog one single thing that is not included in the diet - that includes treats. The whole family needs to be on board for that; if one sneaks the dog even tiny piece of beef and that's the culprit,  you are back to square one. To make it even more difficult, you have to choose a protein source that the dog has never eaten - something exotic like ostrich.

I've gone through this with my own GSD and with clients' dogs, there is no cure, it never ends, and the untreated dog lives in misery. I really wish that breeders would stop breeding dogs with allergies. Good luck. Please think about what I've said.

The reason that we are seeing an epidemic of alleriges is because the allergies are a symptom of an underlying immune system breakdown.  They are not the problem, so treating the allergies will not fix the problem.  You need to stop putting chemicals in/on the dog (flea treatments, vaccinations, etc.) and give the dog's body the support it needs to detox and rebuild the immune system.  Treating the symptoms is doing nothing more than putting a bandaid on the real problem.

ETA... it is a misperception that allergies and autoimmune diseases are the result of overactive immune systems.  They are caused by a dysfunctional immune system.  The physical manifestation of allergies is the bodies natural defense mechanism flushing toxins through the skin.  Suppressing the immune system with prednisone and other such drugs may make the physical symptoms go away, but it is furthering the dysfunction of the immune system.  I have three autoimmune diseases myself that I was able to put into remission by regulating my immune system, not killing it.  

Using allergic dogs or dogs that have produced allergic dogs in breeding programs doesn't help either, K-9GSD.  An allergic dog does have a compromised, overactive immune system;  the allergic dog over reacts to and misidentifies a harmless protein or inhalant as the enemy and sends out histamines that cause the itching. I have never heard about the toxins going through the skin, but there is much that is unknown about dogs' immune systems so I won't argue against that. However, I'm not sure we can compare the canine immune sytem to that of humans, but for this dog it really doesn't matter. He needs to be seen by a dermatologist.

Autoimmune issues are complicated and best left to the experts. I  agree with stopping with the vacs and insecticides, so trying that in lieu of the dermatologist is probably a good idea. It didn't work for my dog or others I've seen, but it can't hurt to try.

Thank you for all the input, Blitzen. I hear you.  I have done a lot of research over the months, and I do understand the point you are driving at regarding a dermatology specialist.  I am just not sure that a specialist will be able to offer me anything different than what I have read and researched.  Frankly, I don't like my dog's options.  None of them provide a proven cure. It's amazing what the doctors don't yet know about animal or human medicine. But let's talk some more about a dermatology referral...I'll send you a PM.

My dog is young and energetic and ready to go anywhere or do anything with me and the family.  Up until a year ago, we had been enjoying Schutzhund training and looking forward to the idea of an APr-1 (tracking is nearly impossible for us to train for). This last year of skin problems has been incredibly frustrating to say the least.  The constant itching/scratching has put a lot of stress on everyone, including him. And, yes, financially, all the vet visits have cost a small fortune. 

K9gsd...I think you make some excellent points about the immune system and autoimmune issues.  Thank you for the help.  The Nzymes web site you pointed me too has some good information.  The skin is a complicated organ too.  I don't want to just alleviate the symptoms. I want his issues resolved and cured (without leading to other problems).

Thanks everyone.

You know, I had a dog come in who was super itchy. I switched flea meds from what the owner was using and the itchiness went away. Just something else to consider. 

Edited to add: I switched to a more natural flea med. Its mostly herbal. All of my dogs are on it with much success. After spending 6 months trying to find out why my import was sterile, I learned a lot about chemicals and how they can cause a lot of harm. Yes, its common sense, but we take chemicals for granted in a time when they are so easily and readily used. Since then, I have tried to use as few chemicals as possible with my dogs.

Topicals alone can cause atopy in dogs. Either the flea prevention you switched to didn't contain the irritant OR it did a better job of killing the fleas, thus the flea bite allergy was no more. I remember one dog that scratched 24/7. As soon as the owner stopped bathing it with a specific dog shampoo, the dog stopped scratching. Lucky dog, lucky owner. 

Ramage, what are you using for fleas now? Here in FL fleas are a huge problem and I would like to try something herbal in lieu of switching to another insecticide. Fleas here have developed an immunity to Frontline and Bio-Spot, no killing frosts to help eliminate them either. FL fleas are bionic.

Zen,  Years ago RC was a great food. Unfortunately they changed the formular (as happens w all dog foods on an ongoing basis as they try to reduce cost). New stuff was absolute crap. Don't know if they have changed it yet again but they lost this customer back a few years ago. BTW many dog foods including I believe RC use beet pulp in the food  because hat fiber produces firm stools.

Re the stools - has he been tested for EPI? If he's struggling nutritionally he may not have epi but a short course of low dose enzymes may help get the situation under control. I did this when I first started Nemo's supplementation routine and then gradually weaned him off of them. Be careful too much enyme will also cause diarreha.

Make sure the food you use does not have flax in it. Dogs do not process flax its there for us to THINK the food has omega3's. Many dogs are allergic to flax and will have skin, itchiness issues because of it. Unfortunately even the very high quality foods today use flax again becasue it's cheaper for them. But read labels - there are a few out there that still use fish oil.  The raw diet helped Nemo thru a very bad patch with his skin but he now tolerates dry w/o flax quite well. Recently been using a Canide ( they have at least two formulas w/o flax), or EVO or Nutrisource ( only 1 or 2 formulas w/o flax). Blue Buffalo has flax and also very low levels of good fats- not my choice at all. If you do not want to go raw perhaps a course of canned would help bridge him. There are many good high quality canned foods most without flax. Or buy raw ingredients and cook them. Chicken is cheap on sale, cottage cheese, yams, make sure you have heart in the diet for the taurine - beef pork orchicken. Asian markets are great for a variety of cheap meats to add to the diet such as heart and spleen and chicken feet ( great collagen). Don't forget bones, marrow, rib and eggshells whether raw egg or hard boiled easter egg treat - for calcium and phosphous.

In all the years I have had GSDs (50+) I have found that the vast majority of dog foods simply do not have sufficient fats especially good quality fats for GSDs. You need to increase the amount of fish oil in his diet. Be careful of supplementation products such as Missing Link that promise extra fats - most of those rely on flax once again ($$$). Also I do not get why you say 30% protein is too high. Re the anal gland problem had one dog w/ something similiar but it was directly carb related not protein related. The only time she had a problem ( 3x in her life) were times when she got into something she shouldn't as for example when I forgot and left a 10 lb bag of rolls for a picnic on the counter. There was a picnic all right but not the one planned.

Another piece of the supplementation routine I use w Nemo is selenium and zinc both well known to help skin and hair issues. BUT both can be overdosed so be careful with their use. Because of his small size Nemo only gets them 1-2x a week and these days only if he shows signs of a flair. What I did discover accidently was the COQ10 I was gving him fo rheart support had a HUGE positive affect on his skin issues. Turns out it is a systemic support as well as cardiac. I get both the COq10 and fish oil at Costco. I would recommend trying the Ubuinol initially as it is more bioavail and then later adding in the regular CoQ10. BTW  I do NOT use regular flea control treatments - they posion your dog. I go on an as needed basis ( 3x in10 yrs when exposed to someone elses infestation) and then primarily use the old flea powder routine.

I disagree somewhat with Blitzen re the dermatologist and will explain why in the next post since this one is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Re a vet dermatologist. First of all I agree with your statement about what you have done and not done. Secondly most if not all dermatolgists are allieopathic veterinarians ( tho accidently they do use homepathic principles when the give allergy shots). Allieopathic is another name for Western medicine. It s great , its wonderful it has helped many a human and dog including me last year with my two brand new knees. The problem with it is it singularly focuses - ie you are not a human or dog you are the eye, the leg, the gallbladder, the heart etc. Great  when your dog has a ruptured cruciate ligament to be fixed. Not so great with systemic issues. The other probelm which in part comes out of the first focus is the belief that cure, treatment, relief lies ONLY in a medical solution - a drug, a shot, a cream, a lotient  (more on this later). Plus that shot, cream, drug while helping in one area often will cause an equally serious problem in another area (ex bacterial overgrowth of the gut after long term antibiotic treatment).

Dermatolgists WANT to find a problem- not because they are evil and want to sell you an unending supply of medicine- but because that's what their training has taught them to. I have seen many misdiagnosises over the years by this need to provide an answer including to me w/ one of my own dogs. This was a dog that had a prostrate infection. He was put on long term Baytril - way longer than research showed safety but I stupidly trusted my vet when he said it was safe. Pretty soon we were on the hamster cage wheel of  pyrodema, antibiotics, yeast ( Mallasia) infection, prednisone, fungal treatments, pyrodema and back again. At one point he was diagnosed as atopic (meaning they don't know) and then later as having some serious herditary skin disease (not ever seen in his lines before). Well guess what they were wrong. I got him off the wheel of drugs and treatment and treated the skin issues w/ systemic support and some old fashioned remedies like tea baths for the skin eruptions and pretty soon we were back to normal skin, normal coat and lived a very long healthy life until age 14.

So my suggestion is before I went looking for a dermatogist I might try a holistic vet. Never used one myself. I have always done my own research and made my own decisions about what I was willing to try - thank god with some success. But at least holistic vets try to think systemically which is what is needed in a problem like this.

There are some things you need to know about treating skin issues - see the next post.