Elephant Skin - Page 1

Hello,

I have a 5 year old female shepherd with a stock coat that has what appears to look like "Elephant Skin" starting to form under her belly. It just started to form over the past 2 weeks and is steadily spreading to the entire left side of her belly and armpits. It appears to be starting to form on her hocks as well. My vet did a thyroid blood test but this test came back negative so he has decided to put her on some anti-biotics. Unfortunately, he is not totally sure what exactly is causing this as "it could be a multitude of things" and has told me it may take 3-4 months to get it to go away entirely.

Just to be clear, the spot is completely grey and looks exactly like "Elephant Skin". Also the hairs on the spot have disappeared. Her belly is normally white so it is obvious some kind of infection is occurring here. She does scratch at it from time to time but not obsessively. She is still full of spirit and acts as normal as ever though.

I do have some "Hexadine Flush" and some "OxyDex" shampoo lying around from yesteryear but am afraid to use those products as I am not sure yet if it would help or make it worse. My internet research on this topic also doesn't really lead to any definitive answers either.

Anyone out there ever have this problem? What should I do? What causes it? I can honestly say I have never seen anything like this before in any of my dogs or anyone else’s for that matter.

Thank you for your attention...

Well... My boy has it... It gets pretty bad sometimes and turns black and very thick. I would suggest putting a couple of tbs. of plain whole yogurt in her food every day for a while, it should clear up in about a week.
Skin scrapings may determine it is yeast. Did you change something in her food?

Possibly "Malassezia pachydermatis"

http://www.dermapet.com/articles/art-20.html

Maybe this will lead you in the right direction... Sounds like anti-biotics is the way to go.

No Antibitoec will not help. This is a fungal infection not a bacterial one and is often seen as an opportunistic infection FOLLOWING antibiotic treatment.

Bathe/ shampoo with tar/sulfer shampoo ( T-gel) or soak with tea (Lipton NOT tea tree oil) or toss her into the pool if you have one - the chlorinated water seems to stop it.

You may want a skin scraping to confirm in case the above doesn't work and you have to move on to anti-fungals,

Ohh crazy !! Would Probiotics help also Tuff ?? Considering its a opportunistic infection can you bulster the immune to push out the bad stuff ??

Whisper

bitburger.... That sounds like an iron deficiency solution.

Sorry it took me so long to update this thread but it took me awhile to get my head around the problem.  Also, I wanted to be sure I had the problem under control before posting.

First off, my female is fine now and recovering her hair nicely.  The problem turned out to be nothing more than a yeast infection on her skin.  I believe it was caused by a combination of a humid summer and one occasion where I gave her too much greasy hamburger mixed with her food.  Occasionally I will spoil my dogs with table scraps but I think in the future I will be taking extra care before doing that again.  All I can remember is about 2 weeks after the greasy hamburger was given to her, she started losing her hair and the “Elephant Skin” started to appear.  I am pretty sure the greasy hamburger is what caused it because I have found out through this process that yeast infections of the skin occur when there is an increased amount of skin oils on the dog’s skin.   Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the correlation with the greasy hamburger until later.

One would think this would be an easy condition to diagnose but this was not the case.  The same symptoms can occur with mange, fleas, and thyroid problems (and there are probably many more causes).  Therefore, applying home remedies on your own without knowing the exact cause of the problem could end up being disastrous.

However, after going through this experience I think TIG was correct in suggesting to simply bath the dog. Seems to me this would be the simplest and safest home remedy that one could employ when dealing with “Elephant Skin”.  Although I do brush my dogs often, I rarely bath them (if at all) throughout a given year.  And even though I went through the expense of purchasing a medicated shampoo (SEBOZOLE - with the active ingredient being Miconazole Nitrate), I can’t help but wonder if bathing the dog 3 times a week for 3 weeks using “Dawn” liquid dishwashing soap would have done the trick as well since the oily skin was the real problem.

Anyway, thanks to all who posted suggestions.  I do appreciate it.  Take care.

Gosh I hate to squash your positive approach to it being all gone forever but greasy hamburgers do not cause this type of skin problem. You may have gotten rid of it for NOW with antibiotics and shampoo but most likely it will return and dont be surpised if it comes back with a vengence.

I get the impression that you think "home remedies" are something that is for oldtimers. As a practicing herbalist without all our home remedies modern medicine as we know it wouldnt exist. And Ive been in the medical field for 20 years.

I hope your right and your dog doesnt experience any more flareups. Good luck!