Parasites and Dietary Problems
The possibility of all the scratching in your pet must have been ruled out by using good veterinary flea treatment and we are able to do skin scrapings to rule out the possibility of it being a mite infestation.
The same goes for ruling out a dietary allergy. It is important that you have put your pet onto a strict elimination diet to rule this out. I give a recipe for this diet in my e-book.
Once all the above problems are eliminated, we then can perform a blood test to determine exactly what your dog is allergic to. It is a costly blood test (I know as I had it done recently on my own dog Slick), but thankfully she is insured.
Her treatment has involved a course of tiny injections that I give once a week to densensitise her. This is effective in approximately 25% of dogs and thankfully Slick is one of them. 40% of cases can show a good response but will need some other form of treatment too. It took a good 5 months to see a response, so always keep up the treatment for at least 10 months before deciding whether or not it is effective.
How to Manage your Atopic Dog
We advise and you decide on the course of treatment for your pet for these reasons:
- Never have unrealistic expectations when your dog is diagnosed with atopy. Atopy is an incurable disease that requires continuous and lifelong treatment.
- There will be some degree of lifelong expense. It is sadly never goes away completely
- There is no single treatment for atopic dermatitis that is perfect. All the potential treatments have advantages and disadvantages.
- It is common for your dog with atopy to have flare-ups from time to time. This is likely to involve future visits to your vet or veterinary dermatologist.
Treatment Options for your Itchy Atopic Pet
Specific Treatment-once a blood test has been done |
Non-Specific Treatment - treating the symptoms |
Avoid the Allergen
Allergen-specific injections - called IMMUNOTHERAPY
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Cortisone
Ciclosporins
Antihistamines
Essential Fatty Acids
Chinese Herbs
Medicated Shampoos
Antibiotics (to control the secondary infection)
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A Summary of theTreatment Options for Atopy
1. Cortisone or Steroid Treatment
These include Prednisolone tablets, Prednicare or Medrone tablets and are the small white tablets that are given with a tapering dose. They are not specific for any allergy and due to their strong anti-inflammatory effect; they are effective in nearly 100% of cases in reducing the itching. They are the cheapest option and will cost about £5 - £15 per month.
The biggest concern we have with using cortisone is the side effects. In the short term, your dog will drink more, urinate more (even urinating indoors at night); they are hungrier and pant more.
With long term use, the side-effects include liver problems, bladder infections, diabetes, muscle weakness, a round pot belly, stomach ulcers, pancreatitis, cataracts, hair loss, skin thinning and possible skin infection may occur. These are the worst case scenarios that could occur if your pet was to be on cortisone for a long period of time.
2. Ciclosporin tablets
The brand name for this anti-cancer drug that works by blocking the allergic reaction; is Atopica. It is expensive and can cost about £100 - £500 per month depending on the size of your dog. It is successful in about 80% of cases.
When your dog first starts on Atopica, there may be mild vomiting but this is nothing to worry about an should settle down quickly. Other side effects that do not cause problems but can occur include: increased growth of gums (these seem to be more marked in Boxers) and increased fur growth.
As Atopica is such an expensive drug, it is used more in insured pets.
3. Immunotherapy
This is effective in about 65% of cases. It rarely causes any side-effects and costs about £25 - £30 per month once your dog is on the effective stable dose. Initially it is very expensive as a vial has to be produced by the laboratory of the exact allergen that your pet is allergic to. It also tends to be used in insured dogs.
A series of injections are given usually weekly at first and then this tapers down to every 2 or 4 weeks. You are able to give the injection as it is in a tiny syringe that we would use in diabetic patients. If successful, the injections are given for life.
4. Essential Fatty Acids
These tend to be effective in approximately 20% of cases, they rarely cause side effects (maybe minor diarrhoea) and cost about £15 - £40 per month. See which essential fatty acids I recommend and the doses in my dog e-book.
5.Chinese Herbs
The veterinary ones we supply are typically called Phytopica. They are effective in approximately 20% of cases. They can cause stomach upsets and my dog Slick did not want to touch her food or anything that I wrapped the chinese herbs in (which says a lot for a Labrador), so they obviously taste VERY bitter. They cost about £30 - £100 per month.
6. Medicated Shampoos
These are very helpful to treat and soothe the skin and certain medicated shampoos will prevent an infection. They cost around £10-£30 per month. For natural shampoos that I recommend, click here.
7. Antibiotics
These are very effective when an infection is present. Some antibiottics may cause stomach upsets but this is rare. For long term use of antibiotics, I always recommend to clients to feed their dogs some live bio yoghurt (as we would drink ie Yakult) which replaces their normal bacterial flora - and they like it!
So as you can see, there are possibly more treatment options for atopic dermatitis than for any other condition. This may mean a lot of trial and error when giving the medication to find the one that is just right for your dog. You can always ask for a referral to a veterinary dermatologist for the initial diagnosis and treatment recommendations atopy is a big problem in your pet.
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