ruthless Posted December 3, 2008 Author Share Posted December 3, 2008 I really feel for you both. My dogs are nowhere near that bad. I've been following a few of your suggestions ZA and it seems to be keeping her relatively ok. Something she has that's different to the other two is that she sometimes feels sweaty under her armpits! She's also got some small areas where skin is lifting [stomach and legs], but it's not dry and flaky, it's moist. Does that make sense? She's a little bumpy at the moment too, but OH reckons it's fly bites. I sprayed her with a teatree oil and water solution today, so fingers crossed it keeps them away and she doesn't react to it [Permoxin and Aerogard weren't working] She's not perfect, but she's not having major flare ups either. Most importantly, she seems comfortable and although she scratches a bit, I don't think it's excessive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 I really feel for you both. My dogs are nowhere near that bad. I've been following a few of your suggestions ZA and it seems to be keeping her relatively ok. Glad to hear that some of those ideas have helped you Something she has that's different to the other two is that she sometimes feels sweaty under her armpits! She's also got some small areas where skin is lifting [stomach and legs], but it's not dry and flaky, it's moist. Does that make sense? Can you get a pic? Dogs do get moist dermatitis as well as dry so it could be something like that... is it discoloured or anything? My guys often get a clammy feel when they have the secondary infections like yeast or staph... She's a little bumpy at the moment too, but OH reckons it's fly bites. I sprayed her with a teatree oil and water solution today, so fingers crossed it keeps them away and she doesn't react to it [Permoxin and Aerogard weren't working] How's she looking now? Keep an eye on the bumps as that is what staph often look like to start with... fingers crossed it is bites... I use a solution of neem and lavendar oil in water for insect repellent. She's not perfect, but she's not having major flare ups either. Most importantly, she seems comfortable and although she scratches a bit, I don't think it's excessive. Cool... as long as she is comfy! That's the main thing hey? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted December 5, 2008 Author Share Posted December 5, 2008 (edited) The bumps have little scabs, so bites are more likely, no? ETA I'll try and get pics over the weekend Edited December 5, 2008 by ruthless Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Nope Staph bumps will scab up too... Normally they will come up in bumps, and then they almost look like pimples and will burst (but not always, we've had them just come up and go down and dry (so look scabby) with a small outbreak) and then scab after. They will be little round circles after and often get mistaken for ringworm apparently! Asher has little round scars all over from his... I'll try and get a photo of the scars again this weekend too... its too hard without a second set of hands... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted December 5, 2008 Author Share Posted December 5, 2008 Can't Zayda help you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Of course they could still be bites if she's managed to scratch / chew them... but I've never seen a bit go scabby on my guys (but often they are bitten on the back so can scratch it etc.)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Can't Zayda help you? She's clever, but she ain't that clever!! Thank god! You know I sometimes imagine what they would be like if they could talk or had opposable thumbs and its always leaves me glad that they can't!!! Imagine what you would come home to then!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted December 5, 2008 Author Share Posted December 5, 2008 Of course they could still be bites if she's managed to scratch / chew them... but I've never seen a bit go scabby on my guys (but often they are bitten on the back so can scratch it etc.)... Hmm, she's a number on her head and I really don't see her scratching herself much It'd be good if you could look at her, pity you live so far away :p If it is staph, what's the treatment? I'm almost certain it's seasonal, cause it's only happened recently. Can't Zayda help you? She's clever, but she ain't that clever!! Thank god! You know I sometimes imagine what they would be like if they could talk or had opposable thumbs and its always leaves me glad that they can't!!! Imagine what you would come home to then!! I get back-chat and tantrums as it is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Hmm, she's a number on her head and I really don't see her scratching herself much It'd be good if you could look at her, pity you live so far away If it is staph, what's the treatment? I'm almost certain it's seasonal, cause it's only happened recently. Right... well watch and see if she scratches there... Zayda actually has lumps from scratching at the base of her head... Does she smell different? My dogs both have distinct changes in smell with the infections... Yest is beery or fresh yeasty bread smell... I find Asher gets a sort of fishy smell to his coat and a coppery blood sort of smell to his breath. If it is staph we have had good success with Pau D'arco as both an oral and topical treatment. You can buy a cream to use at the health food store or make a tea and use it as a rinse. The resichlor or lamisil also works topically on the staph too.. Orally for the PD I give 1000mg daily for maintenance with Asher (but she doesn't sound that bad so you may not need to do this) or 1000mg 2 x daily for 2 days then 500mg 2 x day for one day and this will often knock a small infection off. Also soaking in Malaseb or episooth helps. If its a hugely bad outbreak then antibiotics and its a minimum 30day course because staph is hard to knock off Look in her toes both tops and bottoms and see if they are red stained at all too... that's the other place we see a lot of infection on Asher... its often a good first sign for him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 I get back-chat and tantrums as it is! Same here, that is bad enough without them telling me what they really think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted December 5, 2008 Author Share Posted December 5, 2008 Yeah, she does smell a bit yeasty Her toes are ok, I check them quite often as she had a real bad infection there when we first got her. Which wasn't summer. Maybe it's not seasonal, maybe it's just gotten worse over time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 (edited) Well it might be worth a trip to the vet for a check if she smells yeasty... always good to make sure we are treating the right thing! For yeast we find the resicholor, bathing and lamisil all work. It could be that she is getting worse as she ages (how old do you think she is?)... or it could be unrelated incidents too! Or she could be allergic to several things and one lot is worse at one time than the other... Edited December 5, 2008 by zayda_asher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted December 5, 2008 Author Share Posted December 5, 2008 Yeah, it could be any number of things. I'm slow to go to the vet cause the last two I asked were a bit useless. Maybe I'll ask if someone on here can recommend a good vet for skin allergies The pound guessed her to be two when I got her last April. The vet agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiniMum Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Hi, I've been lurking this thread for a while now and thought a lot of thing were relevant to what was happening with our boy. Zayda asher, I think I can really understand to some extent what you are going through. We have just come back from the dermatologist with the intradermal test results. Out 86 allergens TD reacted to all but 11. He only had three 4 s(for red clover) and lots of 3s, but he is only just 12 months old. (I guess the tests are a bit different because of where we live?). We already suspected a few things and pulled them out of the garden, but its not enough. We have also been doing elimination diet, its so slow though. At the moment the main issue is a really bad ear problem (perforated) that has been around since before we took TD in, which the vet said is an effect rather than a cause. Has anyone tried keeping a diary for food and reactions? Yours in itichiness Bec Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Yeah, it could be any number of things. I'm slow to go to the vet cause the last two I asked were a bit useless. Maybe I'll ask if someone on here can recommend a good vet for skin allergies The pound guessed her to be two when I got her last April. The vet agreed. Yeah, someone on here may know a good vet... its a good place that way Right, so at two you would expect her to pretty much have a full symptom pattern (or close to any way)... Some dogs can be quite allergic with quite few symptoms though (Asher is like this) so that's worth bearing in mind too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Hi, I've been lurking this thread for a while now and thought a lot of thing were relevant to what was happening with our boy. Sorry to hear you're going through this... Zayda asher, I think I can really understand to some extent what you are going through. We have just come back from the dermatologist with the intradermal test results. Out 86 allergens TD reacted to all but 11. He only had three 4 s(for red clover) and lots of 3s, but he is only just 12 months old. (I guess the tests are a bit different because of where we live?). We already suspected a few things and pulled them out of the garden, but its not enough. We have also been doing elimination diet, its so slow though. Ugh! I sympathize... we certainly have a pair!! The thing that was such a big shock for me (if I didn't say this already) was that her original test way back only came up with one positive, so I was expecting maybe a few, but not the whole damned thing!! Yeah, they are different depending on location... At the moment the main issue is a really bad ear problem (perforated) that has been around since before we took TD in, which the vet said is an effect rather than a cause. Has he been getting ear infections from the allergies? Zayda used to get bad ear infections... Poor little blighters! Has anyone tried keeping a diary for food and reactions? Yeah, we certainly kept a log of all the stuff we did with the first elimination diet and will do so again this time around too... I'm about to write up a list of all the things we will have to test, some will be done top of the list as we want to know about them sooner and some will be more likely culprits (because they are more common allergens)... so those will probably be an early test too... We are also keeping a log for her immunotherapy and reactions too whilst we are in the induction phase... its a bit of a pain, even for an anal retentive person like me , but it is a huge help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Yeah, it could be any number of things. I'm slow to go to the vet cause the last two I asked were a bit useless. Maybe I'll ask if someone on here can recommend a good vet for skin allergies The pound guessed her to be two when I got her last April. The vet agreed. Yeah, someone on here may know a good vet... its a good place that way Right, so at two you would expect her to pretty much have a full symptom pattern (or close to any way)... Some dogs can be quite allergic with quite few symptoms though (Asher is like this) so that's worth bearing in mind too... To add to that: Asher hardly ever scratches for example... so its not out of the realms of possibility to have a high allergy, low itch dog! If he does start itching its normally in his seasonal time and it will be eyes and feet and that's a really good cue for us that he is really reaching threshold and its time to knock into emergency management to fend off worse reaction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruthless Posted December 5, 2008 Author Share Posted December 5, 2008 But if they're not itchy what's the problem? Why does it need treating if they're not uncomfortable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 (edited) But if they're not itchy what's the problem? Why does it need treating if they're not uncomfortable? Because you're seeing other symptoms like the staph infections. I mean obviously if you were seeing NO symptoms then you'd never even know... What I meant is that some dogs go from nothing to everything with out the in between stuff... So for example Asher's last out break took three days to develop: day 1 hives, day two hives not resolving, day three the worst Staph out break out derm has pretty much ever seen... So yeah, when he's symptomatic its often massive, but the build up to that is not much... And the staph infections are hugely uncomfortable: with that one Asher was in so much pain he couldn't move without whimpering (and bear in mind we are talking AmStaff and high pain threshold here), he will also then get itchy with the staph infection (but isn't generally without), lethargy, oily horrible skin, peeling skin, pussy staph sores etc. etc. What I was meaning was not "hey, great I have an allergy dog with NO symptoms" but rather that some might only have a few of the whole gamut of symptoms that there can be. For Asher is symptoms are quite mild until crisis point... so its treatment and maintenance to prevent that from happening. So Asher's "normal" symptoms would be: Snotty eyes and nose mild itching (face, ears, paws) Then his "threshold breaking" symptoms would be Mid range itching (face, ears, paws) Change in smell of breath and coat Low grade staph infection, reasonably treated at home Colitis Full symptoms Diarrhea / colitis massive staph infection, as described above So it is managed and only treated as needed... but compared to many dogs he has very low symptoms... Zayda for example has almost the entire range... Edited December 5, 2008 by zayda_asher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zayda_asher Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 (edited) Itchy certainly isn't the only symptom of allergies either... One of Zayda's for example gives her massive digestive issues, no itching... she is in so much pain with it, and normally ends up throwing up and with colitis... Another gives her ADD type behaviour and again digestive issues... so its not always itching that causes the discomfort either... ETA: And even recently with Zayda's hive out breaks she has not been massively itch before as she used to be (she used to rip her skin apart), but we've been having the huge hive outbreaks and then she is really itchy whilst she has them... and they are painful and stressful for her too... but she's certainly not deteriorated again into the stereotypical "itchy allergy dog" again like she used to be, although she's been a bit worse since the hives... I guess my point was just don't think that "if the dog's not 100% itchy all the time it can't be allergies" because it surely can and there's symptoms just as bad as itchy and they aren't always as obvious if that makes sense Edited December 5, 2008 by zayda_asher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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