4 Paws Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 (edited) My 5 year old gsd has had a dry cracked nose now for around 8 months.I had her to the vets around Oct last year for another reason and mentioned her cracked nose and the vet looked at it and said it was not infected so not to worry about it. I have previously asked on here for ideas on what to treat it with and had tried paw paw cream,am-a-lin,barrier cream etc all with no success.If I left it alone it was just really dry and cracked,if I tried to put something on it it was wet and cracked.Last night I noticed her other nostril was bleeding from what appeared inside the nose area,not outside so I booked her in agin to the vets to insist we get to the bottom of it as it had gone on too long. Vet was not sure what it was being caused by (the cracked nose,,couldn't find any real reason for the other nostril nose bleed though and it appears to have sorted itself out)and took some pictures to show to her boss as she wanted his opinion.She rang late this afternoon and said they looked through lots of vet books and believe it's caused by an autoimmune disease and want to put her on cortisone tablets and suggested putting zinc cream on the nose to see how that goes. Just wondering if others have dealt with this kind of thing before and if it was successful.Is there any alternate methods to try other than cortisone? thanks Edited June 23, 2009 by 4 Paws Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anniek Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Is she losing any toe nails? Could be SLE / DLE or some other immune problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4 Paws Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 Is she losing any toe nails? Could be SLE / DLE or some other immune problem. No,no problems there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erny Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 (edited) I'm not a Vet and hate the fact that in the absence of the knowledge they have and the absence of seeing the dog, I may be seen to be standing on 'toes'. So my disclaimer is that this is just my general opinion and it isn't necessarily right. BUT .... if it were me, I'd be inclined to seek specialist opinion. And I'd do that before having my dog plied with cortisone. Nose bleeds can be for a variety of causes, from grass seeds to matters more sinister. What is it that makes your Vet think the dry cracked nose (which must be so uncomfortable, poor love) and the blood nose are connected? I'm not saying they are not, but wondering how they've connected the two together. I have no idea about either the dry/cracked nose and/or the bleeding being auto-immune disease related though and in this respect, I'd be inclined to contact Dr. Jean Dodds in the US to ask if your dog's symptoms could be in any way related to thyroid function or autoimmune thyroiditis. If she thought it was possible, then I'd arrange for bloods to be drawn (in accordance with her direction) and sent over to her in the US for analysis. I wouldn't bother with having them tested and analysed out here as I do not believe that our tests are sufficiently thorough, meaning that if they were to show 'negative' I wouldn't necessarily believe them. Edited June 23, 2009 by Erny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4 Paws Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 vet didn't actually relate the nose bleed to the autoimmune diognosis.She did say it was hard to see if anything was really going on with the nose bleed as her nasal cavaties really are quite weird shaped.She did look in the side that had the bleed last night and couldn't find anything sinister so she really was just trying to figure out why the other side had the continual crack and dryness. I guess when her nostril started bleeding last night I'd just had enough of seeing her with the crack on her nose and deceided to go back to vets to get them to look further into it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rappie Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 (edited) Sometimes the best way to get an answer on these cases is to biopsy the nose and get a histopathological diagnosis. There are a wide range of causes for the dry, cracked, knobbly noses. Some are 'simple' to treat, others not so much. Sometimes it can be 'just' nasal hyperkeratosis or a chronic deep infection of the tissue of the nasal planum but certainly also other causes such as immune mediated (discoid lupus and pemphigus), endocrine related (thyroid levels), even neurological (can occur secondary to KCS / dry eye). Treatments are equally varied and this is where it helps to have a diagnosis. Mucocutaneous pyoderma might only need antibiotics, a moisturiser product and omega oils supplementation while other causes will require steroids (either topical or systemic). Even for discoid lupus, where possible the recommendation is often to hold off on steroids and treat with tetracyclines and niacinamide. In this case the advantage of having a surgical biopsy would be the ability to have a good look up the nose, even take skull rads if an infection further into the nose was suspected. ETA: Without giving specific advice about this case, if you wish to avoid steroids, it might (depending on the case, which I have not seen) still be reasonable to try antibiotics with a topical steroid, or even vitamin E / vaseline etc to keep the nose surface moisturised. That would treat the chronic infection option, and not affect other causes (ie. they would still be present), Edited June 23, 2009 by Rappie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greytmate Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Two things that have helped some dogs with this problem. Put some aloe vera on the nose each day. Get rid of any plastic drinking or food bowls and ensure the dog only has access to ceramic or metal bowls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancinbcs Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Two things that have helped some dogs with this problem. Put some aloe vera on the nose each day. Get rid of any plastic drinking or food bowls and ensure the dog only has access to ceramic or metal bowls. I was just about to say the same thing. Plastic food and water bowls can certainly cause this reaction. It is not the actual plastic that is the problem it is whatever the chemical is that they line the moulds with to stop the plastic sticking to them. It stays on the plastic and I have heard of these exact symptoms from plastic bowls several times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
temperamentfirst Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 Two things that have helped some dogs with this problem. Put some aloe vera on the nose each day. Get rid of any plastic drinking or food bowls and ensure the dog only has access to ceramic or metal bowls. I was just about to say the same thing. Plastic food and water bowls can certainly cause this reaction. It is not the actual plastic that is the problem it is whatever the chemical is that they line the moulds with to stop the plastic sticking to them. It stays on the plastic and I have heard of these exact symptoms from plastic bowls several times. Our old boy had a similar problem. My vet put him on antibiotics, and told me to give him fish oil capsules, which we did. THe nose cleared up within a couple of weeks! She is an open-minded vet, and said she was told about the fish oil by a client! I now give him a salmon oil capsule daily. My vet was opposed to using cortisone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverblue Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 My Boris has a auto immune disease, it is called Pemphigus Follicailous, his nose isn't cracked but he has lost the pigment on it & broke out in pus scabs all over his body. A biopsy of the scab sent to a skin specialist soon confirmed this, the vet wanted to put him on Cortisone, but I wasn't really happy about this so I went to see a herbal vet who made him up a "Potion" & also gave him accuptunture, That was 3 years ago, and apart from him being neorotic his physical symptoms have all gone. Fish oil & Colliodial Silver were my savour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4 Paws Posted June 27, 2009 Author Share Posted June 27, 2009 My Boris has a auto immune disease, it is called Pemphigus Follicailous, his nose isn't cracked but he has lost the pigment on it & broke out in pus scabs all over his body.A biopsy of the scab sent to a skin specialist soon confirmed this, the vet wanted to put him on Cortisone, but I wasn't really happy about this so I went to see a herbal vet who made him up a "Potion" & also gave him accuptunture, That was 3 years ago, and apart from him being neorotic his physical symptoms have all gone. Fish oil & Colliodial Silver were my savour. Thankyou everyone for your posts. I did end up starting her on the cortisone tabltes for one course.They are Prednisolone tablets and have increased her dose of oils.I have always given her some type of oil,woudl give her fish oil for a while than change to EPO,than flaxseed oil but am now giving them all at once.also applying zinc cream a few times a day. Turms out the bleed from the other nostril was actually another crack strating out.She also used to get these little sore on her body.I'd notice a tuff of hair sticking out and when i pulled it out it had a clump of dried stuff on the end so I'm guessing this was related as well from the sounds of things Fingers crossed this will finally give her some relief and we might only have to have the one course of cortisone Silverblue,did you give the colliodal silver internally or bath the nose with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverblue Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 4 Paws, I gave Boris the C/Silver internally, seemed to work for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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