Allergy Not Improving

[Cozzie]

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Hi All,

I have a 3 year old cocker pug called Gizmo who developed an allergy approximately a year ago.

After initially taking him to the vets to find out more they firstly wanted to rule out environmental allergies i.e. dust. He has regular baths and flea treatments and this has since been ruled out. In the meantime he was given sterioids which stopped his scratching and licking almost immediately. Despite this, the vets did advise us that the steroids would not be the best option long term and that it would be best to do a trial and error with certain foods to try and determine if it was an allergy caused by an ingrediant with his food.

We adopted Gizmo from friends at 18 months old and we continued on his diet of meat and mixer biscuits. A few months ago we ran out of his meat and as a short term measurement we decided to try him on complete biscuits just to see what he was like with them. Within a few days we noticed that he had actually got worse on the complete food and after looking at the main ingredients we thought it may be that he had developed an allergy to the cereals.

To start the trial and error process we decided to bear this in mind and try him on a hypoallergenic dog food, which cuts all the common ingrediants known to cause allergies out. We don't have much money so went for the cheaper option of Skinners in Duck and Rice. This has been his 4th week on it now and he has not shown any signs of improvment. I have read conflicting reports on the internet that dogs have shown signs of improvements within a few days of trying a more suitable diet, others have said it can take up to a year for the allergy to disappear.

Does anyone have any advice to give? Could it be that he has an allergy to something else and it is in fact not the food?

I've also read that blood tests at the vets can not fully determine the allergy type either and because we don't have much money we didn't want to run up a huge vets bill but instead try our own trial and error process for a while first.

Thanks for reading my post :- )

 

[banana]

Hello there and welcome to Dog Forum - I am sure you are all at your whits end!

I understand 'raw' is the best for dogs with allergies, I also understand that with a raw diet it can be tricky to get teh balance right, but there are companies who produce the food completely ready.

http://www.naturalinstinct.com/

My cats loved it and looked great on it...

 

[TTT]

What a shame you ran out of meat and not biscuits! Get him onto the meat and leave the biscuits out.

 

[murphyrules]

My Beagle boy is very similar to Gizmo, scratching all over, red sore skin and he had diarrhoea all the time aswell, I did the same as you bathed, flea treated and this did nothing but as he had an upset stomach aswell I knew it was food intolerance/allergy, after taking him to the vets for advice I switched him on to Burns Pork and Potato diet as to try a total elimination diet you need to cut out rice aswell as it is in lots of commercial diets. Within 2 days of him being fed exclusively on this diet all poo was normal, much less itching and skin only pink not scarlet, unfortunately for us he lost a kilo and a half in just 3 weeks (he is skinny anyway) after doubling the volume of food over the next few months he was struggling to keep any weight on, so after more discussions with my vet I swapped him gradually on to Wafcol Salmon and Potato dog food and he has maintained a healthy weight and the itching has stayed at a now and again normal level. Try either of these foods they are around £40 for a 12 or 14 kg bag which lasts my boy for around 6 weeks. If you do decide to go to the vets for allergy testing my vet told me the most reliable type is intradermal testing not blood tests and I was quoted £600 for this. Im waiting to see what happens in the spring time when the pollens change because it may be a coincidence that the change of diet has happened over winter when his allergies would have got better anyway due to environmental changes. Im hoping that they dont come back but if they do we are going straight back for testing.

Good luck

 

[Cozzie]

We definately don't think that Gizmo's is seasonal; it doesn't tend to matter what the weather is like.

He has regular baths, his bedding is also cleaned regularly and his flea treatments are up to date so dust/fleas has been ruled out.

The vet admitted that it was gonna take different meals to try and eliminate the cause(s). I thought hypoallergenic food would do the trick and i'm disheartened that he's just not improving. I'm now thinking of buying a food that contains potato rather than rice although I didn't think rice would be an issue seeing as though he was a traditional meat and biscuits dog to start off with. It may be that he's developed an allergy towards more than one thing.

 

[eingana]

I'm with banana on this one- get him onto raw chicken (and ONLY raw chicken, no treats, no biscuits) and then see if there's an improvement. He will be getting all the nutrients he needs, he won't be hungry because his stomach will be working hard digesting real meat, and he'll be eating literally one food element so all of the grains, starches and additives will be excluded.

That will give you a proper picture of whether it's food related. If his situation improves radically then you can look at either how to introduce other items gradually and slowly to work out what he has issues with, or you can keep him on a raw diet for life (as we had to do with Molly) and then you can just increase the range of raw ingredients that he eats gradually.

A raw diet is cheaper than a decent complete biscuit BTW. I buy chicken carcasses from our local wholesale butcher at £3 for a big box full (since they're a waste product that they would otherwise have to pay to have removed) and that box contains between 40 and 45 meals for Molly (who is a GSD, so is rather larger than Gizmo- you may need to cut them up with kitchen shears to give him half a carcass). That's her breakfasts sorted out and then she has 500g of raw minced beef with offal, tripe, bone and blood for her tea, which comes in at 20 dinners for £10. So for a 38kg GSD her food comes to about £16 a month.

Lots of pet shops will order you pet mince (it needs the blood and bone to be nutritionally complete for dogs) and lots of places around the country stock frozen meat as a basic item for immediate pick up. Half an hour of phone calls should find you a supplier for both chicken carcasses and mince, or if you want to get started immediately just go to a supermarket and buy whole chickens then cut them up.

We went through the process of trying loads of different foods, including all of the 'sensitive' ones with Molly, but sadly she had projectile diarrhoea and stayed skeletally thin on all of them which is why we ended up with a raw diet for her- it was basically the last thing to try because nothing else worked. I wish now that we'd tried it immediately as it would have saved an awful lot of fuss, agonising, cost and illness for the dog just to have done it earlier on in the process.

Whatever you try, I hope you get Gizmo out of discomfort soon

 

[Strix]

I'm afraid I can't suggest anything other than a thorough process of elimination

Our beagle developed an allergy which the vet was never able to cure or identify. After 12 months I drew a line in the sand, ensured anything in his environment wad taken back to how it was (even the fabric softener), started feeding him bakers again *cringes*, and eventually pinned it down to fish - mainly in the salmon kibble we'd been feeding, but occasional meals including tuna, and rare pilchard treats produced the same results

Try eliminating as many detergents as possible (cotton bedding can be steam cleaned, as can carpets and hard floors)

Feeding garlic is supposed to deter fleas ( I only protect Brude if we're going on a tic country visit)

Our westie had horrible skin problems. My mum gave up with the vets. I began bathing him in dilute Savlon, which worked amazingly well

I'm not suggesting any of those will be relevant to you, but they may help you work out the solution

 

[eingana]

Oooooh- and another thought with environmental factors. I don't suppose you use Febreeze or similar on his bedding or the fabrics he comes into contact with do you? I know loads of dogs, cats and people who are allergic to that.

 

[Strix]

shake and vac, vax detergents, Dyson powder, biological washing powers or liquids...

Harsh grooming tools, too much grooming...

Stress...

 

[Cozzie]

Hi everyone, thanks for your imput I really appreciate it.

No we don't use any of the above when it comes to cleaning and washing, so I think we have pretty much ruled out that one.

I will start the chicken diet and will look into finding a local supplier for the mince.

I'll keep you informed on his progess.

 

[Cozzie]

Hi all,

I thought i'd update you to let you know how Gizmo has been getting on over the past 3 weeks.

After the advice you gave us we decided to ease Gizmo off the hypoallergenic dry biscuits that we were giving him and just started him on chicken instead.

In the meantime, certain areas on his body were starting to get sore so we purchased some hypoallergenic shampoo, some tea tree cream for his skin and also some hypoallergenic washing tablets that we used to to wash all his bedding and towels in.

The good news is that his skin has healed nicely and his coat his improved a lot but as we made two changes both at the same time, we are not sure whether this is down to his diet or the shampoo - or maybe both.

He seems to have eased with the scratching and licking - it doesn't appear to be as constant as it was but he still has his moments. He is enjoying his chicken diet but his poos have been runny on it. I'm guessing this is because he is not getting a substance like rice or potatos?

We are now thinking of trying him on the frozen mince that you can get. We noticed it in the pet shops and have found a local farmer who supplies a large range of dog foods. Do people rate that stuff?

Despite his condition, his ear infection which tends to flare up at times because of his allergy is quite bad at the moment and the drops we have for him don't seem to be working, so for this we are taking him to the vets this week in the hope that he can get something stronger :- (

 

[banana]

Mine really enjoyed Natural Instinct and all the balance of everything is in it - with cats they have to have bones, greens etc and they make sure its all there...It comes via courier frozen ready to pop in the freezer..

I am glad he is feeling a little better - hopefully he will continue to improve.

Can we see a picture of him?

 

[Cozzie]

The natural selection is the one we were looking at so we'll be buying some of that this week in the hope that it will improve his allergy.

I must admit that I was convinced that the hypollergenic biscuits would help we are thinking that perhaps there is still something in that food that is still irritating him.

Thanks for the advice.

p.s. I've attached a pic of Gizmo.

 

[banana]

Oh he is just adorable!!!! o

 

[Cozzie]

Hi all,

I thought I'd give you an update on Gizmo. He's been on raw food for several weeks now, he really likes it and either has potato or rice with it.

Despite this and washing his bedding in hypoallergenic stuff and getting him shampoo, he's not really showing signs of much improvement.

We've now purchased Yumega Plus oil for itchy skin that he has every morning in his food. He's been on it for less than a week so we are hoping when this kicks in it will help.

His belly has worsened over the weekend and looks sore; we are still applying tea tree cream on this and keeping him coverend in one of my t-shirts!

His one ear is also still looking bad. The vet did say that this is a common symptom with allergies. Some days it looks full of brown stuff but other days it looks at bit better. It's like it flares up and down depending on how much the allergy is bothering him. We are giving him Johnsons ear drops for this, however we are not entirely sure whether we are wasting our time on this. We have ran out of the solution now and are not sure whether it's worth buying another bottle.

I'm starting to get worried now as nothing we've tried so far seems to really making much of a positive effect and we are running out of ideas as to what he could be allergic too. He also seems to be licking his paws more than he did before. This leads me to believe that it could be a contact allergy and perhaps he could in fact be allergic to carpet....

In the meantime, we have a sad and stressed Gizmo :ermm:

 

[banana]

Is Gizmo insured?

 

[Cozzie]

He is yes. I looked into whether blood work would be covered when we considered that route but it's not.

 

[banana]

I would ask for a referral to one of the university hospitals....

Its enough, its not fair to him and your vet should be suggesting it.

Unless - you can change practices?

 

[Oreo]

Hello, I am new here but maybe I can add to this thread as my Oreo has suffered with allergies since we've had her.

I will keep it as brief as possible, please feel free to ask as I may have missed something. I am no expert but it's what I have found from many hours of phone calls and internet searching.

We have been in and out of the vets more times than we've had hot dinners and the general consensus is that the general vet doesn't know how to deal with allergies. We have been to three different ones and they all have there own idea's. Personally it's a waste of time. My advise, get to a specialist and cut out the middle man.

We started off with a food trial (an expensive dry vet food) which made her worse. Several foods later and still no difference.

We were advised (by a retired vet) to try her on wet food. So we put her on a trial of tinned chappie and water for two weeks. What a difference! She is still not sorted but she is so much better than she was. She would chew her feet for hours causing them to bleed. Now she will have a bit of a lick.

We were told by this vet that in dry food there are little 'storage' mites which some dogs are allergic to. It's not because the food is dirty it's just what happens with all dry food.

It may not work for your dog but it maybe worth a try.

Oreo is about 4 weeks into her chappie diet and she is getting better day by day. The first time in months I can actually see dry pale skin between her paws rather than wet red skin.

We have also found a holistic vet down south who specialises in allergies and has developed a new testing procedure to find out what a dog is allergic too. It involves sending a hair sample in the post. After spending thousands at the vets £30 for this test seems reasonable.

This was recommended by a friend who had her dog tested and it turned out the dog was allergic to silver and she wears alot of silver jewellery. So she removed that and her dog is so much better!

Good luck!

 

[banana]

That sounds interesting....