[DrDoom]

Hi all,
Been a busy few months, so sorry I haven't posted much. I had a question, and knew this would be the place to start looking for an answer.
Bear developed SEVERE dry, itchy, flaky skin over the last 4-6 months. I was absolutely at my wits end, and had eliminated every ingredient in his diet one at a time to see if it was a food allergy. It wasn't. I BELIEVE we have it figured out, but if you want to chime in on that too I wouldn't mind hearing opinions.
I had started, about six months ago, giving him a fish oil supplement. When I thought back, the time line for the itchiness seemed to line up. I did some research (Yes, I should have done that first!) and it seems fish oil can lead to a vitamin e deficiency. A month ago I began to give Bear 400mui daily of vitamin e in addition to the fish oil. MOST of the dry, crusty, flaky spots on him that had developed are now gone, HOWEVER, on his rump, which has ALWAYS been a particularly bad spot for him with regards to dry, flaky skin, it really crusted up, and as the crusty, flaky skin fell away, the fur did too.
I wondered how long this type of fur loss usually takes to recuperate? I don't mind him being bald back there (Although explaining to people that he doesn't have a skin disease gets old.), but I want to know what kind of time line we might be looking at. I'm trying to involve the vet as little as possible, as they have flip-flopped on their previous raw diet stance once this problem began. The first words out of their mouths were "Hill's Science Diet would probably fix this."
Ugh.
So anyway, chime in on either part of the topic. Have any of you experienced a vitamin e deficiency when feeding fish oil (I use Springtime Inc's 3-6-9 pills, 3 per day.) and did increasing vitamin e fix the issue? Has anyone dealt with fur loss of this type before?
Thanks.

 

[JudynRich]

I can't comment (with any intelligence) on what is going on that is causing the hair loss, but I know with Bella, she had hair loss on her belly and we treated w/ antihistimines and it grew back in about a month.

 

[onyx'girl]

If you are giving fish oil, you need to supplement with vitamin E(400iu daily of e to 2000mg of fish oil) dogs naturally produce E but the fish oil will deplete it, thats why supplementing is recommended. Many supplements may have E included for this reason, check what you are giving for actual ingredients. I would also supplement with vitamin C it will help reduce any inflammation and help support the immune system if there is a skin issue going on. Start at 500mg(human grade) and slowly up the dosage to 2000mg over a week or two-split between meals.

I would get a skin scraping done, have a blood allergy test run along with a thyroid test. Guessing wastes time, and doesn't diagnose what you can get from a lab in a weeks time.

 

[natalie559]

Have you considered flea allergy or seborrhea? A skin scrape was also suggested and is a good idea.

 

[DrDoom]

Yeah, I took him to the vet on Saturday. We have two vets in our practice, and the one is very anti-raw. Dr. Mike (The one we saw) isn't. Anyway, he didn't feel it was nutritional at all, and after we went over Bear's diet, he even complimented me on the work and thought I put into feeding him. No, he felt it was allergies. We feed Bug Off garlic, and Bear's NEVER had a flea or tick problem since we started. Dr. Mike concurred that he saw NO evidence of a bug presence. He feels it is environmental allergies, and that as the skin got more inflamed an infection sprung up as well. He prescribed a medicated shampoo for now, as well as some antibiotics (Chor-something) and a steroid (Predisone maybe? Sorry, I'm not at home to look at the bottles.). He is already doing MUCH better. The skin has stopped being inflamed, the redness is gone, he is almost never scratching, and the flaky skin seems dead, not...waxy like it did before. Obviously the hair hasn't grown back, but I'm confident it will.
Still, I'd love to know what caused it. He did have the thyroid tested. It came back a two, and Dr. Mike said for Bear's age that was fine. He mentioned a simple grass allergy and asked if Bear goes in tall grass. Well, lol, he does. All the time, so that could be it. After these medicines have run their course am I going to have to keep him out of the grass? Because that will be hard. Obviously I'll ask Dr. Mike during our follow up in a few weeks, but does anyone have any experience with environmental allergies?

 

[caril]

Hey my neighbour's doggies hairs are getting loss day by day. plz suggest me so that i can help her. She is German shepherd.

 

[onyx'girl]

My dog has environmental allergies(dust mites) she was tested for everything, it was not diagnosed by a vet guessing.
I have an air filter running in the room she occupies most and give her vitamin C and benedryl daily...she's on a raw diet as well.
Pred is something I will not put her on, it isn't a cure and has side effects. Though if the dog is scratching itself raw, then that may be the only option.
Caril: Read some of the threads about diet and mange, fleas...your neighbors dog could have one or all of the above contributing to the coat loss.

 

[DrDoom]

Yeah, the medicine's Dr. Mike prescribed are Cephalexin and Prednisolone. What kind of side-effects are we talking about? He mentioned bad thirst, which bear has definitely had since starting, but yesterday he started doing something I've NEVER seen him do. He tried to eat his own poop. Later, he snuck into the room the litterbox is in and got some of the cat's poop before we could stop him. He has NEVER shown this type of behavior before. Is it the drugs? What other side effects are we possibly in for?

 

[onyx'girl]

He may leak urine, there are several things that can happen when dogs are on Pred:
Prednisone Side Effects in Dogs
google for more links

 

[DrDoom]

Well, the excessive thirst and hunger definitely have happened. I mean, what can I do? I tried everything else from an allergy standpoint, but it just kept getting worse. I will monitor him closely, and see what, if any, side effects beyond thirst and hunger happen.

 

[DrDoom]

After posting this yesterday, when I got home he had broken down a barrier we set up to keep him out of the litter box area. There was nothing IN the litter box when we left, but he ate every ounce of the poor cat's food. Luckily the feeder was very low, but he still got a good bit.
He's in the second day of the second phase of the Prednisolone, so the side effects did seem to lessen over night. He didn't drink his water bowl dry, or wake me up whining to go outside in the middle of the night, although he was anxious to go when I did get up. He only went once, as opposed to three or four times when he was on the higher dosage.
Hopefully this will help him get over this. I just don't want him to have to spend his life itching, especially when he didn't have problems THIS severe his first three years with us.

 

[onyx'girl]

I feel for ya. Onyx is constantly digging at her ears, and shaking her head...never ending problems from allergies. I am giving her injections to de-sensitize her to the allergies but it may take a year or more, and seasons(house closed up) will make it worse. She would be best off as an outside dog.

Once Bear goes of the Pred, he will probably start back in with the scratching....it really is frustrating.

 

[DrDoom]

He has gone back to scratching a LITTLE (knock on wood), but so far nothing that's resulted in what we were dealing with. To be fair, though, he is still on the medicated shampoo, and honestly, when I take him back to the vet I may see about keeping him on it. He definitely scratches even less (He's really not scratching much) the first 3 or 4 days after the bath. Towards the second part of the week (He's bathed on Sundays usually) he might start a little, but not much, and when I tell him to stop, he does.
How much Benadryl do you have to give Onyx to keep her happy? It's also funny you say she'd be better off as an outside dog, lol. Bear won't even GO outside without one of us, lol.

 

[onyx'girl]

Onyx is allergic to dust mites, so being outside-she wouldn't be exposed as much as inside. She is an inside dog...but suffers because of the mites.
I give her 3 25mg caplets of Benedryl(or store brand equivilant, a fraction of the price of benedryl) daily. I should give it to her 2xs a day for best management.

 

[DebGem]

I have one pup who's got this whole skin thing going on and I've luck on a couple of fronts.
1) antifungal spray from the feed store called Horseman's Dream, I use this regularly topically and it keeps a lot of the scratching down.
2) When he gets the seriously huge hot spots raw, I'll do prednisone (1- 10mg tablet daily for a couple days to ease up the inflamation) but most of the time I use Atarax (hydroxine - 1mg per lb of wt) for the itching. It's faster than the Benadryl for my guy.
3) I use Animax cream on the sores and it's almost immediate for stopping any yeast action or surface infection and the hair begins to return immediately (works on my cats too).
4)If the sores have been too long, I'll add Cephalexin (keflex) for infection control.
5) supplementing his food with the Fish Oil and Vitamin E as well as alternating days with canned Salmon or mackerel, and on alternate days from them I use cottage cheese or yogurt for their intestinal tracts.
6)Their food is Infinity- salmon or bison and sweet potato, Grain free which has helped greatly on all my dogs.

Just my regimen which has been helpful getting it under control.

 

[DrDoom]

The ANimax sounds like something I'm going to ask about too. We have a cat that has had fur loss and sores all her life. She's 6 now. The vet we had before gave up, saying they couldn't figure out what it was when she was 2 or 3. Now Bear is having a similar problem. The cat is completely indoors, so I'm thinking dust mites or something as well. Our current vet will do a skin scraping test when we bring them in to the office in two weeks.
If it IS dust mites, I realize there's not a ton that can be done, but we wondered about having the carpets cleaned? We currently have the best air filter money can buy, and ionizers in three of the five rooms in the house, including the ones they spend the most time in. I'm going to ask about Animax at our next appointment.

 

[DebGem]

Correction to the food name...

Goofed on the name of the food below but you all probably figured that out... it's Infinia... been doing great with it.

I have one pup who's got this whole skin thing going on and I've luck on a couple of fronts.
1) antifungal spray from the feed store called Horseman's Dream, I use this regularly topically and it keeps a lot of the scratching down.
2) When he gets the seriously huge hot spots raw, I'll do prednisone (1- 10mg tablet daily for a couple days to ease up the inflamation) but most of the time I use Atarax (hydroxine - 1mg per lb of wt) for the itching. It's faster than the Benadryl for my guy.
3) I use Animax cream on the sores and it's almost immediate for stopping any yeast action or surface infection and the hair begins to return immediately (works on my cats too).
4)If the sores have been too long, I'll add Cephalexin (keflex) for infection control.
5) supplementing his food with the Fish Oil and Vitamin E as well as alternating days with canned Salmon or mackerel, and on alternate days from them I use cottage cheese or yogurt for their intestinal tracts.
6)Their food is Infinity- salmon or bison and sweet potato, Grain free which has helped greatly on all my dogs.

Just my regimen which has been helpful getting it under control.

 

[sable123]

diet

You might as well put the dog on a source of protein he has likely never had and that is catfish. This might help even if the reaction is a not diet related. Catfish is a good protein because your dog is not likely to react to it because he hasn't been exposed and it does not promote histamine.

Both Blackwood & Annamaet have super allergy formulas that use catfish. Menhaden-based foods are also good and Verus Opticoat and Beryl Zin Pro seem to be used by vets on stubborn cases.

Blackwood is out of Columbia South Carolina has a very good reputation.

I would stop the fish oil supplementation.