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| Mikey's photo provided by Pet Prints of San Diego |
Everyone who lives with dogs knows that they can suffer from all kinds of allergies. Their allergies may be caused by their diet, their environment or a combo of the two. Since diet is the easiest one to control, we have been working on feeding Mikey the food with the least amount of common allergy-causing ingredients. That helped him for a while but lately, the rashes and the scratching (mostly on his neck, armpits and recently, down in his groin area) have worsened so we decided to make an appointment for him at the Animal Dermatology Clinic.
The vet at the clinic spent a generous amount of time explaining the ins and outs of allergies and what our options were for diagnosing and treating Mikey. Since the 'gold standard' for diagnosing allergies involves sedation, shaving an area and multiple injections meant to incite a specific reaction, we decided to start over with diet. The doctor suggested we try a yam/black bean diet (yes, we're cooking for our boy!) , fed in equal portions 3xs a day along with a regimen of prednisone (a steroid) to provide immediate relief from the itchy-scratchies. He also prescribed an antibiotic for the staph infection Mikey had from all the scratching. We also bought Mikey some new T shirts (he actually likes wearing them, honest!) to cover his armpits along with a sock to cover his neck to keep him from restarting his scratching cycle.
One week later, his skin is starting to look better and he is definitely scratching less. We are hopeful and happy that he's experiencing some relief. We know that there may be an additional environmental component to his allergy but we're taking it a day at a time right now. The vet said that he could be on his new diet (which he LOVES, by the way) for eight weeks but if we decide to keep him on it, we would have to add more nutrients to make it a complete diet. We're scared at the thought that he may be allergic to whatever it is we need to add, but we're willing to do whatever it takes to make him healthy and happy. After all, he's our boy and he loves us as much as we love him.
