kevin1005

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Our Poor Hamilton turned 3 yesterday and has been battling allergy issues for probably at least 2 years. I will try to be as brief and descriptive as possible. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

He has probably every allergy symptom that is possible
1. Bumps between toes, and between pads
2. Pinkish/Red chin
3. Violent itching bouts of raking his face across the couch and anything he can find
4. Goopy eyes
5. General look of being miserable
6. Swollen face, from itching
7. hot spots on the stomach, which cleared up months ago.

Things we've tried
1. We went to an allergy specialist, she started him on prescription food Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Canine Selected Protein Adult PV Dry Dog Food
This has helped somewhat as far as his eyes being less goopy, but the itching and paws have never improved. He's been on the food for 8 months.
2. We daily wipe his face and pads with chlorhexidine pads. These have worked well for cleanliness.. but not itchiness
3. We are currently working through seemingly every allergy pill with the allergist. Benedryl, Claratin, Zyrtec, and now we are starting prescription ones (i love spending money...) He just started Clemastine 2 days ago.
3. He gets no treats or anything except the RX food.
4. I have been reading on here for a while and people have said good things about Nu-Pet Chewable wafers, so we started that This week as well. However I feel like perhaps they are having a negative effect on him, even though it's only been 36 hours. But... if he is allergic to grass, as I sometimes think then these wafers will not be good for him since they are made from different grasses. Or at least that's what my common sense is telling me.
5. We also started him on Yucca Extract this week in his food since I've heard this has helped other people as well. Once again, it's too early to say if there are any positive results
6. The only thing that has REALLY helped him is Prednisone. After he is on this for 2 days the results are unbelievable. We actually forget that he can look as good as he does when he's on the steroid. The swelling goes down, his eyes open up, and the itching stops. Not to mention he seems much happier. I hate that he goes on the steroids as I am more of a believer in natural remedies, that's why I have high hopes for the Yucca as I've read it can have the same effects as the steroid. He is only on the steroids for a week or so, and after that the itchiness resumes as normal.


So I believe he does have a food allergy, which it seems like was solved by the RX food, and he must also have environmental allergies, but we live in Connecticut and if he has a grass allergy I assume the fact that the grass is dormant now would slow his itchiness down, but it doesn't seem to be season related, so I really don't know.


Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I can't even imagine how much money we have spent on trying to make him better and he just seems so miserable still. I don't want the solution to be, don't let him outside on the grass, and keep him in a corner, inside all his life. That is no way for a dog to live! There must be something we are missing or haven't tried yet.

Thank you!
 
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kevin1005

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Hamilton Porter
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Here's a picture of him today. This is pretty much what he looks like all the time with different levels of eye lid swelling. ham3-9-17.jpg
 

oscarmayer

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Did the allergist do a blood or skin allergy test?
If not, that allergist is wasting your time and money. Meanwhile you bully is suffering.
If treating the symptom is most important then go with Apoquel over Pred.
Any skin infection should be addressed with antibiotics before using steroid therapy for inflammation.

If you're not prepared to have comprehensive allergy testing done then try a raw diet. If he's still itching after being on the raw diet for a couple of weeks then you have environmental allergies going on. He could certainly be suffering from enviro AND food allergies.

I say get the blood allergy testing done and have them test for food allergy along with the basic test. Get him on a raw diet. Start him on Apoquel ASAP and give your boy some relief. He looks like he's miserable.
 
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kevin1005

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Thank you for your reply.

I think the food allergy has been taken care of with the RX food he is now eating. But yes, I do believe he had food allergies and environmental. The way it sounded the blood work was going to be so expensive so we opted to try these over the counter allergy pills first, and cycle through all of them until we find one that works, but it seems like none of them are, and in the end we are going to do the blood work anyways.
Why wouldn't the apoquel be the first one we tried if people have such success using it?

Everyone has given you great information it is good you are documenting all you have tried and the impact --- that is an excellent resource for you.

We had full panel blood allergy test completed (food and environmental) for three of my pups over the years... they are not 100% accurate but they do give a good baseline on what to avoid. You have to be sure your pup is off all immune suppression drugs (prednisone or apoquel) for a full 30 days to get a good results test. This is how I found out my girl with highly allergic to chicken and aster tress, Nitchke was rice (and an arms length of other items) and Lambeau is allergic to lamb, soy and pine trees (among other things).

Out tests for them was always under $250...
 

ddnene

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Did the allergist do a blood or skin allergy test?
If not, that allergist is wasting your time and money. Meanwhile you bully is suffering.
If treating the symptom is most important then go with Apoquel over Pred.
Any skin infection should be addressed with antibiotics before using steroid therapy for inflammation.

If you're not prepared to have comprehensive allergy testing done then try a raw diet. If he's still itching after being on the raw diet for a couple of weeks then you have environmental allergies going on. He could certainly be suffering from enviro AND food allergies.

I say get the blood allergy testing done and have them test for food allergy along with the basic test. Get him on a raw diet. Start him on Apoquel ASAP and give your boy some relief. He looks like he's miserable.

:goodpost: I agree 100%... they are just masking the issue, you need to find out what is causing these reactions food/environmental or both.
 

helsonwheels

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[MENTION=15364]oscarmayer[/MENTION] just said it all. Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Canine Selected Protein Adult PV Dry Dog Food is full of grains. Put him on raw for a few weeks and you'll have your answer if it has to do with food. If he's the same then it's environmental. Poor thing doesn't look like a happy camper.
 
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kevin1005

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[MENTION=15364]oscarmayer[/MENTION] just said it all. Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Canine Selected Protein Adult PV Dry Dog Food is full of grains. Put him on raw for a few weeks and you'll have your answer if it has to do with food. If he's the same then it's environmental. Poor thing doesn't look like a happy camper.

ya he is pretty miserable, and we feel so bad for him, and have been trying so many things. Is there a specific recipe for the raw food diet? I remember the vet saying potato and lentils if I remember correctly. I think that she thinks he's allergic to beef, that's why she switched us to the venison food at $100 for 25 pounds. We were even giving him a pro-biotic in a capsule form and have been taking it out of the capsule because she said they are made from cow bones. I'm willing to try a raw diet though.
 
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kevin1005

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Did the allergist do a blood or skin allergy test?
If not, that allergist is wasting your time and money. Meanwhile you bully is suffering.
If treating the symptom is most important then go with Apoquel over Pred.
Any skin infection should be addressed with antibiotics before using steroid therapy for inflammation.

If you're not prepared to have comprehensive allergy testing done then try a raw diet. If he's still itching after being on the raw diet for a couple of weeks then you have environmental allergies going on. He could certainly be suffering from enviro AND food allergies.

I say get the blood allergy testing done and have them test for food allergy along with the basic test. Get him on a raw diet. Start him on Apoquel ASAP and give your boy some relief. He looks like he's miserable.

Is there a raw diet that you would suggest? Also we switched to the Royal Canin per the allergist instructions for the same reason you are suggesting to do the raw food. I guess she just assumed that there would be no way he would be allergic to the ingredients in it... But now looking back. He had never had an ear infection, in fact the vet would always talk about how great his ears looked. Well since we went to the allergist for the first time, which is when we started the royal canin he has had non stop ear infections, followed by antibiotics, followed by his ears being ok for a week, followed by everything starting all over again. Maybe the food is a problem, I just figured there's no way that could be a problem because it's RX and so expensive...
 

TyTysmom

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Look into The Honest Kitchen. This is what we found worked wonders for us with Tyson after several battles with allergies. We do their "base" mix called Kindly. This has no grains, no potatoes, no protein. We add in our own protein which gives us total control. We do extra lean ground beef, I know you mentioned him being allergic to beef? So maybe try Turkey? The blood work is totally worth it at this point with all the struggling and years of it. It will pin point his exact allergies, and help you move forward. And yes, ask for Apoquel... as soon as possible. It's worked wonders for many members.

We also do filtered water for Tyson which improved his face SO much!
 

oscarmayer

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There are several good raw diets available. The one that we use on two of our problematic bullies is Vital Essentials.

Your allergy Vet seems to be guessing a lot. It's my understanding that a competent allergy Vet should have the tools and know how to eliminate the guess work. That guess work is costing you $$$ and wasting precious time getting your boy correctly diagnosed and treated. It may be time to cut your losses and find a better Vet.
 

oscarmayer

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Why wouldn't the apoquel be the first one we tried if people have such success using it?
Apoquel is expensive. That may be why she's been reluctant to prescribe it.
It works like prednisone(which is super cheap) but has few, if any, of the undesirable long term side-effects associated with the pred.
 

helsonwheels

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ya he is pretty miserable, and we feel so bad for him, and have been trying so many things. Is there a specific recipe for the raw food diet? I remember the vet saying potato and lentils if I remember correctly. I think that she thinks he's allergic to beef, that's why she switched us to the venison food at $100 for 25 pounds. We were even giving him a pro-biotic in a capsule form and have been taking it out of the capsule because she said they are made from cow bones. I'm willing to try a raw diet though.
[MENTION=15364]oscarmayer[/MENTION] feeds his dogs raw, I feed Nyala Honest Kitchen. I add the meat of my choice or you by already turkey in it. If you're spending that much to feed your dog, might as well go raw or home cooking like honest kitchen. Sauerkraut every day is great too. The ferment3d on you buy in the fridge not in a can/jar on the shelves. Hang on [MENTION=15364]oscarmayer[/MENTION] will end up answering your question on raw. You can also type in "raw" in the search above.
 

Dollys Owner

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There's a lot of dehydrated or freeze dried raw dog foods on the market you can buy that might be a better choice for you than a frozen raw dog food if you don't like the mess or the sight of the raw food. Some have been mentioned already- Honest Kitchen, Sojos, Grandma Lucy's, Vital Essentials etc. These and others (eg. Urban Wolf, Balance IT, U-Stew) also come in base mixes that you add your own raw or cooked protein to. Antihistamines such as clemastine, chlorpheniramine, cetirizine, loratidine, cyproheptadine don't need a Rx and should be given to your dog every day for environmental allergies. They have almost zero side effects besides some causing sedation. Cetirizine ( Zyrtec ) is a great one since it is non sedating but it's a good idea to rotate antihistamines so that your dog doesn't get tolerant to one. As a last resort you can try Apoquel which has a lot fewer side effects than prednisone, but it's expensive and can cause rarely immunosuppression and cancer in long term use.

It might be a good idea to bathe your dog twice weekly for a few weeks then weekly during allergy season with Malaseb or Curaseb shampoo to wash off allergens from the fur and to kill bacteria and yeast.

A probiotic such as sauerkraut, kefir or low fat probiotic yoghurt or a doggie probiotic such as Proviable DC or Herbsmith Microfloa Plus ( which also contains enzymes besides probiotics ) is a good idea as mentioned previously.

Coconut oil ( a teaspoon 3 times weekly ) is a beneficial addition as well.
 

Dollys Owner

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Forgot to mention that your dog might have storage mite allergies, so you should store any dry dog food from vet in small bags in freezer or in air tight container you wash between emptyings. Besides raw or frozen raw or dehydrated raw dog food you could also use canned dog food if your dog does have a storage mite allergy. Also your dog should be off steroids for about 4 weeks if you do any blood allergy testing.
 

oscarmayer

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Also your dog should be off steroids for about 4 weeks if you do any blood allergy testing.
This is very important...and sometimes that hardest thing to do. The period of time that you bulldog is off the Pred depends on the type of test. For the skin test it's longer. Taking Hamilton off the only med that's giving him any relief for 6+ weeks can be painful to live with, for you and him. If Hamilton is taking Apoquel then there's likely no waiting period before either type of testing...Doc may require 2 days at the most.
For the blood testing, antihistamines do not need to be stopped, however, I've read where some say 1-2 weeks. For skin test antihistamines need to be stopped for 2 weeks.

The path that will best serve Hamilton is to get him on Apoquel right away [after]making sure that he has NO active skin/ear infection. Move forward with the blood testing. Stop the guessing and end his suffering. I want to see Hamilton happy and looking his best...and not on Predisone long term.
 

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