Any had success with Atopica for allergies ?

BabyDuke

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HI everyone

LONG story short.. Duke developed a rash about 4 weeks ago.. started out as a hard pimple in 3 spots? I bathed him in malaseb and one day after drying him the one spot ballooned to about a baseball size red puffy rash?? it looked like fungus?
I immediately took him to our family vet, she gave him antibitoics and a powder to cool it off ( he had scratched it open ) and told me it was a hot spot??!!:cursing:

the next week no better I took him back she says well we may need to increase his prednisone? :*( ( not happening ) Duke is on a very low dose 10 mg every other day to keep allergies at bay ( in the past we spent 1800 having him allergy tested, did shots for 11 months, changed foods ) nothing worked so we agreed to this low dose for Duke to have a better quality of life. he gets blood tested every 6 months and his enzymes and blood work have been good.

the vet tells me he is on too low of a dose for his weight and the pred would clear up the rash.. I left paid for the visit and made an appt at the University of Penn dermatologist who originally did all the allergy testing..

SO $980 later Duke has calcinosis cutis AND Atopic dermatis.

they are treating it now and should clear up in a week or SO.. BUT the underlying reason is from the prednisone.. it has caused calcium to build up under his skin

so the plan is for the next 4 weeks to wean him off pred and they are going to start this Atopica ( $180 a month!! )
it is only effective in 60 % of cases but we are keeping fingers crossed.. she thinks if it works Duke will do very well on it..

just didn't know if anyone has used it?

if it doesn't work we go to plan Well lets see her plan Z??!!! she said she will need to re allergy test him ( since its been 3 years ) and try a bilingual drop under the tounge.. I need a 2nd job!!

We renamed Duke! he is now the MILLION DOLLAR DUKESTER!!

this was last night. he is NOT happy about going to the vet again! LOL
 

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santinomom

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My boy Santino suffers from severe allergies too and has for most of his life. he is now 6 yrs old. Prior to having him allergy tested, I did the atopica for about a year and found that it worked great in the beginning but when it came time to try to wean him down to one pill every other day, it didn't even touch the problem. It is very costly and worked well initially. I then tried allergy shots for about a year an a half which didn't work very well either. Currently he is using hydroxyzine (antihistimine) twice a day and when he gets really bad the vet prescribes temaril-p, but only when it gets extremely bad. That medication consists of only 2.5 mg of prednisone along with an antihistimine in it as well. That seemed to work great for him.
 

bullmama

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[MENTION=860]sheshistory[/MENTION] is using this I think?


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk :)
 

sheshistory

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Yes, we've had great success with using cyclosporine with our Truman.

Truman had terrible, terrible allergies that caused not only itching, constant paw licking, ear problems, but also some pretty gruesome and serious skin infections that required a lot of antibiotics to treat.

Cyclosporine was a miracle for us. We tried every antihistamine in the book from Benadryl to hydroxyzine and nothing touched him. We gave him one cyclosporine every day for a month, then one every other day - and I have not taken him to the vet for anything other than a check up since! Not only that, he's a different dog! He's no longer consumed with licking his paws or itching all day.

So we've had great results and, in terms of cost, I find it VERY reasonable! We get ours from a local vet pharmacy and it's $51 every other month, delivered right to my door. When you think about the savings from the cost of not having special wipes, ear cleaner, antihistamines, antibiotics and whatever else - it seems like a good value to me.

Please let me know if you have any other questions about this!
 

sheshistory

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HI everyone

LONG story short.. Duke developed a rash about 4 weeks ago.. started out as a hard pimple in 3 spots? I bathed him in malaseb and one day after drying him the one spot ballooned to about a baseball size red puffy rash?? it looked like fungus?
I immediately took him to our family vet, she gave him antibitoics and a powder to cool it off ( he had scratched it open ) and told me it was a hot spot??!!:cursing:

the next week no better I took him back she says well we may need to increase his prednisone? :*( ( not happening ) Duke is on a very low dose 10 mg every other day to keep allergies at bay ( in the past we spent 1800 having him allergy tested, did shots for 11 months, changed foods ) nothing worked so we agreed to this low dose for Duke to have a better quality of life. he gets blood tested every 6 months and his enzymes and blood work have been good.

the vet tells me he is on too low of a dose for his weight and the pred would clear up the rash.. I left paid for the visit and made an appt at the University of Penn dermatologist who originally did all the allergy testing..

SO $980 later Duke has calcinosis cutis AND Atopic dermatis.

they are treating it now and should clear up in a week or SO.. BUT the underlying reason is from the prednisone.. it has caused calcium to build up under his skin

so the plan is for the next 4 weeks to wean him off pred and they are going to start this Atopica ( $180 a month!! )
it is only effective in 60 % of cases but we are keeping fingers crossed.. she thinks if it works Duke will do very well on it..

just didn't know if anyone has used it?

if it doesn't work we go to plan Well lets see her plan Z??!!! she said she will need to re allergy test him ( since its been 3 years ) and try a bilingual drop under the tounge.. I need a 2nd job!!

We renamed Duke! he is now the MILLION DOLLAR DUKESTER!!

this was last night. he is NOT happy about going to the vet again! LOL

You can get it for SO much less! Let me know if you want to pursue this and I will give you the name of my vet pharmacy here and they ship! You can get a generic form of Atopica (cyclosprorine) prepared for you at a FRACTION of the price! (see my previous post!)
 
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BabyDuke

BabyDuke

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You can get it for SO much less! Let me know if you want to pursue this and I will give you the name of my vet pharmacy here and they ship! You can get a generic form of Atopica (cyclosprorine) prepared for you at a FRACTION of the price! (see my previous post!)

WOW that is music to my ears!! so I assume since I purchased a months worth yesterday I would see how he does and if it works I could just order through your vet pharmacy?

:happydance: I am sitting here thinking how I was going to afford another 180 a month on top of everything else ( my God we can't not buy him toys! ) LOL
 

sheshistory

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WOW that is music to my ears!! so I assume since I purchased a months worth yesterday I would see how he does and if it works I could just order through your vet pharmacy?

:happydance: I am sitting here thinking how I was going to afford another 180 a month on top of everything else ( my God we can't not buy him toys! ) LOL

I sent you a PM with the details on my pharmacy but I would call your vet and ask him to call the prescription in to this pharmacy and they will send it to you in a day or so. It's been very easy and reliable for us.
 

sheshistory

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Also, the cyclosporine MIGHT cause stomach upset for the first couple days (up to 5) but don't let it stop you. Truman had some problems with vomiting but we gave him an OTC acid reducer (omeprazole) at our vet's recommendation, and he was fine. Everything was over in a matter of 4 days and now he takes it without any issues at all.
 

2BullyMama

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Another reason to not like Predisone........ :hugs: to you and Duke!
 
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BabyDuke

BabyDuke

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Also, the cyclosporine MIGHT cause stomach upset for the first couple days (up to 5) but don't let it stop you. Truman had some problems with vomiting but we gave him an OTC acid reducer (omeprazole) at our vet's recommendation, and he was fine. Everything was over in a matter of 4 days and now he takes it without any issues at all.

she told us to freeze it to help with the vomitting? have you heard of that? this poor dog.. I feel like he is a science project.. really hoping this works!
 
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BabyDuke

BabyDuke

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Another reason to not like Predisone........ :hugs: to you and Duke!

I hate prednisone but we did try everything else.. without it he would tear holes in his head and his feet would swell so bad.. I am grateful his bloodwork is really good and hoping this new stuff works and we can keep him off of it..:pray2:
 

sheshistory

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she told us to freeze it to help with the vomitting? have you heard of that? this poor dog.. I feel like he is a science project.. really hoping this works!

No, we didn't do or hear that but you can try - he might not even vomit. We had our older bully, Linus, on it only for allergy season since he had really bad allergies this season and he never had any stomach troubles with it at all.
 

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