No, I'm not licking, chewing or scratching myself or anyone else. Nor am I being licked, chewed or scratched thank goodness.
But Flanders, oh Flanders...she's literally about to drive me crazy.
Blogging about one's dog can get a little annoying I know. And I've certainly done it lately. But I am at the brink of sanity.
Mostly I'm grateful. About a month ago, we awoke to find that she didn't seem to have the use of her back legs. It was terrible. After getting her to the best vet in town, a lady I greatly admire because of her community service as well as veterinary skills, it was determined that Flanders had an inner ear issue causing dizziness. A few days and an antibiotic treatment later and she was fine.
But her skin was a different issue. For years, we've taken her to our old timey vet for allergy shots for chronically itching, raw skin. It just didn't seem to stop.
The new vet took a different, more aggressive approach. I am grateful for that too, since old doc wasn't really getting to the heart of the problem. Itching caused by one thing. Opening up the skin to infection from the scratching another thing. Licking on top of that caused another thing. And the shots led to uncontrolled peeing. So nice to deal with.
Except now we have spent OVER $900 on everything from skin biopsies that didn't reveal anything to 6 pills per day including anti-fungals, antibiotics, anti-this, anti-that, etc. And she is still scratching, licking, biting, chewing!!! And her condition plus the noise of her scratching, licking and chewing are driving me completely insane. Vet has done all of the right and necessary things, but none have worked. (Not her fault.)
We keep a shirt on Flanders to help protect her belly, have kept the Cone of Shame on her to prevent her from reaching around and licking, and have kept her out of the yard so she won't be lying in the grass which could be a potential irritant. What kind of life is this? So I get all weepy eyed and temporarily remove the Cone of Shame, and the licking, chewing and scratching begin again. I wake up in the middle of the night every night to this....or to the sound of her trying to navigate around the house wearing her Cone.
The $3 per can hypoallergenic dog food and the $60 16-lb bag of dry hypoallergenic dog food haven't seemed to make any difference either. And she hates them.
Other than her skin, she's in great shape. And again, I am most grateful for that. I will be a complete and total basketcase whenever her time comes, and knowing it's not soon is such a relief.
But someone pleeeeeeaaaaaase, stop the madness. It's driving all of us crazy, I'm sure least of which is poor Flanders.
4 comments:
Wow - what a saga. Poor Flanders. Could you treat the itch with human-helping remedies? We have this stuff called Lucas pawpaw ointment. Or some kind of astringent cooling stuff to soothe the skin.
You could try doping her up with Benadryl. Oatmeal baths? Vitamin E capsules on her food? Sorry, I don't know what to tell you. Poor Flanders. :(
I'm so sorry Flanders is suffering, and that she's driving you nuts. I have known dogs with eczema and other skin issues, and they're generally miserable. I think sometimes they're allergic to themselves. If you can find a holistic vet, there may be something else they can do to help. Vitamins, or something.
We had the licking, scratching, biting problem with our dog. We changed her food to Premium Edge Salmon and Potato (sweet potato, I think), gave her fish oil pills, and benadryl. It takes about a month for the diet change (food) to work/ clear out the allergins. We were able to take her off of the fish oil and benadrl...she's great now. I hope you find a solution. I know how irritating it can be. You can do a google on canine dog food and nutrition and it will tell you the ingredients to look for and the ones to stay away from. I was amazed to find that some of the really expensive ones, the ones the vet sells, sometimes score VERY LOW on the rating. I think our dog eats better than we do!
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