Any Vet's out there? (Allergies)

[tl_ashmore]

Bula has been experiencing the same thing. She has lost a lot of hair on her back and tail. I think I am going to try to change her dog food too and see if it helps.

[TiggersDad]

Phyl, this sounds like a typical systemic yeast infection. Renee's advice has been on the right track. However you need to address this internally. Candida albicans is a very stubborn oganism to deal with, but it can be brought back under control with the right nutritional regimine and proper supplements. You must understand that antibiotics & steroids only address the symptoms, but not the root cause. Until the ROOT of the problem is dealt with, you'll never get out of the woods with this one. The allergy type symptoms you see are only the tip of the iceberg. The root of the problem is in the gut. Antibiotics kill off the beneficial bacteria in the GI tract, allowing Yeast, a fungus, to flourish. It then goes thru cycles of overgrowth releasing toxins into the system, resulting in skin infections, ear infections etc. Antibiotics only keep the vicious cycle going.There is a four step approach to resolving this situation.
1. Kill the yeast fungus
2. Cleanse out the dying yeast toxins
3. Re-establish good intestinal bacteria-Probiotics
4. Switch to a human grade, MEAT based dog food- Eagle pack is a great one www.eaglepack.com .
For the first three steps you want to go to www.nzymes.com . They have many success stories with this very problem. Oxy-drops and/or Black Leaf will kill the yeast. Nzymes treats or granules will cleanse the system., Bac-Pack Plus will re-establish the digestive flora. For a more in depth article on this, go to nzymes.com and look for their YEAST INSTRUCTONS page.
Another Great website that has articles on this and many other subjects is www.greatdanelady.com . Hope you find these things helpful. Good Luck.

[Renee750il]

TiggersDad ~

As I remarked to Chazhound on a different occasion: Great minds run in the same gutters. (lol) The link I originally posted for Phyl was to the article on candida at the Great Dane Lady site, it just ran through a Fila site that had cross posted it. I discovered it there and that's what led me to www.greatdanelady.com ! It's great to know that someone else was on the same track. The info there is unbelievable!

[agilitydobemom]

Phyl,
Get an opinion from another vet I was reading the posts and you said that your vet told you to give your dog flintstone vitamins?? (you mean the human kind?) if that is what you are talking about your vet is worng, wrong, wrong any vet would never ever suggest human meds for an animal never give your pets any human meds no matter what!!! no asprin, no peptobismal, anything!!!
as for the hair problems try switching foods (slowly), bedding, shampoos, everything and slowly elimninate stuff
What about fleas does your dog have fleas?? one of mine which never had fleas before got infested with them and he broke out in hives and started losing hair because he had "alergic flea dermititis" he is alergic to fleas
Good Luck with your dog!!

[Barb04]

Renee, I just want to say you gave me a good laugh this morning about an innova diet for people. It's true, there's a lot of things in our food supply that does us more harm than good. After reading several of your posts, I now have both my dogs on Eagle pak holistic food. I'm glad I made the change.

[isntsomeonemissingme]

umm r there any vets that could help me?

MY dog went through are garbage bag and it had used diapers in it. Will my dog die of ecoli or some other disease b/c of that?

[isntsomeonemissingme]

please help!!!

[JoAndGreytdogz]

I am new here but found this thread regarding allergies and had to respond. One of our greyhounds was very sick when we got him (needless to say he wasn't a good racer and retired young - to our benefit :-) ). After Muchresearch and investigating, we finally figured out it was food allergies. It took us the better part of a year, but we figured out he is allergic to most foods. He couldn't eat Any kibble (we tried most brands including the holistic, allergy formulas, etc...).
At first we went through our vet - who wasn't any help at all (sorry to any vets on this board) - they seem to know little about allergies, especially food allergies.
We also tried a holistic vet, who started us on the right track but in the end, we had to do our own research and investigation in order to get to the "bottom" of the problem.

It was the process of elimination that pointed us toward what he is allergic to exactly. We started with a Very plain diet (cooked sweet potatoe with skin, white fish, and another food that I can't remember at this moment)- no supplements. This was fed to him for 6 weeks minimum - until it appeared his symptoms were gone or on the mend (actually he was in such bad shape, it took many more weeks than 6 for him to even start getting better).
Then we very slowly started adding one food at a time, adding a new one every few weeks, providing he didn't react to the new addition. Because he is allergic to SO many foods, this took a Very Long time as we had to start all over again each time he reacted. But we eventually managed to figure out what he could eat (list is much shorted than what he can't eat).

In the end, we put him on the BARF diet (bones and raw food) and he continues to do exceptionally well. His diet consisted of raw turkey thigh meat, raw ground turkey, raw turkey necks, cooked white fish once or twice a week, and a mixture of specific vegetables, - ground up (only the veggies he isn't allergic to), and supplements.

It is now over 2 years later, and he still has the occasional bout with allergies but only very recently has been able to tolerate a little of Solid Gold Fish kibble and we have found a store bought "treat" that he able to eat, in moderation, without reacting.
We have found that if we give him too much of either of these in a short period of time, he reacts.
It is very difficult to find foods without wheat, rice, chicken, or any of the foods that he is allergic too....

His system is very delicate and we have to be very careful what he gets to eat. It has taken a few years, but it is much better than it was.

Within a year of mostly clearing up his problems, he became a very happy dog. He is such a character, smiles all the time (he has a huge smile), wags his whip of a tail at every possible moment...generally, a totally different dog than when we adopted him. Well worth all the work...

Good luck with your investigation.

[Renee750il]

Thanks for that post. You've outlined the best way to deal with a dog that's chronically allergic.

Most of the time, dogs with allergies tend to be allergic to grains, so by feeding an organic, grain-free kibble you can halt the allergy cycle, but every now and then you run into a dog with very chronic and extensive allergies and you have to use this method to find which foods are the problem.

It's no wonder your fast-guy is such a happy pooch; you've demonstrated how important he is to you and you've made his life infinitely better!

[chazhound]

Hi JoeandGreytdogz, welcome to the Dog Forums!

Thanks for sharing your experience. That is one lucky Greyhound to have such a dedicated master. Be sure to post his smiling pic

Chazhound