Allergies

[MissMeggy]

Hi there
I have an english mastiff just under a year old. He scratches and scratches. Even to the point of making sores on himself. It's really sad. The vet told me he has allergies but to do testing to figure out what he is allergic to will cost $300. And then he would need a shot twice a year costing $200 each. I just can't afford that. And also I don't like the idea of getting him started on shots for the rest of his life especially since he is so young!
Does anyone know of any good websites to read up on this? And what about natural remedies? I would like that approach much better but I don't know what is out there. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[CaliTerp07]

What are you feeding him? It may be easy to test the common allergens quickly by trying a new food.

 

[Brattina88]

I believe several of us here have had experience with allergies, unfortunatly. Your best place to start, IMO, is to get your dog on the best possible diet you can porvide, eliminate any possible unnatural chemicals or pests in the envoirnment and start from there. It's hard to pin point WHAT a dog is allergic to without specific tests (which, depending on the dog may be worth it in the long run) but if it's more of a sensitivity, for example, crappy food or the neighbors lawn treatment, then you should see improvements right away. What kind of food are you feeding? Is the itching worse seasonally? Is he on flea preventative? Do you have carpets, lots of hidden dust, etc? May be a good place to start

 

[gecko_mom]

Is there another vet in the area you could go to for a second opinion? And if so, can you ask how much allergy testing/treatments would be?

I had an allergy test done on my dog - and she's allergic to cats! The test cost would cost a normal client $130. She will have allergy shots for the rest of her life which are around $8-9 per month. She will be 2 in June.

If you've done everything to make sure it's not a food allergy, then I highly recommend the allergy test. Knowing what's making my dog so miserable and break out in hives makes me feel better - and also know that there are medical treatments that can help her.

Dogs can be expensive. Unfortunately that's one of things you sign up for when you bring a dog into your life. And not providing medical treatment is against the law.

I hope your research yields you some positive results. In the meantime, start a savings jar for the test if you can't find it somewhere else for cheaper.

 

[corky]

Corky went through some terrible scratching issues and a secondary infection, too. We chose to try him on a novel protein dog food (protein ingredients he hadn't had before). That can take two weeks to show an improvement. We also got him antibiotics for the infection, washed him with an antifungal shampoo, and rewashed all his stuff and our floors with very mild products and a double rince. His skin cleared up. To be certain it was the food he had reacted to, we reintroduced the old food and within two days he was scratching again. Our only costs were new food, shampoo, and inexpensive pills. If that hadn't worked, testing was still an option, of course.

 

[Buddy'sParents]

I believe several of us here have had experience with allergies, unfortunatly. Your best place to start, IMO, is to get your dog on the best possible diet you can porvide, eliminate any possible unnatural chemicals or pests in the envoirnment and start from there. It's hard to pin point WHAT a dog is allergic to without specific tests (which, depending on the dog may be worth it in the long run) but if it's more of a sensitivity, for example, crappy food or the neighbors lawn treatment, then you should see improvements right away. What kind of food are you feeding? Is the itching worse seasonally? Is he on flea preventative? Do you have carpets, lots of hidden dust, etc? May be a good place to start

I agree.

Also having the allergy test done and knowing what your dog is allergic to half the battle! You don't have to go down the route of having allergy shots- my dog doesn't and I refuse anyway. I know what he's allergic to and we provide him with a raw diet, traditional chinese medicine and benadryl.

 

[Saeleofu]

There are multiple types of allergy test.

The one we usually do is a blood test. It's good for a lot of allergens, and they do check food allergies with it, but it's not great about detecting food allergies. I think we charge clients $255 for this one, and the the serum for the allergy injections is about 120-$180 and it lasts about 8 months before you need a refill.

There is also the traditional allergy test where you take your dog to the allergist and they shave him and do the pin pricks. I think it's more expensive, but I have no experience with it, so I can't comment.

The best way to deal with food allergies is to avoid whatever he's allergic too. I would try to find a novel protein and take out the grains, particularly corn. If his allergies clear up, problem solved.

For inhaled allergies, you can do desensitization, which is initially a shot over other day, and it tapers down to every few months.

In my opinion, if you are going to test, it ought to be with the intention to try desensitization. If you don't want to do the injections, then don't even bother testing. You're not going to be able to keep him away from pollens, dust, bugs, and human dander (I've seen 2 dogs that were allergic to people!), so treat with allergy meds and start with food trials.

 

[Buddy'sParents]

Medications are not always necessary. My dog on steroids is NOT my dog and I choose healthier remedies for him.

For example, Buddy is allergic to fleas, dustmites, and cockroaches- these are his MAIN allergens that we are actively working against.

Solutions? We don't have fleas or cockroaches. Pretty simple if you ask me and we don't even need pesticides/chemicals to ensure we do not have fleas or cockroaches. For the dust mite allergy we clean regularly; sweep/mop, vacuum, have air purifiers for dustier times of the year.

We also use homemade cleaners (so there are little, if any chemicals in the house at all), he's fed a raw diet and has two TCM's that he takes. He eats foods that cool his body temperature down and he's in the BEST condition of his life versus when he was on steroids --he was a hyperactive ball of unhappy dog (AND it was SO expensive). See- harmful medications totally not needed. People just need to think outside of the box!

As for elimination diets- when we first thought he might have food allergies we moved him to a completely new protein that he had never been exposed to. After two or three (I don't recall exactly) trials with no improvement we decided food was not the culprit. However, he does not get grains (sometimes in treats, but there are in no way a significant percentage of his diet) and we stay away from warming foods.

Bottom line: allergies suck. It took us a very long time to figure out what worked for Buddy- working with both a modern vet and a holistic vet to figure out the best solution. He still gets seasonal allergies (we all suffer from them, I can't get rid of pollen or mold!) but he's doing 200% better than he was when we were told steroids were the only solution.

ETA: Only try one new thing at a time. If you try several things and suddenly your dog is better you won't know what helped.

 

[elegy]

have they done a skin scrape to rule out buggies? (demodex, scabies)

 

[Barb04]

My son had good results changing his dog's food to California Natural which is good for dogs with allergies. You could give this a try. It normally takes about 6 weeks or so to see an improvement after the food change. One of my dogs has allergies and get a Benedryl on days when it bothers him.

 

[corky]

California Natural is a good food, but it still has a mixture of proteins and grains, so if either of those are suspect its not a great choice for an allergic animal. Very simple diets of new proteins (perhaps duck or rabbit, for example) -- ideally grain-free -- are the better starting point when food allergies are suspected.

 

[MissMeggy]

Thanks for all your replies.
So to start with we switched both our dogs to a raw diet a while back. That was one of the many reasons for switching. I read that food allergies are a major part of allergies in dogs. He still itches.
Cyprus is just under a year old. This is why I would really like to do something besides shots. He has such a long life ahead of him to be on something already.
I have thought of things like dust and mold type things. So we have been upping our cleaning. We live in an older house and the carpet desperately needs to be removed. I want to put down laminate flooring. Not only for looks but bc this old carpet does hold in a lot of dust even if it is vacuumed 3 times a week! We are also wanting to repaint. So we were hoping everything being clean and new would help.
The only other vet near us said he doesn't do allergy testing and somewhat laughed at me. He is an old man who mostly deals with farm animals and the likes.
Sounds like I need to suck it up save some cash and get his big butt tested. Haha. We have tried everything we know. I really don't want to do shots and medicine that is the only thing I'm sure of. I'm sort of discouraged. My poor dog.

 

[lizzybeth727]

I work with a dog who has bad skin allergies.... itches to the point where he gets staph infections on his skin. Benadryl does very little good. Prednisone is really the only thing that stops the itching, but of course we can't use that long-term.

So we got him allergy tested by an allergy specialist, and he has no food allergies but a bunch of environmental allergies - dust, fleas, mold, cat dander, certain grasses, etc. We now have him on the desensetization shots - he gets a low dose of the allergens every three days for several weeks, then progressively higher doses. Now he's getting the highest dose every ten days, and we're going to give it a few months to see how it helps. Basically, the shots work by exposing him to the allergen so that his immune system will start to "kick in" and fight the allergen itself. If it works, in a few months we should be able to stop giving him injections altogether. The total treatment time will be about 6 months.

Maybe this will be an option for your dog??

 

[MissMeggy]

Wow. That's intense. So the idea is that after the 6 months he will stop itching? Or just improve his symptoms? I don't even wanna think about what this costs. Thanks for the info on the desensetization method!

 

[lizzybeth727]

Wow. That's intense. So the idea is that after the 6 months he will stop itching? Or just improve his symptoms? I don't even wanna think about what this costs. Thanks for the info on the desensetization method!

The idea is that after the treatment is over (HOPEFULLY by 6 months) his body will have built up his immune system to fight off the allergens. All of us are bombarded every day with allergens, we just don't have reactions because our immune systems fight them off. That's what we're trying to build up with the allergy shots. Just like giving vaccines, only slightly more complicated.

I have no idea how much it costs, BTW.

 

[Bailey08]

I have a dog who suffers from allergies which I believe are environmental.

First, from what I understand, the best ways to test for allergies are: (1) for food allergies, doing a true elimination diet, and (2) for environmental allergies, doing a skin test. That said, I actually did a blood test for food allergies on my dog when he was young. I have found it helpful, but am still considering doing a food elimination test at a later time. I probably will not do the skin test for environmental allergies, unless and until my dog's symptoms get worse. Environmental allergies are more common, from what I understand, than food allergies.

If you're not in a position to, or don't want to, do a skin test and/or pay for the resulting shots, then I would just do the best you can to eliminate potential triggers. I know you said your dogs are on raw, and I think that's great! I would also address environmental triggers by doing things like deep-cleaning carpets and other fabrics (like couches and drapes), buying good air filters (BlueAir is a good entry-point brand), using a hepa vacuum and vacuuming rugs and couches a couple of times a week, dusting and dust mopping daily, etc., etc. You could also look into supplements to improve your dog's overall health (like fish oil pills and vitamin supplements) and supplements specifically aimed at addressing allergy issues (like quercetin and bromelain and higher doses of vitamin c). Someone else mentioned TCM; you could look into that, or into homeopathic remedies (I use the latter because there is a homeopathic vet in my area). If you could get rid of your carpets, that would probably be really helpful. Also, you can bathe your dog weekly, brush him daily, and wipe him down when he comes in from outside (I use dog grooming wipes, but you could also use a cloth dipped in a diluted shampoo/water mixture). Clean his ears weekly. Use Benedryl for flare ups. Basically, do all of the things that you would if you had a human in your home suffering from allergies.

Personally, I haven't done the skin scraping because (a) my dog's allergies aren't out of control and (b) I think I'm doing about what I would be doing if an allergy test came back positive for something environmental anyway. I -- personally -- would not choose to do allergy shots before taking all of these other steps (though I also don't have a dog who is miserable as a result of out-of-control allergies).

Good luck!

 

[Brattina88]

I once read an article in a magazine that suggested giving locally made honey to help with environmental allergens. Might be worth a google search *shrugs*

 

[angie8023]

I have been dealing with Sancho's environmental allergies since he was 4 months. He will be four years old in June and I think I'm going to have to try shots. I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm out of options. Cleaning does help but it wont cure anything. I wish you all the best and good luck

 

[Saeleofu]

If you do the shots, you could also not think of it as something he has to have for the rest of his life (in reality you actually can stop after a while, and have the option of starting again if the allergies come back) but rather think of it as giving him relief from something else. He has such problems so early on, he's bound to have them the rest of his life anyway.