I'm looking for some kind of guidance with my 5 yr. old american bulldog female. I have had her back to the vet many times for some type of skin problem. It just seemed to start out of nowhere a little less than 2 years ago, the vet treated it with antibiotics and prednisone. She does the same as the person with the pit bull; she chews and licks on her the tops of front paws, scratches at her face, abdomen, chews on her back paws also. She also has a couple patches on her backside that hair hasn't grown back on that are pink and look irritated. It has gotten better and worse with the prednisone which I don't like having her on. Then they took blood and checked for thyroid problems - came back with a slightly abnormal thyroid and wanted to put her on medicine - said we'd try it. We started at 1 tablet twice per day and have gone up to 2 to 2 1/2 twice a day with slight improvement. The vet said that it wouldn't hurt her so I might as well leave her on it. But it really didn't help the skin problem which came and went. We finally opted for a blood test ($300) which told me that she was more or less allergic to some different weeds, grasses and environment. And that I could order a syrem at $100/vial and give her injections and gave me a schedule. Well the injections helped some, but when I tried to space them out as the schedule said - the skin problems came back. The last time she was due for her thyroid blood check, I cancelled the appt. since the vet had said it didn't hurt her - I didn't think it was really helping either. I don't think it really makes a difference, but she has gotten a little worse. Well now she looks like she has a constant rash, she scratches constantly. I've tried cortisone shampoos, sprays, etc. She hardly comes out of their dog house before she starts to scratch and she scratches sometimes until it bleeds. I'm wondering what to do; I feel bad for her but I don't want her to have to rely on medicine for the rest of her life. She was fine and I'm wondering if any of this could have been brought on by vaccinations? She was fine for 3 years and then boom, this started.

I don't know what to do, I hate to see her suffer but I don't know where to turn. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. By the way I have a male american bulldog that shows none of the problems she has, if that makes a difference.

Thanks, Wendy

Hi Wendy. I hope you are checking back to look for replies. You didn't mention anything about diet. This is always important. Dogs do not do well on diets that include large amounts of grain. If you need/want more detail on diet please let me know.

As you know, the prednisone is only going to supress the symptoms. It would be a good idea to find a homeopathic veterinarian in your area. If there are none you can go online to the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy and find one who does telephone consultations. I think your dog could really benefit from having homeopathic treatment.

Take care,

Lisa

Thanks so much for responding! I ended up taking her to another vet in the area, it's the vet the actually took over the practice of her original vet a bit after he retired and I had already switched to another vet closer to me.

They took a couple skin biopsies and the results say that she has a severe bacterial infection, an intradermal infection (something about her hair), plus her allergies to various weeds, etc. For now they have put her on cephalaxon (?spelling) twice a day for at least a month or so and also started her on Atopica - an alternative to Prednisone w/o the side effects. She has improved remarkably in just the last couple days. Unfortunately there aren't any holistic vet's near me. I want to try to get her cleared up and then proceed during that time to look for a holistic vet and maybe transfer her to their care.

About her food, I changed her over to Nutro Natural Choice and it seemed to her and my male dogs coats, but we did find by the prior blood testing that she didn't have any food allergies.

Thanks, Wendy