Itchies -- February 18, 2014

Bing finally went to a dermatologist for his itchiness. One of the new medications he’s been given helped measurably and immediately. Skin scrapings revealed no signs of mites or other tiny critters on his skin, although they did find an ear infection that is also now undergoing treatment.

Bing has been improving. He isn’t spending large amounts of his waking hours at home licking his legs, paws, belly, tail or butt. All of the red hot spots have disappeared. And when you scratch his chest he can lay still and enjoy it most of the time, without an immediate response on his part to scratch where he’s being scratched.

I won’t go into the details of the medication, Apoquel, other than it is brand new (it came out the week AFTER we started it), and it treats the symptoms by essentially cutting off the “itchy” signals between the site of the itch and his brain. Since the actual cause of Bing’s itchiness isn’t known, treating symptoms is pretty much all we’re left with.

There is another good reason why Bing should be improving right now: the weather. We haven’t had a brutally cold winter in ages. Not that anybody in this household is enjoying multiple consecutive days of temperatures hovering in the single digits, but the cold and snow certainly minimizes all manner of pesky critters. Fortunately, Bing doesn’t seem to notice the cold.

There is no guarantee that putting him on a strict diet will solve his itching problem, even though his earlier tests came back positive for possible sensitivity responses to certain types of foods. But a strict diet it is: turkey and sweet potatoes. And that leads to the tricky part of this latest round of treatments: how long will Bing be able to put up with eating the same thing. Not only as his breakfast and dinner, but also treats.

Ali has been cooking the turkey in the crock pot and baking the potatoes, removing the bones and skins, and mixing them together in what looks like equal parts. Using the blender, she even made a pâté that she baked in the oven and cut into strips for training treats.

Some of the additional steps that were taken to minimize the sources of Bing’s itching were: deep cleaning baseboards and floors, a new set of dog beds, and spraying Bings feet after walks with an anti-fungal spray.

After 6 weeks, with the difficulty maintaining the diet and another visit to the vet, Bing is back to medication only for treatment. But, in general, the major problems have resolved -- no hot spots and the itching is greatly reduced.

We’ll know more as spring makes its way through the 15” of ice and snow that still covers most of the ground.

Ali & Pete

 

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