The Derm Diary series of articles was authored by Lianne McLeod DVM, who was the About.com Guide to Exotic Pets for 11 years.
Dermatology Diary Table of contents
Dermatology Photo Gallery
Derm Diary "chapters"
Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5 |
Part 6 |
Part 7 |
Part 8 |
Week 15 Progress Report
The Dogs: not too much changed this week -- the dogs continued to be quite itchy and red. Simba was the worst, but Asia was not great either. Simba's ears were a bit better, but the tips still bled occasionally due to head shaking (usually only at inconvenient times, like the middle of agility class when everyone was horrified by the sudden appearance of two bloody spots on Simba's head). By the end of this week I had backed the dogs off prednisone to a very low dose, but they got so red and itchy, I put them back up a notch again. Cyclosporine did not seem to do much for the dogs, especially considering they weren't even off prednisone yet. It was disappointing as I had expected cyclosporine to be a "wonder drug" for them.
Recheck visit: no vet visit this week, though I spoke to Dr. G. about their poor response thus far. I also took in a urine sample this week as Simba's antibiotics (for the urinary tract infection) were finished. Fortunately, the culture came back negative (no bacteria), so there was one bright spot this week.
We also discovered our plan of going for intradermal skin testing during a school break would not work out. Two tentative dates were set, but one required being off all steroids by the end of this week, which didn't happen. We will have to delay the testing even more; this will make the driving less risky but means it will be almost 3 months until we can go for the testing.
Part 4: Ups, downs and finding balance
