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Dermatology Photo Gallery
Week 16 Progress Report
The Dogs: poor Asia and Simba continue to be quite itchy and have patches of red skin, though the severity waxes and wanes over the course of any given day (though they generally seemed to be less red and itchy in the mornings and worst the late evening). Though they were not as bad as they had been at some points in this journey, they were not great either, especially since they were on a drug that cost around $8 a day per dog! They were also still on a bit of prednisone. It seemed that they must be much worse this winter than any time before in their lives, given how they look while they are while being aggressively treated. At least their ears were better this week.
The Dogs: early in the week we visited Dr G. again, and she was as disappointed in their response to cyclosporine as I was. She thought it likely we would need to try antihistamines instead, as cyclosporine seemed just too cost-prohibitive to continue given the lack of control of the dogs' symptoms. However, she wanted to wait until the full four week course of cyclosporine was complete before changing medication. At the end of this week, I called Dr. G. with a progress report: no change. The days they got a small dose of prednisone they were "not too bad" but on the days we skipped prednisone they were noticeably worse. Instead of renewing our prescription for cyclosporine, we got a prescription for 2 weeks of the antihistamine Hydroxyzine hydrochloride.
