Dermatology Diary Part 6: Meet Simba and Asia

Weeks 33 and 34 -- Progress Reports

(The McLeod family takes a trip)

We left the dogs with our intrepid dog sitters through most of this time, and left them on just every other day prednisone. We returned near the end of week 34, to dogs that had broken out in little red sores and scabs. Simba was also suffering from an ear infection, which the dog sitters had bravely begun treating with Otomax (after figuring out they had to be very sneaky in order to even catch Simba to treat his ears!).

After returning, we went for a recheck and worked out a new plan:

• begin decreasing prednisone
• 3 week course of antibiotics to keep secondary skin infections at bay since allergic symptoms were likely to worsen
• start on amitryptylline (has some antihistamine and anti-itch properties)
• start on chlorpheniramine (an antihistamine)
• manage symptoms by increasing topical spray usage and bathing frequency
• stay on Hills d/d because of its fatty acid profile (other alternative was to supplement another diet with essential fatty acids - it seemed easier to just keep on with this food)

It seemed like a feasible plan, but it turned out the dogs would each get 9 pills in total twice a day. Yikes!

To be continued...

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