My senior has been having skin issues, itching, and loosing hair as a result. I am positive it is allergies, and have changed his food to one with no wheat in it, but the vet says it is also probably seasonal allergies. She has always given me Prednisone in the past but I have been reading about what steriods do and I am not going to put him back on them again. She was not happy when I told her this, which is why I am in the process of finding a new vet. But she also said that I could try giving him Benadryl, 1mg per pound of body weight 3x a day. That would mean that he would be getting 90mg 3x a day, and I dont know how comfortable I am with that. Has anyone every tried using an anti-histamine before? Anyone have any good results?

Thanks for any help.

My Bailey gets one 25mg tablet a few times a day during the worst of allegery season. If he seemed bad, I'd give him two at once. I'm saving the three at once for an emercency. Bodhi got stung by something last week and I gave him two to help with the swelling. I don't leave home without it.

Benadryl is fine, but it may make him sleepy.

What specifically are you feeding?

Nollie has skin allergies and is on a wheat and corn free diet (she is partial raw). Our vet suggested we use Benadryl (25mg) rather than shots, 3 x pd and she is much better.She still rubs her back on the grass in the mornings before we give her her 1st daily dose though but after that she is fine. It doesn't make her sleepy.
We also have a shampoo for her from the vets to bathe her in, called Virbac, for when her dandruff is bad.

There is something else you can get from your Vet instead of Benadryl..it is called Hydroxyzine. It works like Benadryl but without the side effects.

We use benedryl too, when necessary.

The drowsiness will fade, if you consistenly use it.

Thank you all so much for your replies. I feel alot better about giving him the med now. He had his first dose about an hour ago and is doing fine. He is 12 years old so the sleepiness is already there. He has been my couch potato for a while now.

Welcome to the board.

Sorry to read that your senior has having problems :(. For some reason it's hard on us to watch our senior's struggling.

Just an FYI, constant use of Benadryl weakens the immune system and that's not what you want to do at any age. What supplements are you giving your boy to help boost his immune system? This is just one that might help him: http://www.immunesupport.com/message/quer.htm

Also, when was his last full blood panel done? How are his liver and thyroid functioning?

It is horrible to watch him in such agony, not to mention the fact that people think he has fleas because of the bare spots on his butt.
Sam last had a blood panel done in May when all of this started, and everything was fine. The vet said some of his liver enzymes were a little off, but that was normal for a dog his age.
I was unaware that he would be needing supplements while on Benadryl, but I will try the product that you suggested. Is that a replacement for the Benadryl or something to supplement the suppressed immune system?

Thank you all so much

The vet said some of his liver enzymes were a little off, but that was normal for a dog his age.This could be one answer to his itching. Can you get a copy of the blood test results?
Itching can be triggered by a variety of conditions, ranging from liver disease to lice, from fungus to fleas, from mange to anxiety.
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/404_pets.html
Is that a replacement for the Benadryl or something to supplement the suppressed immune system?
To replace Benadryl.

I got a copy of Sam's labs, I didnt realize until i got home with them that it only included the chemistry and not the CBC.

Glucose 87
ALT 83
Total Biliruben 0.3
Total Protein 7.2
Urea Nitrogen 11
Phosphorus 3.1
Sodium 147
CHloride 116
LDH 120
Magnesium 1.9
Lipase 300
T4 2.7

I am a nurse so I know what all of these are, and the only liver enzyme I see is the ALT, but I have always looked at ALP and ASP as well. I dont know what the values for dogs should be so I have no idea how high anything is.

If this is the scale the blood laboratory uses in your area, then this link might help you:
http://www.bichonfriseusa.com/caninebloodwork.htm

Her ALT appears to be on the higher side of "normal" according to this website.

This is why its so important to get your Healthy senior lab to the vet for a senior panel.. it gives you a good baseline for what is "normal:" for your lab. then down the road if there is a problem..you have a good panel to compare to... Just a suggestion to ALL senior dog owners... Cats too.. Kinda off topic but saw it as a good chance to give the suggestion.

I have a long term foster choc lab senor girl called Jade who has horrible allergies, when we eventually managed to find her vet used by the original owners it was apparant this girl has suffered her whole life and just gone thro a cycle of suffering, pred, a period of comfort then back to suffering with the allergies again, she had been relegated to the garage because she was apparantly incontinent (it became apparant very early on to me allergy at it worst - incontinent, calm the allergies down incontince goes) she has had surgery on her ears several times in her previous life due to them being so infected and swelling, and we had to have sugery on one of them not long after she came to us.
After having tried to eliminate the culprit (or what we felt were) foodstuffs for many months, she was improved but still having problems. we had a allergy panel done on her to identify exactly what she was allergic to. to list but a few - beef, chicken, turkey, corn, soy, wheat, house flies, ants, several grasses, several weeds, several molds and... human dander.
She is now on Dick Van Pattens fish and sweet potato which seems to suit her well, she has several supplements including quercetin and bromlein, and last week started on desensitisation shots for the environmental allergies , apparantly it can take many months for these to become effective, but here's hoping they do.
I gave her benedryl once when she hadnt been here all that long and was itching badly, she thrw up not long after it, so i never tried it again. Its been a long tough few months working thro what the allergies were, and i felt for her thro her obvious discomfort, we resorted to a pred injection once when she was feeling particularly bad but i try to avoid it all costs.
She is now looking great and obvoiusly feeling it as well, but because of the ongoing management of her allergies (her shots will be ongoing for many months and beyond) Jade will be staying with us as a permanent foster . My vet jokes that she is our 'Very expensive , High maintence gal'
Allergies can be extremely frustrating, there can be so many variables just as you think you have eliminated the culprits, things can flare up again.
Had we known about the level of her allergies before we as a rescue took her in - You bet, - they dont come much better than this girl.

I took Sam back to the vet on Friday and they finally listened to meat he may have allergies, but this was something on top of that, and that nothing that they had suggested was working. They did a skin scrape and found out that he has a fungal infection in the skin on his rear. So he is now on antibiotics and is a completely different dog in just 2 days. I am definetly going to try and find a better vet now, I don't like this woman ignoring what I am telling her about MY dog. He is mine and I know what is normal for him and when something is wrong. If anyone is from Richmond, VA and knows of a good vet I would appreciate any input.

Something I found out when I figured out mine had wheat allergies. Look at the ingred. on the "treats" you give. For some reason I had missed the "obvious" :p:

If you have the means, go to a dermatologist (I'm disappointed that your vet didn't recommend this, perhaps there isn't one near?). From my experience, the prednisone starts off as a high dosage but is tapered down to a lower dosage.
Our 13 yr old yellow male, Zinger, has had allergy problems since my husband adopted him 6 years ago before we met. We did the food trials, using Benedryl, different shampoos, Prednisone (steriod) and whatever else the vet recommended (followed instructions including the recommended time frames for each suggestion) short of going to the dermatoligist. After a year of no real success, the Prednisone was sucessful at a high dosage but Zinger was too young to use it for the rest of his life.
We decided to go to the Dermatologist to get an allergy screening and now Zinger gets an allergy injection (every other week) specific to his needs, he's on a very low dosage of Prednisone (5mg every other day) for a dog his size, and a low dosage of Benadryl to help keep the Prednisone at the lowest dosage that works for him. For over 6 months we "played" with the dosage of the Prednisone and Benadryl to find the lowest dosage of each to keep Zinger from itching/nibbling/rubbing. We recently lowered the Benadryl to see if he would still be ok and to check if it would change his energy level/ sleeping amount. It didn't, but that doesn't mean it won't for other dogs.
Best of luck to you and your boy!

Just wanted to mention that our 11 yr old choc lab, Bailey has been suffering from seasonal allergies since she was about 7 or 8. She would start incessant scratching with fur loss around the beginning of June lasting through the summer months. I have found that giving her Benadryl--one half tablet twice a day at the first sign of her scratching along with a Fish oil 1200mg capsule has really minimized her symptoms. The fish oil seemed to really give her a beautifull shiney coat as well.

Hoping this is just a fungul issue and you can clear it up and not have issues with allergies.

If it turns out to be allergies talking to a holistic vet about hi doses of vit. C to bowel tolerance would be a good idea.

heres a link to search for one in your area if you want to go that route.

http://www.vetlocator.com/holisticandalternative.php

I have used this (as it is an anti inflamatory- makes the adrenal gland produce natual steroids) for my old girl years ago with skin issues. It turns out she was allergic to corn but the C worked prior to my discovery and removing corn from her diet.

Biotin can also help the skin but must be given with a b complex. I use 300 mcg daily of biotin.

Apple cider vinegar at 1 tbsp daily in food with water added can also help.

It can sometimes take a combination of things to do the trick.

good luck.