How much yogurt should we be giving for a yeast infection?

[Sue]

I see you're in Maine. How close are you to Augusta? It might be worthwhile to have a consult with Maine Homeopathic Vet - Animal Wellness Center of Augusta, Maine - Judith Herman, DVM (The Animal Wellness Center).

The problem with most vets, is that the cookie cutter approach to treating allergies is to throw steroids at the dogs, to turn off the immune system function. Allergies traditionally present with an overactive immune system, so that's what they do. Turn it off. But if your dog's immune system is functioning normally, you'd really do better to support that immune system, rather than killing it off with steroids.

You may have to rethink the diet. Kibble contains carbohydrates. Even if it's grain free, there are still carbs, as it's necessary to use carbs to make kibble. The one you're feeding, although it doesn't have potatoes, is loaded with peas, pea flour and pea starch. On the chicken, there is 39% carbohydrates! Way way too much.

One of our members, snowshoe, had similar problems, and most of the issues were solved with a switch to RAW, along with some traditional chinese herbs. At least, considering home cooked might be an alternative, to control the amount of carbs in the diet.

Seriously, consult with a homeopathic veterinarian, there are a few in Maine. Not many, but enough. You really really want to get to the bottom of this, without throwing money into antibiotics, steroids, and the traditional treatments.

Good luck.

[jwathas]

Augusta is about an hour away from us. I just got off the phone with our vet. She was very, very nice and she felt horrible that nothing is really helping him. She said "You're being so kind to me and I'm not even helping your dog." She wants us to taper off the Temaril-P since he is having accidents on it and she wants us to pick up some Atopica to try and she also referred us to a dermatology vet about 2 hours away from us, so we are going to give them a call tomorrow. She said that we have definitely done our part as far as diet trials as we have already tried several different protein sources and eliminating all grains. She is pretty positive that this is not a food allergy issue and she said that a raw diet is probably not necessary at this point. Plus, raw would not be practical for us at all as we travel A LOT and our dogs frequently come with us. We are definitely going to try the Atopica and consult with the dermatology vet and go from there.

[Doreen Davis]

I'm still an advocate of a Derm bet and the use of an anti fungal to rid the yeast. Once it's gone, a regimen of bathing etc worked for us. But we didn't get there until a Derm consultation.

[shellbell]

I understand the frustration, but I always cringe when people mention Atopica.

[jwathas]

The yeast does seem to be gone as he no longer has that musty yeast smell and his skin looks much, much better and his hair is starting to grow back. We have been using GNC antifungal/antibacterial shampoo on him about twice a week for the last couple of months. I'm going to give the dermatology vet a call tomorrow and see what they recommend. We definitely seem to be making some progress, so I just want to make sure that we get on the right track and stay there. I really want to show him. He has beautiful conformation and he is the grandson of BIS, BISS Am/Can CH Aquarius Centercourt Delight, so he definitely has a lot of potential, but we have to get him back in that condition first!

[Snowshoe]

Yes, Oban was itch free last summer, his itchy period for four years previous. But we did not go to our new Holistic Vet because of itching, we went because of prolonged diarrhoea that did not respond to Flagyl or Prednisone or any of the diarrhoea foods we tried. Oban was successfully on Atopica for about two weeks, his usual springtime start for the drug, when the diarrhoea began. It's always been my suspicion the combination of Atopica for his allergies, and pain meds for his sore elbow (hurt it going through crust on snow) triggered the diarrhoea but we will never know for sure. I took him off of everything, meds, EFA, glucosamine and the prednisone too but you have to taper off of it and we did.

The new Vet (Holistic integrative) put Oban on a novel protein and carb, turkey and sweet potato, cooked. Plus TCM. Oban got better quickly and we slowly, at her urging, transitioned to raw and we were fully on raw starting in November. November had previously been when we stopped having allergic itching and was when we had always stopped the Atopica. So the Vet and I are not sure how effective raw was at curbing his itching since we weren't raw till he usually stopped itching anyway. But he didn't itch all summer on the cooked either. TCM throughout.

We were looking forward to seeing what this summer would bring but unfortunately Oban has had another flare up of what is now diagnosed as Lymphangiectasia and we are back on Rx kibble as per the Internal Specialist Vet.

My first Vet,when Oban first got sick, is one of the few in Ontario certified in Homeopathy and Chiropractic. Neither homeopathy or chiropractic helped Oban for any of his ailments. The Atopica was a wonder drug that I consider a lesser evil than Prednisone. Our new Vet brands herself as a Holisitic Integrative Vet and she also practices TCM. I really am thankful to her but I think it's a coin toss which remedy is going to help any one dog.

Good luck. Let us know how you make out, maybe what you do will help someone else, maybe me if Oban's itchies come back.

ETA: I forgot an important note. We have been pretty sure Oban's allergies are seasonal, environmental. He'd itch in summer not in winter no matter which of his three food rotation he was on. But I did the Nutriscan saliva test on him a few months ago and it says there are a few foods he shows reaction to. One is turkey of all things, the food that saved his life last summer.

[jwathas]

We just went over to the vet and picked up the Atopica. We're going to start it tomorrow and also start the Temaril-P taper tomorrow. Our vet suggested we keep the Atopica in the freezer as that can help prevent any sort of stomach upset that some dogs get from it. I fully agree that Atopica is definitely the lesser evil and I would be much more comfortable using that as opposed to any type of steroid, especially in the longer term. She said that a lot of her clients have had great success with it. The vet also wants us to try 1 or 2 more LimePlus dips. We have done 2 so far and she said that it can sometimes take 3-4 times before seeing any results. She just wants to make sure that there are no mites/parasites or anything else underneath his skin that the scraping wouldn't have shown. I don't really think that's what it is because we have 2 other dogs and I would think that they would have them as well since they are always in pretty close contact, but we'll try it once or twice more just to make sure we cover all of the bases. Fingers crossed!!!

[Snowshoe]

I don't think you should keep the Atopica in the freezer. I put mine in a half hour before I was going to give it. One capsule at a time. Check your instructions but I'm sure you only want to freeze it long enough to target the gel capsule but not the med inside the capsule. Oban had no trouble with it the first year but the next three I froze it.

[jwathas]

Thanks! We'll do that instead!

[Woofie]

We travel a lot with our dogs too; one is on homecooked, the other is on raw....for Rivers, the change in diet is what saved his life & keeping him 100% drug free.

Our vet didn't believe a change in diet would help either; it was my own gut instinct, and I don't regret it.

Definitely keep us posted; hopefully he doesn't have to stay on med's his entire life.