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  1. #1
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    Unhappy Continuing itching and licking - suggestions appreciated!

    I am at my wits end. Our 8yo lab mix is having skin issues again. They have never completely gone away but it seems like it has gotten worse in the last few months especially after he got his booster vaccinations in early October (have no idea if that is the cause and I do plan to stop them going forward). He has always had skin problems since we got him 7 years ago due to poor care by his previous owners. He is on Taste of the Wild dog food with cooked chicken and plain yogurt in his meals. He gets no treats of any kind and he gets regular baths with a medicated shampoo (Malaseb). We use the Nzymes Healthy Skin products (nayy) and have been able to keep his bumps and itching under control for the past few years. Now he has several places that he wants to chew and he licks his paws -- not constantly but more than usual. He has also developed some lipomas and a few warts over the last few years which I understand is indicative of a poorly functioning immune system. I have not tried Dinovite (not sure if this is any better than the Nzymes) or any low-carb dog food as of yet. Almost two weeks ago I started him on (2) 500mg L-Lysine per day so I hope this will help. There is no holistic vet close to me. My current vet is an old country doctor who just treats the symptoms just like he always has. No help there. Any suggestions will be very much appreciated as I am just about out of ideas.

    Thanks so much,
    Dyann in AR

  2. #2
    Senior Dog Labradorks's Avatar
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    Well, chicken is a common allergen. You said you have not tried low-carb foods and wheat and corn are also common allergens. Many yogurts have fillers that are allergens. I'd get him on something with limited ingredients and a novel protein like pork, duck or fish and a carb like peas or millet. You can find these dog foods at specialty stores or Chewy.com has a good selection with free shipping. Fromm is a good and popular choice, perhaps a good place to start. There are lots of options. During this time I'd take him off of everything else, including the baths and supplements, if you can, so you can see how the new food is working. Give it at least six weeks before changing foods again.

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  4. #3
    Real Retriever blacklabs's Avatar
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    Can you get him to a specialist Dermatologist as they specialise in skin issues and depending on what they find during a consult, a skin biopsy may need to be done. Itchiness can be caused by a variety of issues ranging from food allergies, environmental allergies to more sinister conditions and you really need the expertise of a Dermatologist to diagnose what is happening with your boy as Vet's don't have the expertise in this area that the Dermatologist has.

    I don't want to be an alarmist, but am sharing my story of what happened to my 7 yearold Lab boy Toby, as sometimes itchiness/skin conditions can be more than just food/evironmental allergies and I cannot stress the importance enough of going to to a specialist veterinary dermatologist.

    Unfortunately my 7 year old Lab boy who I adopted and had for 18mths came to me with general itchiness and acute ear infections and I got a referral to a Specialist Dermatologist last year which fortunately for me is located in the specialist small animal hospital only about 20mins drive away. With the help of the Dermatologist we got on top of his itchiness and ear infections and everything was going well, but then unfortunately he started getting very itchy again mid way through this year and I thought his allergies had returned, so experimented a bit with food changes to no avail, took him to my Vet to get a Cortisone injection to give him some instant relief and a few days later whilst on prednisolone medication he started having large diarrhea mustard colour poo and his skin was flaking badly and there were also small crusty lumps starting to appear on his body and hairloss occurring as well, so took him back to the Dermatolgist. He had to have a skin biopsy done as Dermatologist was concerned about this condition and unfortunately for my beautiful boy, he was diagnosed with a fairly rare autoimmune disease, Reactive Histiocytosis but he had the terminal version, System Histiocytosis which had infiltrated his gut. I lost him to this awful disease 3 weeks ago. Below is a link to the thread with his story.

    https://www.lab-retriever.net/board/g...-bad-luck.html

    Best wishes that your boy only has food and or environmental allergies and nothing more sinister. Please keep us updated. After what happened to my boy, I am very paranoid now about any itching/skin conditions and will always advocate for a dog to be referred to dermatologist rather than a Vet.

  5. #4
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    We hare a new local pet food store who specializes in high end dog food. I was looking at this food GO! Premium Dog Food | Petcurean and really liked it. I plan on incorporating it into my rotation with Fromm and Petkind.

  6. #5
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    In my experience, a determination of food allergies by a holistic vet begins with a month long course of a very simple diet consisting of cooked foods which have not been fed to the dog in the past. We started with buffalo and sweet potato but that was back when buffalo meat was inexpensive. If pork has not been a part of your dog's diet in the past, you may want to try that. Buy the pork roasts. They are running around $1.70 a pound right now. Just roast them at 350 F for an hour and 15 minutes and feed 1 pound of cooked meat a day along with a microwaved sweet potato. If that alleviates your dog's issues, then you know what the problem is.

    Again in my experience, there are no quick fixes to these issues once they get to this point. If you try too many things, you may be introducing problems into the mix and then you won't know what the source of the problem is.

  7. #6
    Senior Dog Snowshoe's Avatar
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    You mention his booster shots in October. My Vet and I were talking about vaccinosis yesterday. Its seems that more and more some allergic type looking conditions might be related to the shots, even a couple of months later. Our Vet is a Holistic Integrative Vet and we are so lucky she's close.

    If you can't get to someone with an alternative outlook, or a dermatologist, there are some tests you could have done yourself. Even though we were pretty sure Oban's itchies were seasonal environmental (itchy in summer, fine in winter) I did the Nutriscan saliva test on him and it did show some foods to stay away from. Typically allergies, if that's what it is, do worsen throughout life. Ironically one of them was the single protein that saved his life when we first went to this new Vet. AT that point we were doing exactly as Janedoe says, one protein cooked and baked sweet potato. He ate nothing but that and maybe overwhelmed his system who knows, but I now do not feed turkey. Sweet potato is still ok though. It might not be turkey at all for your dog. The limits of Nutriscan is it only tests foods. And its not cheap. Oban is now on TCM, a limited ingredient kibble and he's not itching.
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  9. #7
    Senior Dog Scoutpout's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by barry581 View Post
    We hare a new local pet food store who specializes in high end dog food. I was looking at this food GO! Premium Dog Food | Petcurean and really liked it. I plan on incorporating it into my rotation with Fromm and Petkind.
    Scout has had off and on itchies. He is much better in winter than summer. This dragged-out fall is not good at all for him. He isn't to the point of meds, but does rub his face (no paw symptoms for him). The best he's been all summer has been since we switched last year to Petcureans GO! Now Fresh, large breed senior. He's doing much better on it, good poops, and (normally) much less itchy face.

    I like the idea of switching to one meat and a sweet potato for a while and see what happens...just like us it takes a bit for things to work out of their system.
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  10. #8
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    My boys don't have skin issues but I do know they get itchier in the winter. Running a humidifier helps a lot. I don't know if it'll help your dog but its worth a shot.

  11. #9
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    I cannot thank everyone enough for your kind replies and words of encouragement! These are all wonderful suggestions and I will look into the different dog foods and allergy tests mentioned. I am also going to shop around for a humidifier to see if that will help too. This list and all the wonderful people here are such a blessing!

  12. #10
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    I would definitely look at removing chicken. And be careful because they'll hide it lower in the ingredients and include chicken fat. I have to avoid chicken and grains with my Jack and we feed Evangers Meat Medley. You might want to take a look at it.

 



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