Allergy Diet

[KeeperBoy]

Keepers has been itching again. Not horribly, but more than normal. We have already eliminated chicken and turkey. I'm thinking of handling his itching one of two ways, I just can't decide which... Currently Keepers gets Orijin 6 Fish in the morning and either beef or lamb blend ground from a woman in our area with 10% bone and 10% organ (either heart and kidney or lung and kidney). For treats he gets grain free/chicken free cookies. He also has been getting a tiny bit (I'm doubting it's even beneficial because I always forget to give it to him) of a supplement mix with brewers yeast/kelp/letitchin/vitamin C from our holistic vet. The two options I've been thinking about...

1. Go all raw and eliminate the kibble. Drop all treats and the supplement mix and feed only the lamb blend and give dried lung as a treat. After a long period slowly add things back in.

2. Because his allergies aren't that bad yet, drop the supplement first (assuming it is the brewers yeast). If that doesn't help slowly eliminate other things one by one (treats, the weekend eggs, veggies, potatoes) and see if we can figure this out more casually.

Thoughts?

[Ruby Red]

I don't know all the history you have with this, but have you checked that it is a food allergy and not environmental, eg, grasses/pollens at certain times of year, floor cleaners etc?

Have you had him food allergy tested? If it is established as food, my thoughts would be to go with your first option but not with lamb - he is already having lamb in his diet so you can't be sure that it's not the lamb causing the problem. I would eliminate EVERYTHING familiar from the diet for a period of 2 -3 weeks and use a completley NEW type of meat - see what happens then, if he stays clear then slowly add familar things back - one at a time to test for any reaction. If you can't find a new type of meat, Hills {yuk} do a prescription diet 'a/zd' - its totally allergen free and may be worth suffering for a few weeks just to see if you can sort it out in the long term.

[whitedaisy]

I mostly agree with everything Ruby said. If you were to go to a dermatologist the food trial is acually 8-12 weeks and we used raw venison when we did it. Food allergens are the least reliable of the allergy testing, they will tell you that when you have the test done. And Daisy couldn't do the prescription foods cause she was allergic to it!! LOL

Allergies are difficult!! I wish there was an easy way but there isn't. I would think that Keepers probably has seasonal environemental allergies if you are just noticing them now. Fall will help you determine that too. But if you think it's food, cut out peanut butter and dairy (yogurt is okay) too.

[AussieGirl]

We only had one guy who had allergy reactions to kibble and when I started feeding him RAW (our first RAW experience, and I feel for the guy he was our test run and we made lots of mistakes and learnt lots) he had no further issues.
I would think that eliminating everything and then starting back slowly only adding one thing at a time would be the best way to go - I'm no expert on allergies, just kind of makes sense as it's what they would do with a human with allergies.
Wanted to check has he previously done well on the diet you are feeding - just a thought but if it has only just reoccured, especially since you were on your honeymoon it may be related to the stress of you being away - just a thought.

[Ruby Red]

Sorry, yes, Whitedaisy – you are absolutely right – I meant to say 3 to 4 months not weeks! Half asleep when I wrote it! Your dog got allergies too? Jakey as well – allergy testing was quite useful for us – it showed up very high positive ratings on most meats, some veg, dust mite and grasses. We went through elimination diet with Hills then de-sensitisation injections [we had to inject Jake with very diluted amounts of the all the external things he was allergic too, the idea being to provoke the immune system into tolerating these things].

We then saw a homeopathic vet for a year and then, in complete desperation, a couple of so-called ‘animal communicators’ [that’s a whole other story and was largely a waste of money, no surprises there!]. At the moment Jakey eats raw fish a couple of days a week, he has 2 days on a completely vegetarian diet [I use various pulses, rice or quinoa and cottage cheese], raw meat/offal a couple of times a week and kibble here and there when it suits.

As well as this, I smother his tummy in baby oil before he goes on the grass [trying to provide some sort of barrier between him and whatever is in the grass that annoys him] and bath him as soon as we get back in – it’s a so sad as he is so healthy otherwise and never goes to the vet for anything else. At the moment we are keeping the problems [itchy skin and itchy waxy ears] at a tolerable level for him [the ears we use a 50-50 water and apple cider vinegar mix every 2-3 days]. If our vet had his way he would have had him on nasty atopica months ago, dreading having to make that decision for him, but really have nowhere else to go with it! Don’t know whether any of this helps you or not KeeperBoy, sorry to sound so negative, I’m sure others must have more luck!

[whitedaisy]

Daisy is allergic to all grasses, several trees, potatoes (in most allergy free diets) barley, peanut butter, and down
Daisy wears a t-shirt most days to help keep the allergies off. She was getting baths twice a week until that was making her more itchy so we're kind of doing once a week or twice if we really need to.
We did do allergy injections but they didn't seem to help. I later learned that she was probably allergic to my down comforter, so possibly that is why the injections weren't helping. The Vet wants to try them again but I'm thinking about having the skin tests done first (she had the blood test done and she was on both steroids AND antihistamines when they did it-supposedly okay to do it then)
Last year she ended up with demodex from chronic steroid use. This year we have not used it once (and hopefully never ever again). She is doing fair. She has bad days, today is one of them, but we're mananging.

I have had Daisy on http://www.nzymes.com/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=12 She's been on it for months. I suspect it's helpful because she hasn't been on steroids since last year and she only takes a prescription antihistamine twice a day.

We went to MANY vets including a crazy holistic one and and a 3.5 hr trip to the Vet dermatologist. Finally a new local Vet said lets scrape her!

This is what she looked like last fall. She had demodex but it was undiagnosed when these pics were taken.

[KeeperBoy]

Can Daisy have almond butter? Nuts and peanuts are different allergy triggers for humans, I wonder if it's the same for dogs. Keepers started itching after being at my parents, so I'm thinking two likely culprits... the cats or the massive amount of peanut butter I'm sure he got for being a good boy.

[whitedaisy]

I don't know what almond butter is? like peanut butter with almonds? I should check into that.

If Keepers improves after being back home then you will know it's something at moms house. I hope he doesn't develope allergy issues!

[Ruby Red]

Oh my goodness that looks so bad, poor baby. Jakey has been fair to good lately [it’s not too bad this time of year – autumn and winter is the worst time – wet weather and fungi are major contributing factors in all this, I’m sure of it]. Jakey has a rash of the little black spots [chronic dermatitis the vet calls it] all over his tummy for the past 3 years now, and its these that flare up and the whole area goes bright red, he then bites at it all and we end up with open weeping skin. This, and we get these spots appearing that seem to get bigger and bigger and then scab over, and if we’re not careful, Jakey will bite them to bleeding as well. We try as best we can to stop him from scratching and biting, though I always feel so bad because it must be awful to feel so itchy and not be able to do anything about it.

When it is all open and sore we use salt water[very dilute - it sounds yikes! I know - but anything is better than the nasty steriods!] and calendula cream – a proper one that my mum gets from a herbalist who makes it herself – not the cheap non-branded [inferior in my opinion] stuff available in some chemist shops. Sometimes it will heal up with this combination - if we can stop him having a go at it.

When it’s really bad we have no choice but to use the following from the vet:
Malaseb – its an anti-fungical/bacterial shampoo – we bathe him 2 or 3 times a week with it – seems to calm the area down abit.

Hate using these:
Fuciderm – steroid cream combined with Prednisolone [oral steroids]. We tried antihistamines –Prition, made no difference whatsoever.

What was the blood test for? Have you been for scrapes yet? Our vet did suggest skin scrapes but for once he was actually quite honest and said that he doubted it would make any difference to the overall treatment of the problem and because it would involve an anesthetic we decided that, combined with his age – 8 years now, that there wasn’t that much to be gained from putting him through it as we would still be looking down the barrel of a gun at this horrible atopica? Has atopica been suggested to you? I have read up on it and don’t like what I have found at all. Thanks for suggesting the link, I’ll definitely have to look into that – try anything to keep him off atopica!

[daisy'smom]

Originally Posted by whitedaisy

I don't know what almond butter is? like peanut butter with almonds? I should check into that.

You can get almond butter at health food stores or a grocery story like Whole Foods. It looks just like peanut butter. It is "gritter" than peanut butter but very good.