Our dog has a skin problem – Not sure what to try next – Any Ideas please .

[faraday]

https://www.rvc.ac.uk/small-animal-referrals/dermatology

 

https://www.villagevet.co.uk/expertise/dermatology/

 

 

[zlodnick]

To Tom, the OP,

 

 I've had some dogs with skin problems and it's terrible to watch them suffer. I did always find a cure in the end, but that was after hours and hours of research, long trips to the vets, and many sleepless nights.

 One dog had a skin problem on his tail. Took him to the local vet and the Khon Kaen university animal hospital, but they had no idea.

 We live in KhonKaen and they used to have a Thonglor Pet Hospital.  I stopped there and explained my dogs problem. They told me their skin specialist flies up from Bangkok once a month. I made an appointment and took my dog there to see the specialist. He knew instantly what the dog had. The price was 4,000bt for the visit and meds. I thought that was expensive, but didn't care. My dog was going to be ok.

The Tonglor International pet hospital is in Bangkok and they are in Pattaya too, (I see from your profile you're from Pattaya).

Just a suggestion, you may want to take your dog there. I would tell them you want to take your dog when the skin specialist is there.

 

Your little guy is lucky he has a family who loves him.

Good Luck,  Z

[faraday]

http://www.thonglorpet.com/en/home

[tomgreen]

1 hour ago, faraday said:

https://www.rvc.ac.uk/small-animal-referrals/dermatology

 

https://www.villagevet.co.uk/expertise/dermatology/

 

 

Many thanks , I'm going to contact both and see if they can help in any way .

 

 

Tom 

[tomgreen]

1 hour ago, zlodnick said:

To Tom, the OP,

 

 I've had some dogs with skin problems and it's terrible to watch them suffer. I did always find a cure in the end, but that was after hours and hours of research, long trips to the vets, and many sleepless nights.

 One dog had a skin problem on his tail. Took him to the local vet and the Khon Kaen university animal hospital, but they had no idea.

 We live in KhonKaen and they used to have a Thonglor Pet Hospital.  I stopped there and explained my dogs problem. They told me their skin specialist flies up from Bangkok once a month. I made an appointment and took my dog there to see the specialist. He knew instantly what the dog had. The price was 4,000bt for the visit and meds. I thought that was expensive, but didn't care. My dog was going to be ok.

The Tonglor International pet hospital is in Bangkok and they are in Pattaya too, (I see from your profile you're from Pattaya).

Just a suggestion, you may want to take your dog there. I would tell them you want to take your dog when the skin specialist is there.

 

Your little guy is lucky he has a family who loves him.

Good Luck,  Z

 

Thanks for you comments and concern they are much appreciated .

 

I actually live about 75km out side of Korat and have already been to 2 vets in Korat .

 

Currently Star has increased her scratching episodes and now some of the areas where she scratches are starting to bleed . Both the past 2 local vets said that if they could not determine the exact cause of Stars skin symptoms , they would then prescribed a drug called APOQUEL to help stop the scratching . I never obtained that drug as both vets commented on how expensive it would be for long term treatment and it was best to try and find out the exact cause of the skin disorder rather than just preventing the scratching. But that never happened . So Star was never prescribed APOQUEL. 

 

Now Star is scratching her self more I am going to try and find a drug ( not from a local Vet ) that would hopefully reduce her scratching episodes and that does not cost the Earth . ( see screen shot  ???? ) 

 

If any one can recommend such a freely available drug I would be most grateful 

 

 

 

 

Tom

 

 

 

[faraday]

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/9-safe-apoquel-alternatives/

[Dumbastheycome]

On 8/13/2019 at 10:26 AM, thesetat2013 said:

That looks like mange.. problem is hard to tell with photos. You may also try muzzling the dog and clipping nails so it doesn't aggravate the problem or make it more widespread. If it is mange. A simple and effective home remedy is to spread used motor oil on the skin (no lie here). Apparently it has some effect to heal mange and prevents dog from biting at it. Worked on my dogs mange years ago. 

I seriously doubt that all of a sudden your dog contracted an allergy. Stupid Thai doctors all of them. 

Perhaps genetic.

Anyway good luck. It seems you love and care for your dog more than any Thai would do. Hope you find your answer

If it is mange then first approach would be  to try ivermectin tabs but a check on safety need be made relative to breed ! The used engine oil trick has been known to kill  mange  mites  but it also  can cause  horrible side effects on an animals skin due to the concentration of contaminants that are quite poisonous..maybe what kills the mange.

 

[amykat]

You might want to try having your dog fully dewormed.  I have been reading lately about various worms that can cause skin problems ...hookworms for example, and others.

 

Also you can use ivermectin orally from a vet, once a month instead of all those expensive products to kill parasites.  It will also act as a dewormer I think for some worms but not every?  I did that for all my dogs, 8 of them, and never had any problems.  It is a very safe drug and very cheap.  Vets don’t always suggest it to farangs.  You use it at higher dosage than for just preventing heartworm ...this is the drug that prevents heartworm in case you don’t know that is in Heartguard.  Then you don’t need to buy that.

 

Since I left Thailand and stopped that my dogs got some minor skin problems and itchy things also they never once had.  Oh, you can’t treat Collie type breeds, Please look up your particular dog breed before you do it, some dogs can’t take ivermectin ...notice to anyone reading this.  Not you OP.

[Shouldhaveknownbetter]

I had 3 retrievers who suffered from Mange.  Real bad I may add.  Took one to a USA trained vet in Chiang Mai who administered  ivermectin injections once a week for eight weeks and it cured the dog of mange.  For the other 2 retrievers I bought liquid injectable Ivermectin and administered  it orally for two months.  This cured the dogs.

[tomgreen]

5 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

If it is mange then first approach would be  to try ivermectin tabs but a check on safety need be made relative to breed ! The used engine oil trick has been known to kill  mange  mites  but it also  can cause  horrible side effects on an animals skin due to the concentration of contaminants that are quite poisonous..maybe what kills the mange.

 

Thanks , any idea where I could by the ivermectin tabs from ?

 

 

Tom 

 

 

 

[tomgreen]

5 hours ago, amykat said:

You might want to try having your dog fully dewormed.  I have been reading lately about various worms that can cause skin problems ...hookworms for example, and others.

 

Also you can use ivermectin orally from a vet, once a month instead of all those expensive products to kill parasites.  It will also act as a dewormer I think for some worms but not every?  I did that for all my dogs, 8 of them, and never had any problems.  It is a very safe drug and very cheap.  Vets don’t always suggest it to farangs.  You use it at higher dosage than for just preventing heartworm ...this is the drug that prevents heartworm in case you don’t know that is in Heartguard.  Then you don’t need to buy that.

 

Since I left Thailand and stopped that my dogs got some minor skin problems and itchy things also they never once had.  Oh, you can’t treat Collie type breeds, Please look up your particular dog breed before you do it, some dogs can’t take ivermectin ...notice to anyone reading this.  Not you OP.

Thanks , the dewormed thing was never brought up in my conversations with all the 3 vets , so its some thing I must look into right away .

 

 

Tom 

[tomgreen]

5 hours ago, Shouldhaveknownbetter said:

I had 3 retrievers who suffered from Mange.  Real bad I may add.  Took one to a USA trained vet in Chiang Mai who administered  ivermectin injections once a week for eight weeks and it cured the dog of mange.  For the other 2 retrievers I bought liquid injectable Ivermectin and administered  it orally for two months.  This cured the dogs.

Does that mean I could by the injectable Ivermectin liquid in the small bottles and just give it to Star with her food ?

 

 

 

Tom 

 

 

[amykat]

Well I can’t read that package.  Usually ivermectin is sold for farm animals like pigs or cattle at a hugely too large dose for dogs.  It needs to be mixed up correctly and put in an appropriate base liquid.  Sometimes some pet stores sell pills from China but I don’t know the quality and you can’t control the dose as well ....if the dose is even correct on the pills.  Just to be safe, I would go to a Thai vet, they all have this product made by Bayer, Baymec, it is called there, that is pig and cattle version.  That is what Thais use not all those expensive products.  Then they give you a small 1cc syringe, and you put it directly in dogs mouth.  Dose based on weight, they will tell you correct dose for controlling ticks and worms and all those things.  I would buy a large bottle that lasted for months, for 8 dogs, for maybe 300 baht or so.  And that is mostly profit for them.  Don’t try it yourself, you can easily get a decimal point wrong and overdose your dog, although they can tolerate a large amount safely ...but not 1000 times.  

[amykat]

By the way, I mentioned at the start that low thyroid can cause skin problems and then James26 wrote you who seems to be a vet and he wrote the same thing that it is a number one cause along with Cushing’s disease, and made some suggestions ....did any vets do bloodwork looking for things like that??  You should read his post again and maybe start looking inside too??  The ivermectin you can do anyway as your parasite preventative and worming is good to do from time to time.  I noticed now, your dog is 8 and this just started this year, so that might indicate it is age related like how thyroid disorders tend to start?  Or other things he talked about ...

 

It might just be a symptom of a larger illness and everybody is missing it.  Low thyroid is fairly common and easy to solve for example.

[faraday]

https://m.petmd.com/blogs/fullyvetted/2013/jan/toxic-ivermectin-and-safe-use-of-ivermectin-29671

 

"I think you need to be very careful with the Ivermectin dose.

 

I’m going to focus on dogs from here on out since they were involved in 282 of the 318 potentially toxic ivermectin exposures reported to the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center during 2008–2009. Typical doses for ivermectin in dogs are:

• 6 ug/kg for heartworm prevention
  
• 300 ug/kg for treatment of sarcoptic mange
  
• 400-600 ug/kg for treatment of demodectic mange"

[Dumbastheycome]

9 hours ago, tomgreen said:

Thanks , any idea where I could by the ivermectin tabs from ?

 

 

Tom 

 

 

 

I  have purchased it quite readily  from a local rural livestock/ pet supplies shop.  Not expensive. I think any  vet clinic would have but maybe marked well up !

Have a look at this site for  some good general info that might be useful.

 

https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951492

 

[tomgreen]

Thanks guy’s for you helpful advice and comments , although my own personal take on the vets we have taken Star to so far is shall we say less that positive , it seems that the route I should now go is to again cross my fingers and head to another vet ( the University veterinarian dermatologist doctor who we took Star to is out of Thailand for over a month ) . 

 

So I’m going to try and find yet another vet thats not 600km away like the last one. At least this time I can go to another vet armed with the the University veterinarian dermatologist doctor biopsy and blood report ( see screen shots ) .

 

Thanks amukat , I had some how missed James26 post and I will be now contacting him to apologies for not acknowledging his post .

 

Just looking at Star laying next to my computer desk with her skin condition and soulful eyes makes me feel sad????

Tom 

[Shouldhaveknownbetter]

18 hours ago, tomgreen said:

Does that mean I could by the injectable Ivermectin liquid in the small bottles and just give it to Star with her food ?

 

 

 

Tom 

 

 

I used a syringe and squirted 1.2 ml in the mouth one time a day.  Mange went away and they are still healthy two years later. And yes it was mange and nothing else worked.  If you prefer have a vet inject once a week for 8 weeks

[Shouldhaveknownbetter]

9 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

I  have purchased it quite readily  from a local rural livestock/ pet supplies shop.  Not expensive. I think any  vet clinic would have but maybe marked well up !

Have a look at this site for  some good general info that might be useful.

 

https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951492

 

Sorry but the tabs will not cure full blown mange.  They can be used for maintenance later.  The brand name we have in CM is EN Dex 400 or 800.

[faraday]

Tom, have you tried putting some Calamine lotion on her skin?

It costs about 80baht from the Pharmacy.

[Shouldhaveknownbetter]

Mr. Green you may try to get a phone consultation with these folks. Dr. Piyapong (Mohr Aaa)

Ban Mha Ka Maew Animal Hospital
255/10-12 Mahidol RoadT. Padad A Muang Chiang Mai
053-205155, 053-204215                                                                They cured my dog with once weekly shoots.  She had demodectic mange and she looked very very bad.   I went around in circles for months, went to various vets including the university clinic and spent a lot of money before I found this clinic on the advice of the manager of a large boarding kennel.

[Dumbastheycome]

16 hours ago, Shouldhaveknownbetter said:

Sorry but the tabs will not cure full blown mange.  They can be used for maintenance later.  The brand name we have in CM is EN Dex 400 or 800.

Ok. Good  info. I have heard there is growing resistance to ivermectin by some organisms.

[tomgreen]

19 hours ago, faraday said:

Tom, have you tried putting some Calamine lotion on her skin?

It costs about 80baht from the Pharmacy.

Thanks as soon as I read your post the wife went straight down to the local pharmacy and bought some .
 

 

 

 

 

[tomgreen]

18 hours ago, Shouldhaveknownbetter said:

Mr. Green you may try to get a phone consultation with these folks. Dr. Piyapong (Mohr Aaa)

Ban Mha Ka Maew Animal Hospital
255/10-12 Mahidol RoadT. Padad A Muang Chiang Mai
053-205155, 053-204215                                                                They cured my dog with once weekly shoots.  She had demodectic mange and she looked very very bad.   I went around in circles for months, went to various vets including the university clinic and spent a lot of money before I found this clinic on the advice of the manager of a large boarding kennel.

Many thanks , my Thai wife is going to give them a call 

[faraday]

Did the Calamine help at all?

[Dumbastheycome]

19 hours ago, Shouldhaveknownbetter said:

Mr. Green you may try to get a phone consultation with these folks. Dr. Piyapong (Mohr Aaa)

Ban Mha Ka Maew Animal Hospital
255/10-12 Mahidol RoadT. Padad A Muang Chiang Mai
053-205155, 053-204215                                                                They cured my dog with once weekly shoots.  She had demodectic mange and she looked very very bad.   I went around in circles for months, went to various vets including the university clinic and spent a lot of money before I found this clinic on the advice of the manager of a large boarding kennel.

As a matter of interest did your  dog need any level of sedation  before the ivermectin injection?

I ask because I was once administered an ivermection injection (voluntarily) and it was THE  most painful injection I have  ever been subjected to !

I know it  can  be  painful to swine  but have never yet seen any comment  about  dogs.

[Shouldhaveknownbetter]

2 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

As a matter of interest did your  dog need any level of sedation  before the ivermectin injection?

I ask because I was once administered an ivermection injection (voluntarily) and it was THE  most painful injection I have  ever been subjected to !

I know it  can  be  painful to swine  but have never yet seen any comment  about  dogs.

No sedation necessary, but she is a golden retriever who has a different pain threshold than say my teacup poodle who screams like your killing it over her yearly vacs.

[Dumbastheycome]

2 hours ago, Shouldhaveknownbetter said:

No sedation necessary, but she is a golden retriever who has a different pain threshold than say my teacup poodle who screams like your killing it over her yearly vacs.

Ok. Good and interesting to know. Thanks.

[tomgreen]

On 10/9/2019 at 2:09 PM, faraday said:

Did the Calamine help at all?

Hi , I only put some on a small part of her skin just as a test area, and yes it seemed to make here skin look less red and inflamed . I’m going to put some more on other areas now and see how it goes.

 

Well after doing some online searching I found yet another local vet who seemed to have a good reputation and generally liked . So today we took Star to this 3rd new local vet in the hope that some thing good would come out of the visit. 

 

I took with me a full list of all the drugs / lotions / shampoos that other vets had all ready prescribed in the past . On meeting this new vet I had in my mind to first go over Stars past history and present the new vet with all the past written skin biopsy and blood test results, then wait and see what the new vet would recommend as a course of action. 

 

So there we were standing in front of the 3rd new local vet , again as in the past the vet was female and I would guess in her early twenties. I had already agreed to let my wife do the talking ????, normally in the past from the outset I would do the talking and my wife would some time translate if necessary. 

 

The vet examined Star and with out my prompting said that a skin biopsy needed to be performed , so out came the sharp blade and several areas of Star’s skin were scraped . The vet asked us to wait as she took the skin sample away so she could test it.

 

20 minuets later the vet returned with the skin scrape biopsy results and told us that there were no parasites evident and no indication of mange . But in her opinion the skin biopsy showed a possible chronic yeast infection ( malassezia species of yeast ).

 

 The vet then said that as Star had now been prescribed ‘’Prednisolone ‘’ and in some dogs the use of that drug could lead to a liver enzyme activities problem. So to make sure that Stars liver does not currently have any problems , a blood test should be carried out there and then, which it was and the in house blood test results came back as all being OK.

The vet prescribed the following drugs -

 

1.  Prednisolone ( a steroid to treat inflammation and suppress the immune system – to help Star stop scratching ) 

2. Itraconazole ( treat fungal infections of the skin )

3. Enrofloxacin ( an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections ) 

4. Coatex ( a nutrient containing Omega 3 and Omega 6 )

 

Just thinking back to Stars past vet visits the words ‘’ yeast infection ‘’ was mentioned by the university veterinarian dermatologist doctor and that they had found traces of yeast in the skin biopsy , but said that it was not that serious and no drugs were prescribed to combat a yeast infection. 

 

So now we are going to follow the new vets advice and give Star the two week course of drugs and continue showering her with the recommended pet shampoo ( Dermcare Malaseb shampoo ) and at the same time carry on feeding Star her non chicken / pork diet .

 

One thing that I noticed after giving Star her first does of Prednisolone was within an hour of taking the drug she had stopped scratching her self , before just watching her scratch her skin until it bled was very distressing .????

 

Now its a wait and see , but going on past visits to a vet I’m still not that confident about the eventual outcome ????

Tom 

 

 

 

 

 

[faraday]

Well Tom, it all sounds positive, & this get may be on the right track. I hope so.

 

I see Star has been prescribed some Enrofloxcin for a possible skin infection....

 

Over 5 years ago, I had a rash & a lot of itching down there, went to the doctor many times, given lots of antifungal creams, had a biopsy, and nothing cured it.

 

Tried Fucidin antibacterial cream, & my symptoms cleared up in a week.

 

 

Whatever happens Tom, you will find an answer, I'm sure.

 

Fingers crossed. ????