Allergies?

[Jen and Annie]

I've been MIA for awhile, but something has come up and I am looking for suggestions.  We have been living in an area where we walk on a gravel pathway, or dirt pathways on our daily walks with little exposure to grass, mostly just brushy forest...  About a week ago, we moved to an area where we now walk on sidewalks and lots of grass.  Within 2 days of getting here, Annie has gotten so itchy you would think she is covered in fleas.  I gave her a bath and didn't find one bug on her, but she is itching her legs, her shoulders, belly, chest and butt like crazy, and also randomly grinding her face into the ground to scratch it. I'm wondering if it's possible that she is allergic to grass, since that is really the only 'new' thing she has been exposed to recently, (at about 1.5 - 2 hours of walks per day) and there are no fleas...  She has not had a change in diet, nothing new except our atmosphere...

Anyone had an allergy test done, and how much do those run?  Since we are not established in our new city yet, I don't know of ANY vets (much less reputable ones) in the area just yet... 

Does this sound like allergies, to anyone familiar with them?  Anything I can do for her until we find a vet?  Any and all feedback and experiences are welcome!  I just feel terrible for her.  It seems the only time she's not itching over the past several days, is when she's asleep or eating.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I suppose it could be a grass allergy but I am guessing here. At any rate you could try Claritin or Zyrtec and see if it helps before you can get to a vet.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Look for a vet dermatologist so that if you do allergy testing,  the tests are thorough.  Blood tests for allergies don't work.  Can you wipe her down after exposure to grass?

[Jen and Annie]

I can if that will help!  It's breaking my heart to see her so itchy, I may try benadryl.  We are actually going BACK to the gravel/dirt place for a week to clean and pack the rest of our things for the final move... that might be a good indication, since we'll be away from the grass for a week...  

It's been raining the past few days here so we've been walking through wet grass.  Would I just wipe her down with a dry towel, a wet towel, baby wipes?  I will do whatever I can, the poor baby.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

That will be a great test.   Claritin or Zyrtec are better choices for allergy meds.  The dosage is much different than for a human so, if you try either, be sure to figure that part out.  My 50 pound dog takes two Zyrtec or Claritin twice a day.

[Jen and Annie]

Oh right, Claritin / Zyrtec - that's what F said too. I'm so old fashioned, if it's an antihistamine, it's always BENADRYL! 

I will call Annie's old vet back home to see what the Claritin or Zyrtec dosage should be for my big girl, she's about 75 lbs at last check.   

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Yes, it sounds like inhalant allergies, and it could be an allergy to any kind of pollen that is in the air in your area right now. Allergies are to specific plants, not just "grasses", "trees", etc. JD is allergic to maple trees, but no other type of tree. Fescue but not bluegrass. So even though there were trees where you lived before, there very well could be another type of tree in your new area that didn't grow there. It can also be a mold allergy to a type of mold that is prevalent in your new area but not in your old area. Humidity usually makes the itching worse, JD was always worst in raining weather, and a lot of rain causes lots of molds to grow.

And the allergy symptoms are caused by breathing the allegens from the air, not from direct contact, i.e. walking on the grass. 

Nancy is correct, you need a veterinary dermatology specialist to run the allergy tests, blood or saliva tests are absolutely worthless and cost almost as much as skin testing anyway. Skin testing is done under sedation and runs $500-600 in most parts of the country. The purpose of skin testing is to determine what the dog is allergic to so that you can start immunotherapy (desensitization) shots, using a serum or antigen custom made for your dog's specific allergens. Doing the testing alone in hopes that you might be able to avoid the allegens once you know what they are is pointless, since most allergic dogs have multiple allergens, and most of them travel hundreds of miles in the air. The immunotherapy has been very successful for JD. 

Are you giving Annie fish oil supplements? That helps, especially in conjunction with Claritin or Zyrtec. Evening Primrose oil capsules help, too. 

This might be a silly question, but have you checked her for fleas? 

[Jen and Annie]

I have checked her for fleas, I didnt find any fleas or any flea dirt...  I have her on Advantix II already because in our 'wooded forest land' there are ticks the size of walnuts and they love her flowing hair.  I didn't want any part of that business, so she's been on Advantix II for a few months now.   

We have to get Annie spayed within the next two months or so, since she's a woman now - and her 'inverted vulva' has now corrected itself (YAY!)... would they be able to do an allergy test as a '2 birds with one stone' since she'll already be under sedation, or do regular vets not do that kind of allergy testing?

Annie usually gets 3 fish oil pills per day and has since she was about 5 months old. She has gone about a week without any fish oil, BUT she did get 3 caps earlier tonight, because I found a bottle when I was unpacking... I may pick up evening primrose as well to add to the mix.

Guess I better start an 'allergy test' fund... 600 bucks, man alive.  

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

General practice vets aren't equipped to do the allergy testing or to formulate the antigens. It has to be done by a dermatology specialist. :-(

Jen, if there's nothing in Annie's records yet about this, you really should think hard about getting insurance for her. Then the testing would be covered, and everything else down the line as well. 

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Murph has environmental allergies and so far we've been able to control them with Claritin (I actually use the pharmacy brand).  If he's real bad he gets one in the morning and one in the evening....otherwise just one 10 mg a day.  Also be sure to watch for the beginning of "hot spots" which comes from the excessive licking in one particular area.  For my Murph it's the base of his tail and his feet...I use a cortisone spray for that.

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

Luna has seasonal allergies to ragweed (her allergies and mine started up at exactly the same time when the ragweed started blooming last year, so we didn't bother testing!)

We tried several over-the-counter remedies (reactine, claritin, EPO - evening primrose oil) and finally discovered the only thing that works for her is a combination of EPO and Benadryl.  She gets 10 mg 2x a day from early August to Oct (whenever the first frost is).  If  she doesn't get it she won't leave her ears/paws alone and is miserable :/  

Benadryl makes Luna pretty sleepy, so I'd try either Reactine or Claritin first.  

[Cheryl, Nissa & Maya]

My girls definitely have seasonal allergies to ragweed.  We are giving them two doses of Zytrec, oatmeal baths and various topical solutions but there is still a lot of itching.  Last year we had to resort to Prednisone and I will not take that route again.

How much EPO are you giving your doodle?  I've read a couple of times here that people are trying EPO and Fish Oil but there haven't really been any recommendations on what dosage has worked.  I found a combination Fish, Flax, Borage Oil combo from Spring Valley (which also contains EPO) and 2 pills = 800 mg fish oil, 800 mg flaxseed oil and an essential oil blend 400 mg (evening primrose oil, black currant seed oil and borage seed oil).  I'm also wondering how people get the EPO down?  On the first attempt the girls tried to chew the softgel capsule and the oil leaked all over.  After that I wrapped the softgel in a mini peanut butter sandwich/bite.

Karen & Jackdoodle if you have advice I'd also appreciate it.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Dogs can't utilize the type of Omega 3 found in flax seed, so that would not be a good choice. I would stick with plain old fish oil and 500 mg evening primrose oil capsules. For the EPO, you can give up to 1500 mg per day. Not sure about the dosage on the fish oil, but it would be pretty hard to get too much. At the higher doses, some dogs get diarrhea, that's about it. 

JD will eat the EPO softgels if i hide them in soft food; otherwise, he gets them as pills, down the back of his throat.

Prednisone has kept JD alive for the past two years. Prior to his IBD diagnosis, we were mostly able to get by without it for his allergy flares by using topical steroids and lotions prescribed by his dermatologist; but when a flare was sytemic, he got prednisone to relieve the misery. If you had a bad experience with it, the dosage may have been too high, or it may have been the wrong form for your dogs. But in cases of a severe allergic reaction, you must turn down the immune reaction, and prednisone is the only way to do that temporarily. 

I strongly suggest you consult a veterinary dermatologist to get your dogs started on a long-term treatment plan, so that hopefully you can avoid the flares in the future.