In July, Bandit started to shake his head and scratch his ear, so I took him to the vet. He had two really bad ear infections. The vet gave him oral antibiotics, ear drops, and steroids because the ears looked so bad. The ears cleared up, but he seemed to start scratching even more. I thought he had scratched a couple of places raw, so we took him back to the vet in August. What I saw was actually hives. His ears looked good, but he was covered in hives. The vet said it was caused by allergies. He gave him a few more days of the oral antibiotic and more steroids, and a special shampoo to use twice a week. We continued with all the treatments, but really only saw minimal improvement. We took him back to the vet on Monday. Both ears are infected again and he still has hives. The vet gave him a steroid injection, we are continuing with the oral steroids, and back to the ear drop antibiotics.
The vet thinks it is an environmental allergy and once the weather changes to a more fall/winter time, the allergies will improve. He recommended that we see a specialist/dermatologist or allergist to figure out what is the problem. He said the testing will likely cost about $1,000 but that we will easily spend that much just treating the allergies and we will have a miserable dog - who I should mention cannot sleep through the night because of the itching so we are all suffering.
Excuse the long post, and thanks for reading if you have made it this far. I am just wondering if anyone else has an allergic dog or any ideas of how to help Bandit. We will probably do the testing, but we are trying to get him stabilized first.
Thanks!
The vet thinks it is an environmental allergy and once the weather changes to a more fall/winter time, the allergies will improve. He recommended that we see a specialist/dermatologist or allergist to figure out what is the problem. He said the testing will likely cost about $1,000 but that we will easily spend that much just treating the allergies and we will have a miserable dog - who I should mention cannot sleep through the night because of the itching so we are all suffering.
Excuse the long post, and thanks for reading if you have made it this far. I am just wondering if anyone else has an allergic dog or any ideas of how to help Bandit. We will probably do the testing, but we are trying to get him stabilized first.
Thanks!