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Skin issues

Ben Curtis

Well-Known Member
I've attached some pictures, and I'm hoping someone out there might have had some luck dealing with an issue like this that can help.

Enzo not long after we got him started getting bumps on his chin. Our breeder suggested they were puppy acne. They continued to get worse, and our vet said it was defiantly not acne. He went on steroids and antibiotics, and it cleared up very fast, but not completely.

As the bumps started coming back we changed to ceramic bowls and eliminated any of his toys that were plastic that could be contacting his chin.

The bumps slowly kept coming back.

We tried changing foods to ones with out chicken, fish based, and so on, but nothing seemed to help or make it worse.

It got bad enough that we put him back on antibiotics but tried it this time with out steroids. Once again his face cleared up with no other change, just slower than it did on steroids. Our vet and us both agreed that if he had a food allergy the antibiotics would not have cleared it up. We stayed on a double course of the antibiotics, but about 1/2 way through the second course, it stopped getting better, and once we stopped it started coming back again.

His paws have always been a bit swollen in between the fingers, but they are inflamed now. Not sure if this is all related.

It feels like our vet is throwing darts at what this could be. We had her contact a pet dermatologist, and now we are set to try a mite medication (because these could cause some of the symptoms, and it's easily treated just in case), antibiotics again, and they would like to go to a food elimination process. The vet will do a skin scraping before we take him of the antibiotics.

My problem with all of this is if he gets better, then we have no idea why, because we are treating with 3 different types of medications.

Our plan is to hold off on the food, because I still feel like it should be eliminated, and I think our vet has just forgotten the conversation. Am I loosing my mind here?

I'd like to add that besides how it looks, Enzo is not effected by all of this, and is himself.

My guess is that his skin is irritated by putting his face in the food to eat. We now have a much wider bowl where the food is more spread out in hopes of helping. I can't think of any way to eat with out his face in it, besides feeding him one morsel at a time. I welcome any ideas.

We've also tried cleaning his face after eating and drinking, apple cider vinegar to clean, tripple anitibotic, Epson salt baths for his paws, and more i'm sure I have forgotten.

Any ideas, recommendations, anything would be appreciated at this point.

Thanks,
Ben
 

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glen

Super Moderator
Staff member
Budcuss gets those, its winter here and we know it will start on his chin and feet, I use a chemical free dog shampoo really diluted in a spray bottle and clean under his chin and feet, problem went away.
I will post the product I use when I get home.
As your food got grain in bud flares up if any grain or wheat is in the food.
 

DennasMom

Well-Known Member
One nutritionist I follow (Lew Olsen) would say: "YEAST"... she's a big fan of labeling yeast as the root of all evil...

Carbs feed yeast... any and all dry kibble will have lots of carbs to feed the yeast. Have you considered going to a raw or home-cooked diet?

It might be worth trying a week or two of a home-cooked diet to see if that helps get things moving in the right direction.

Here's a recipe for a balanced meal (From Lew's book) that you could use for a week or two... mix and match the type of meat and veggies you use to make this a balanced meal plan, long-term. Multiply the amounts as needed.

6oz meat of your choice
1 egg or 2oz plain yogurt
4oz steamed low-glycemic veggies (broccoli, squash, cauliflower, greens, cabbage)
900mg calcium carbonate or ¼ teaspoon ground eggshell

Cook everything up, mix together and feed it!

I'd also add a HUGE amount of fish oil for some omega 3's... like 4x a human dose daily for a few weeks, to see how that improves things. Plus 400-800mg of Vitamin E and a good amount (1000-2000mg) of Vitamin C...both help with immune system function, which can help alleviate yeast and skin issues.

And... due to the use of all the antibiotics, I'd get a good probiotic to add, too... like Dogzymes, or B-Naturals.

Lew's book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q1HZM6I/
 

DennasMom

Well-Known Member
Oh... another thing... I get chin acne from fluoride in our tap water... once I started using a filter that also removed fluoride, my chin (and back) acne all WENT AWAY! This was after YEARS of working with the doctor and dermatologist... including trying low-level antibiotics to treat it...

If you have fluoridated water... might be worth investing in a good filter. I have a tabletop Berkey Filter with added fluoride filters... it's about the cheapest method out there to get the fluoride out. All us in the house, dog and cat included, only drink the filtered de-fluoridated water.
 

Nik

Well-Known Member
Diesel gets skin irritations seasonally. We discovered it is dependent on what the grass is doing. So it is particularly bad in spring and in summer when the grass starts dying and there is less of it he is doing much better. He gets the swollen red between the paws and bumps under the skin. It sucks because for a dog being allergic to grass means we are constantly dealing with these issues during most of the seasons. I try not to let him roll in the grass. When we can keep him from rolling in the grass it is better... but he is a dog! He loves to run and play and roll in the grass.
 

Boxergirl

Well-Known Member
The chin does look like pyoderma, so I can see why your vet went there. Ella had it awful until she was around three years old. We did exactly what you've done and changed to different bowls, used ACV, took away all toys except her nylabone toys. Raw bones caused a break out for her. Her skin was always worse when she was going into heat. After I had her spayed and her hormones leveled out, the acne went away. The skin issues on her inner thighs was taken care of with a food change.

Just a few thoughts ... That doesn't look like a mite issue to me, but it's not bad to rule it out. I feel like there are a lot of things going on all at once. When my two insulin dependent kids were little the endos would try to make several changes at the same time. I was never comfortable with that. I prefer to do one thing at a time and seeing what happens before trying something else. Otherwise how do you know which thing was the problem or solution? My mantra to my kids was, "Once is a fluke, two is a coincidence, and three is a pattern." It served us well and I believe it serves for many things. I'm also quite sure I didn't make that one up, so credit goes to whomever originally said it. Lol

FWIW, there are studies that show that grain isn't usually the culprit in many allergies. It's often the protein source. With the issues surrounding grain free foods, if you have a grain inclusive that you're pleased with, I might suggest trying a protein change. Of course there are grain allergies, but it seems that more often it's a protein sensitivity. Just a thought and a link to some info.

https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2017/01/food-allergies/

Also, like Nik, I had a boy with severe grass allergies and he had a benadryl twice daily and I washed his feet when he came in from the yard. It helped. My daughter has two boys with severe food and environmental allergies. They're doing spectacularly on ProPlan Savor Salmon. It's a grain inclusive food. She uses a special shampoo, chlorhexidine I think, on them. One boy takes Apoquel in spring and fall. Just more rambling thoughts...
 
How is Enzo‘s skin doing? I was going to post a similar question but thought I had seen something similar posted in earlier threads. I just noticed a bump while snuggling my guy this morning. With the heat he can get a little yeasty under his arms as well. I have been concerned and thinking of going in the direction of raw to hopefully eliminate future allergies. The book DeannasMom suggested sounds great, I will order it. I would love to hear how your boy is doing and if you were able to figure out what was causing it? I have seen his pictures in other threads, he is beautiful.
 

Ben Curtis

Well-Known Member
How is Enzo‘s skin doing? I was going to post a similar question but thought I had seen something similar posted in earlier threads. I just noticed a bump while snuggling my guy this morning. With the heat he can get a little yeasty under his arms as well. I have been concerned and thinking of going in the direction of raw to hopefully eliminate future allergies. The book DeannasMom suggested sounds great, I will order it. I would love to hear how your boy is doing and if you were able to figure out what was causing it? I have seen his pictures in other threads, he is beautiful.
I'ts never completely healed, but we've stopped it from getting worse. Apple Cider on his face regularly and on his paws, along with witch hazel. We tried every kind of diet, elimination, and none of that seemed to make any difference at all.
 

Michelle Monroe

New Member
I'ts never completely healed, but we've stopped it from getting worse. Apple Cider on his face regularly and on his paws, along with witch hazel. We tried every kind of diet, elimination, and none of that seemed to make any difference at all.
Hello sorry about your poor boy. My girl Sirius was fine when she first came home but soon after she started developing bumps and sores on her chin, arm pits and back haunches. She seemed to be licking her paws all the time and would drag her belly across the yard. She started developing sores between her toes. I tried bathing her every time she had been outside for more than a few minutes ,changed her food and benadryl tablets. These would help for short term but the benadryl made her so sleepy. At her last vet's appointment he agreed that she had a severe case of seasonal allergies and that there was a medicine he could give her that would last about a month or that there was a shot of a steroid medication that was more expensive but would hopefully last 1 to 3 months. Long story short I choose the shot and wow saw improvement in 24 hours no more licking or scratching. Fast forward 3 weeks and her skin is all healed up bumps are gone all the hair loss has grown back. I don't know if this is something that you have tried or if it would work for you but your pictures and description sounded familiar. I also plan on adding some local raw honey to her diet once she is a year old to see if she can build up her immunity to our local allergies.