A series of medication prescriptions for Tucker’s allergies and changing skin condition
We’ve had dogs in our lives for a little over 16 years now, and it didn’t take long to learn that some of them will suffer from seasonal allergies just like humans. The early symptoms are just like we see for humans; they start to scratch, their skin can become raw and irritated, and their eyes will water and discharge lots of “goop”.
Other than your poor pooch feeling just as miserable as we do when suffering from allergies, the real issue is they start to lick their paws, or scratch their ears, or chew on their bellies in an attempt to get relief from the itching. This gets their skin all raw and inflamed which leads to secondary infections. If not checked, simple allergies can lead to serious health issues.
Sometimes you get lucky and administering an over the counter antihistamine, like a generic Benadryl, does the trick. (Please consult with your vet before doing this, and monitor your dog closely for adverse reactions. Typically, they’ll get a bit lethargic and need more water. For our 60-lb dogs, we only give a single 10 mg pill per day.)
You never want to give drugs like this to your dog for any extended period of time, and if you don’t notice and improvement within a few days to a week, it may be time to step up the program. For this, a visit to the vet will likely be required.
This past Spring, our boy, Tucker (who we call a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix), started to show symptoms of allergies. His eyes had a big ol’ blob of goop each morning, and we caught him incessantly scratching. When he was doing this, we’d try to distract him and get him to stop, so he quickly learned to go where we couldn’t see him to continue scratching. He’s a smart little bugger, but unfortunately was hurting himself with all the licking and scratching. Most notable was his typically soft pink skin started to turn rough and black. This prompted our trip to the vet.
The good news is the skin turning color is a fairly normal reaction to any irritant, and is not itself a big deal. It shouldn’t be rough (almost leather-like), but the color change is not a problem and quite common. That said, we still needed to treat the itching causing this change, and for that we were prescribed two medications.
Temaril-P
Temaril-P is a combination medication consisting of an antihistamine known as trimeprazine and a corticosteroid known as prednisone. It’s commonly prescribed for a variety of ailments besides itching, such as kennel cough, bronchitis, etc. For our 60-lb dog the prescribed dosage was fairly aggressive, starting with 2 tablets twice a day for 5 days, then 1 tablet twice a day for an additional 5 days. The total was 30 pills over 10 days.
Cephalexin
Cephalexin is an antibiotic which was prescribed to treat the secondary skin infection Tucker gave himself, from all the licking and scratching. The dosage was in 500 mg capsules we administered every 8 hours for three weeks. It required a small amount of food as well, so while some of the doses lined up with his feeding times twice a day, we additionally gave him extra feedings with each pill. He was pretty happy about that.
We saw positive results and his skin got smoother but remained black, and he was no longer itching. His eyes, or his right eye specifically, did continue to goop quite a bit. We notified our vet and a third medication was issued.
Ofloxacin
It’s assumed that his itching caused him to get bacteria into his eyes and this was causing the discharge. Ofloxacin is a liquid eye drop and required 1-2 drops twice a day for 10 days. It definitely helped, and now whenever he gets some goop in his eye we just use basic sterile eye drops and he is able to simply blink out whatever irritant has caused the trouble.
Unfortunately, it all didn’t quite end just yet. He was free and clear of all itching and symptoms of itching for a few weeks, but allergies have a way or persisting – especially with the wet spring we were having, so he once again began to itch and scratch – one more trip to the vet.
Loratidine
Loratidine is another antihistamine but without the steroid component like the Temaril-P. The pills were 10 mg and we gave him one tablet twice a day for 14 days.
By the time we finished this cycle whatever was in the air or ground causing the allergies must have subsided, and he’s been free and clear the rest of the Summer so far. His skin is mostly black now, but it’s smooth and clear and he doesn’t appear to suffer from any itching or other irritants. We do make sure to take extra care and rinse him off whenever we get back from his swimming in the stream and running through the fields at the local dog parks around the reservoirs, and that seems to do the trick.
So if you notice that your dog is starting to scratch, or their skin becomes red and irritated from licking and scratching you’re not witnessing, there is no need to panic – but it does need to be addressed before it leads to something worse.
- Give them a bath with a hypo-allergenic shampoo like an oatmeal or aloe-vera mix.
- Maybe try a generic benadryl for a few days (again, talk to your vet first) to see if that is sufficient.
- If they’ve already scratched themselves and exposed their skin to cuts and scratches, it’s probably time to step up the treatment and make sure they don’t develop secondary bacterial infections.
