westie with extreme atopic dermatitis

[lily]

advice .. has any dog owner have any experience of the new treatment atopica(cyclosporin), in treatment for autoimmune caused atopic dermatitis of the most severe form, in their dog and the effectiveness or not of this product as i and 4 vets, have exhausted most available treatments on this poor westie , lilybear,5.5 yrs old sick since 3 months, if any one can help with info it would be much appreciated as i live in australia and not many people have used this as it is new, and not many vets either and the only info is put out by the manufacturer, novartis, which may of course be biased, i have tried with vet and alternative treatments ,this is now the last resort, and would love to hear from others experiences.

[Unregistered]

Have you looked into this as a possible systemic yeast infection? I have been going through a similar situation with a border collie. I started him on Nzymes (nzymes.com) and it seems to be helping. Many vets do not recognize this as a disease and will actually do things that will make it worse such as giving them cortesone or antibiotics. A better diet of raw organic meat might help.

Good Luck.

[LogansMom]

My German Shepherd was diagnosed with severe atopic dermatitus also. We went thru all the allergy testing and he was on many different antibiotics and steriods for about 4 years. I did try the atopic in the generic form. We used it for about 6 months and did not notice any change. However I did come accross an article on staph infections in dogs and had my dog tested. it turned out possitive. He was put on erythamyesin(sp?) for 2 weeks and I am happy to say that is is itch free. He also has a very full coat of hair. Something he has lacked for a long time.If you would like I could post the article that was in our newsaper.Let me know.

[Liz]

Hi: I think it's erythromycin (sp?) you're talking about...an antibiotic...possibly? My American Eskimo (years ago) suffered a nasty bout of dermatitis...also a white dog with very fragile skin....scratched herself raw...open sores, lost much of her fur..was in such pain and just miserable....they tried cortisone which compounded the problem...she kept getting worse. Finally the realization that she had contact flea dermatitis (though she had no fleas....must have been bitten once in boarding and then the flea groomed away)...and the treatments made everything worse...putting her on antibiotics (I've now forgotten which ones)...and antiseptic sprays for her skin made all the difference...I'd even open Vitamin E capsules and apply that gently to her sores....Her skin healed, fur grew back and she no longer itched....lived until 14-l/2, without any further skin problems.

Liz

[bogyvet]

Atropic dermatitis is autoimmune dessease, and only treatment is cortisone.
Therapy: -cortisone or some corticosteroides depo every 30 days
- corticosteroides creme localy every day

unknown causer- simply organism do not dentifies cells as their own
so reactions is hair dropping.Cortisone destimulate organism.Treatment duration is unknown one week or one year.

But I must say something generaly dermatitis have different cousers, so therapy is different:
-bacterical
-micotics
-viral....
Ask pro for informations DO NOT DO ANYTHING BY YOURSELF !!!