Dermatology Diary Part 6: Meet Simba and Asia
The Derm Diary series of articles was authored by Lianne McLeod DVM, who was the About.com Guide to Exotic Pets for 11 years.
Dermatology Diary Table of contents
Dermatology Photo Gallery
Derm Diary "chapters"
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |
Weeks 29 through 31 -- Progress Reports
Week 29
Not much changed again in week 29 - we continued with 2 days on, one day off the prednisone and the Hill's d/d.
The dogs were pretty stable.
Week 30
I reduced the dogs to every other day prednisone, and left the dogs at home while I traveled out of town. They both got quite itchy in this time, and Simba started scratching a lot at his left ear in particular. My family began treating his left ear with Otomax in case there was an ear infection (no easy task, considering how much Simba hates having anything done to his ears).
Week 31
I returned from my trip early in this week, and put the dogs back up to 2 days on and 1 day off prednisone again. I also continued the Otomax in Simba's left ear even though there were no obvious signs of an ear infection present. He has created a bunch of sores and scabs behind this ear from scratching (but not the right ear), so it was clearly very itchy despite the lack of obvious infection. While their skin looked quite healthy overall, it was abundantly clear that reducing prednisone resulted in a return of symptoms. I felt bad because my life had become too hectic to regularly bathe the dogs or do much of anything with them (we even had to stop agility classes for a bit).
However, I had decided we should take another stab at progressing with our treatment as I was not happy with the amount of prednisone they needed. I booked a recheck appointment for the following week.
Dermatology Diary Table of contents
Dermatology Photo Gallery
Derm Diary "chapters"
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |
Weeks 29 through 31 -- Progress Reports
Week 29
Not much changed again in week 29 - we continued with 2 days on, one day off the prednisone and the Hill's d/d.
The dogs were pretty stable.
Week 30
I reduced the dogs to every other day prednisone, and left the dogs at home while I traveled out of town. They both got quite itchy in this time, and Simba started scratching a lot at his left ear in particular. My family began treating his left ear with Otomax in case there was an ear infection (no easy task, considering how much Simba hates having anything done to his ears).
Week 31
I returned from my trip early in this week, and put the dogs back up to 2 days on and 1 day off prednisone again. I also continued the Otomax in Simba's left ear even though there were no obvious signs of an ear infection present. He has created a bunch of sores and scabs behind this ear from scratching (but not the right ear), so it was clearly very itchy despite the lack of obvious infection. While their skin looked quite healthy overall, it was abundantly clear that reducing prednisone resulted in a return of symptoms. I felt bad because my life had become too hectic to regularly bathe the dogs or do much of anything with them (we even had to stop agility classes for a bit).
However, I had decided we should take another stab at progressing with our treatment as I was not happy with the amount of prednisone they needed. I booked a recheck appointment for the following week.
Source...