New Medication available for Allergenic Dogs
When your dog suffers, your whole family can suffer too.
- Excessive licking, chewing, biting or scratching
- Excessive rolling, rubbing or scooting
- Foot chewing
- Hair loss
- Recurrent ear problems
- Changes in the skin, like sores or darkened colour
- Redness of the skin
- Body odour
Are all signs that your dog may benefit from medication.
Traditional treatment of allergenic skin disease has meant using anti-histamines or corticosteroids. Unfortunately, anti-histamines don’t work all that well in dogs and corticosteroids, although often effective and economical, come with a lot of undesirable side effects.
More recently cyclosporin has also been a medication that can be prescribed. It is, however, very expensive.
In the last two months a new drug has become available in Australia.
It comes as a tablet that is given initially twice daily ( for 2 weeks) and then once daily.
It’s onset of action is very fast ( about 4 hours) and the side effects from it are far fewer than steroids or cyclosporin. It can also be used safely with many other common medications ( including arthritis medications and vaccinations)
Of course, as with any prescription medication, there are some potential side effects. It also cannot be used in animals under 12 months of age or less than 3kgs in weight.
If you think you dog may benefit from a medication such as this, contact the clinic for an appointment.
