Mystery health issues :(

[awfarmington]

We have a 3 yo female EM, got her when she was 8 weeks after researching MANY breeders. Currently she has serious skin issues, allergies, hard time keeping weight on, and extreme thirst. Vet said skin has yeast and bacteria. Ruled out diabetes, cushings. White blood cells are high and indicate allergies. BUT, why the weight loss and extreme thirst? Getting her to eat is a fulltime job, because she only has a good appetite for food she cant resist. I add raw beef, bits of hot dogs and other tidbits she likes, in her corn free dog food to get her to eat. Also add peanut butter, olive oil, fish caplets, bacon grease, tuna in oil, etc to make it tasty and add calories. She eats between 3 and 4 pounds of food (half meat) a day, sometimes more. She is a small EM (114 pounds) would prolly be 130 if she wasn't skinny. Sadie scratches and chews non stop, been giving her benadryl to help lesson it. We have changed her diet, to no avail. She is such a sweet girl, we are just at a loss

---------- Post added at 09:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 PM ----------

Forgot to add...She has hard black large pimple type things on her back and side. Her skin is turning blackish, nipples thickened and dark, elbows and 'ankles' very thick, black and calloused/scaly.

 

[awfarmington]

Forgot to add...She has hard black large pimple type things on her back and side. Her skin is turning blackish, nipples thickened and dark, elbows and 'ankles' very thick, black and calloused/scaly.

 

[angelbears]

Have you thought about a totally raw diet(meat only). It helps a great deal with yeast. Does she have a slight or even strong odor to her skin? If she does I would try to get the yeast imbalance under control and go from there. I have a 3 year old male Fila and we have been battling skin problems almost from the get go. His appetite is much better on the raw diet, it took a couple of weeks but he rarely leaves any food behind. On kibble he would almost always leave half his food, we then went to cooked toppers on his food and he still would be picky. For some a raw diet has completely taken care of the skin problems. For us it has not but I feel he is getting stronger and there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

BTW, if she is on antibiotics, it will promote yeast growth.

 

[awfarmington]

Yes, have thought about that a lot and really thinking that is the way to go. The two things that are perplexing me the most is the fact that she cant put on weight no matter how much we feed her. And the thirst she has is insane! Its like she cant get enough water. The vet wants two give her two meds for the skin, however, I am a little concerned about that. One is for the bacteria on her skin. Which Im assuming is an antibitoc....and I know that will encourage more yeast. Also, I normally try less invasive methods first. As in herbal remedies, then otc drugs if they fail. With myself and my kids, homeopathic is our first defense....and often works well. Tea tree oil I know is anti viral, fungal and bacterial. I used that on her before and her skin got a lot better. But as soon as her skin healed and I stopped, it slowly came back! My thinking is the skin issues are caused by an allergy, and by keeping her on drugs, its just a bandaid...not a solution to the core problem. BTW, yes she has a very bad smell, from the yeast the vet said. Have you tried probiotics? So many thoughts are running around my head, as to how we should get my poor girl better Yogurt with live cultures added to her food maybe??

 

[ruby55]

the weight loss & excessive thirst could be a pancreatic issue, like diabetes. The weight loss could just be stress, if she's constantly scratching & itching. But I'd have her blood sugar checked just to rule out other issues.

 

[awfarmington]

They did blood and urine test, ruled out diabetes. Kidneys are fine. The only thing they could find besides her skin issues, were high white cells. She said the particular high count indicates infection and allergies.

---------- Post added at 11:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 PM ----------

Im going to get pics tomorrow in the daylight, and post them. Hopefully it will look familiar to someone and they will be able to point me in the right direction.

 

[awfarmington]

Im going to get pics tomorrow in the daylight, and post them. Hopefully it will look familiar to someone and they will be able to point me in the right direction.

 

[Marrowshard]

If she's having a food allergy, it could be to just about anything but since you're feeding such a large variety of sources it may be hard to pin down. We had an extremely allergic BM who was not only allergic to corn and possibly chicken among other things, but when she landed a skin infection, she turned out to be severely allergic to the antibiotics as well. Her skin got lots worse then her throat started closing up so we had to rush her in to the vet for steroid shots and a different antibiotic.
Also, I really don't like alarming people, but when Ebony's infections were at their peak, she also wouldn't eat. We knew she had allergies but fed her anything she'd keep down and a few weeks later we'd lost her to cancer. Completely snuck up on us and it turned out that the antibiotics were masking other symptoms that might have given it away. Her white cells were 4x normal, zero appetite, but drank a ton of water. By the time we caught it there wasn't anything we could do.
I would suggest x-rays sooner rather than later. At this point, you could be running out of time and you do not want that on your conscience. I sincerely hope that I'm wrong. It could be that with spring around the corner she's having respiratory allergies or the medication is making her ill.

~Marrow

 

[awfarmington]

The vet is supposed to call friday (she is off tomorrow), so I be sure to ask her about the risk of cancer.

 

[chuckorlando]

I would deff look into x ray's for peace of mind. I wont further interject my ignorance on this but deff get x ray's

Hope it is just alergies or something simple

 

[angelbears]

To help get a grip on the yeast, stay away from all sugars, also smoked meats. We went raw almost a year ago and I was getting very discouraged that his ears were still very yeasty. We had cut out all sugars, was basically on all protein except the the very occasional scrap off our plate. Cane loved smoked turkey, so we had gotten a couple during the holidays. Well, smoked meats are a major yeast contributor. Once we cut out the smoked meats, he is very close to being yeast free. Still have skin issues but at least the yeast isn't contributing.

Also, once we went raw it cut his water drinking in at least half or more. They get most of their water from the meat.

We have tried Western medicine and Chinese medicine, neither helped. We are going to start homeopathy next week, I will be more than happy to let you know how that goes.

 

[BlackShadowCaneCorso]

We also went RAW with one of our dogs who had a skin allergy and he is doing great. After 2 weeks there was a marked improvement so we will continue on the RAW.

 

[angelbears]

Great news, Mary. I do hear of many success stories when changing to raw. I do think that those dogs had an allergy of some sort to food. I have also read that dogs that seem to have an allergy to a protein, like chicken in the processed food, ie kibble, may not have a reaction to raw chicken.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid my guy has environmental allergies. Much harder to combat with a raw diet. I do know the raw got rid of the yeast.

 

[nwickline]

Allergies are caused by proteins, beef, chicken, fish, wheat, corn, etc. The one way to truly know what she's allergic to is to do a food trial. We have this same issue with a foster Cane Corso. You may want to take her off the meat for a bit and try potatoes, beans, and other carbs to help her gain weight. Everything I read about this says that eliminating the reaction food is the only way to get rid of the skin issues. I was hoping to find some other folks on this site that have had similar experiences too.

 

[angelbears]

I'm sorry but I totally disagree with "nwickline". If you are going to remove any foods from her diet it should be the grains, veggies, and anything with sugar. Carbs feed yeast. If you want to do a food elimination diet, start with raw chicken and go from there. Dogs don't need any veggies. Not to say that 2 of my dogs don't get veggies and other things, here and there, but my boy with yeast and skin issues gets only meat.

 

[Smart_Family]

I'm sorry but I totally disagree with "nwickline". If you are going to remove any foods from her diet it should be the grains, veggies, and anything with sugar. Carbs feed yeast. If you want to do a food elimination diet, start with raw chicken and go from there. Dogs don't need any veggies. Not to say that 2 of my dogs don't get veggies and other things, here and there, but my boy with yeast and skin issues gets only meat.

I absolutely agree.

---------- Post added at 01:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 PM ----------

Also a lot of dogs who are allergic to a certain protein in a kibble can eat that food absolutely fine when it's raw.

 

[Smart_Family]

Also a lot of dogs who are allergic to a certain protein in a kibble can eat that food absolutely fine when it's raw.

 

[Oak Hill Farm]

No carbs! Carbs are the worst thing to give a dog with allergies. Dogs are not designed to digest them. Get her on raw. Red meat one protein source and stay on that for weeks without adding anything new. It can take quite a while for allergies to clear up, and at some points might actually seem worse while the body is ridding itself of the toxins. If forget who mentioned it above, but I agree it sounds like severe allergies to something, especially if cushings/adrenal was ruled out, because that would have been my first guess.

 

[BlackShadowCaneCorso]

We eliminated chicken as we suspected that of causing the issue and have slowly added back raw chicken and so far no reaction.

 

[awfarmington]

I did special shopping for Sadie tonight. Hamburger, chicken legs and frozen fish, and stuff for her skin. The only meat we had in hand for breakfast was chix breast, which she would not eat raw. So I cooked it in olive oil and added raw garlic. She gobbled it up. Dinner she got raw hamburger mixed with our dinner (venison stew, picked the taters out), and probiotic. Later, before bed, she will get a small bit of fish with natural yogurt. So far, I'm impressed with her enthusiasm licking the bowl!

---------- Post added at 07:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:37 PM ----------

One question, its beef suet okay on a raw food diet for allergies? I was thinking of buying that, and putting a small amount in her main food. All her ribs are showing, and I am hoping that will help fatten her up a little.