Food allergy??

Hi all, this is my first post and I am new to the site, I really help someone can help me.

My gorgeous pup is Blue, he is a year old this month and suffers with his skin. It first started about 4 months ago, had had to be castrated for epidiymitis (sorry for the spelling) and we noticed that he had scabby areas around his mouth, the vet prescribed 'fuciderm' cream to apply to the area and that seemed to clear it up.

A couple of weeks later he was absoloutly covered in 'bumps' under his skin, took him again to the vets and they said it was an allergic reaction to something was given steriod injection and then it went.

Two weeks later he began to scratch under his front legs and his neck so badly it began to bleed and scab and had now lost most of his hair from his underside. The vet thought this might be dermatitis and was put onto antibiotics and pirition. A week later it was still no better and we went back to the vets once again.

He had a skin scrape which was negative, and also had 3 biopsies of skin taken for testing. He was placed onto piriton x3 a day and steriods 10mg for 4 days, reducing down to 5mg for a further 7 days. He also had bloods taken to test for 'household and pollen/grass' allergies. The skin biopsies showed an abnormal level of thyroid hormone but have since been ok'd from his blood results, and other than that showed no evidence of anything nasty and was just considered to be an 'inflamation' response. The bloods showed only a 'mild' sensitivity to dust mites but nothing else, and according to the vet the allergy was not so severe to cause his skin get so irritated as it was.
So they now think its a food allergy?? Blue stopped his steriods at the weekend, and now 2 days after stopping he is back to scratching! and making himself sore.

He is fed on Prize Choice Raw Meat (Lamb flavour as thats his fave), but i do have to admit when this all flared up we temporarily had him on pedigree tins , but before he always had his raw meat.
We have started him on omega fish oils to help his coat, and I have applied sudocream to his sores today to soothe them.

I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this? As the vet is now saying the next thing will be a food trial , which i heard is very costly?! Can the food allergies not be tested on blood samples?
Would really apprechiate your feedback! Sorry for the lengthy post, I just want my blue-bubs to get better!

My gosh, you seemed to have tried everything, I couldn't suggest anything else. If it is a food allergy then yes as far as I know this can be tested for, not too sure how, there are a couple of members here that are going/been through the same thing, hopefully they can help.

Welcome to the forum btw Xx

Hello and welcome, there are a few people on the forum at the moment who are having the nearly the same problem I am sure they will be along soon to help out

Your dog may well have an intolerance to one or more food sources. If you're feeding Prize Choice, you might want to try their Beef Chunks, Tripe Chunks or Fish Fillets & see whether he improves on these (especially the fish).

Either that, or try him on some dry commercial food such as James Wellbeloved Hypoallergenic Dog Food - there are several different types.

Of course it could just be that he has very sensitive skin (some blues do). You could try washing his bedding with a baby washing powder (non biological) and wiping his fur down with boiled & cooled water each time you come in from a walk.

Suki has allergies as well. She is allergic to beef, lamb, egg, wheat and almost everything else. We noticed that she was starting to get raised bumps on her skin so we took her to a dermatologist. He did a blood test to find out what she was allergic to. This was around $450. I don't know if this is available in your country but you could try a phone consultation with another vet or do a goole search to see if there is something in your area.

We tried her on a vegetarian food and now have sweet potato and kangaroo food. This seems to be working okay but we will also try a deer based food and go with what works best. According to our dermatologist the dog has to be a year old to be able to accurately tell what they are allergic to and sometimes they have to be two tears old before you get a final answer.

Wish you the best of luck because allergies can be a hard thing to deal with.

it sounds like a food allergy. Mambo has it - his ears are scabby, he scratches them badly, he's got bumps on his head and very dry skin at the last visit to the vets he got an injection with steroids - it got better but not for long we tried piriton as well and it didn't seem to work

now he's now on a 'try and error' diet - he also eats prize choice raw meat. until now we found out that beef is not good, rabbit is ok, tripe probably causes that scratching and bups are getting worse, now we're trying chicken and he seems to get better (his ears reacted very badly to tripe last week:( )...

i'm sure once you find what's good for him you will be able to stick to this and you will all be happy... but until then, you have to be patient and find out what's causing the allergy reaction...

you can also use cod liver oil (in tablets or liquid) this builds up skin defences, we're also giving Mambo Companion ca-37 supplement, but can't really tell whether it's working or not yet, he's been having it for 3 or 4 days only...

good luck with this, I'm sure you will sooner or later find out what's best for your pup

The problem with steroids is that they weakened the immune system and don't solve the problems, as soon as they are stopped symptoms come back..
I would cut out all cereals, and dairy products, feed raw, add vit e, echinacea, chelated zinc, silica and neem leaf capsules to the diet, and use neem shampoo and neem oil diluted in sweet almond oil (1 to 5) on affected areas.
Tia if fed commercial dog food with grains gets wet dermatitis around her vulva and under her armpits, Luca my male Dane gets sebaceous cysts, and Melba one of my female Dane gets hot spot type dermatitis on her paws and bottom jaw and lips...