Our experiences with allergies

We have been having problems with Finn and allergies for the past year now. First they were food related and caused him to have puffy watery eyes and bad ear infections but these were easily sorted by eliminating things from his diet. The main foods to cause a reaction are corn, wheat and chicken. His last food related flare up was February so we thought we had it sorted.

Fast forward to September this year. Finn's body turned a lovely shade of pink along with yeast infections in his feet and mouth. 5 long weeks of steroids followed. Never again is Finn getting Prednisolone. He peed every hour or so 24 hours a day and lost loads of weight. He paced about and was just not himself. It was 4 weeks into the 5 week course before we got any sleep at night. Finally we got it under control with no idea what caused the reaction. We decided to get allergy testing done as soon as we could after the course of steroids.

In October we went on holiday and towards the end of the week Finn was turning pink again and scratching. No change of food so that was not the reason. So it was back to the vet to get him booked in for allergy testing. This was arranged for the 6 November.

The allergy testing involves a blood sample taken from the front leg and sent away for testing at Heska UK Limited to test for sensitivity to allergens like, trees, grasses, weeds, shrubs, pollens, fungi, house dust mites and storage mites. Also additional tests for flea saliva and sarcoptic mange. I can then get vaccines made up to desensitise Finn from whatever he is allergic to if I want to go that route. After a discussion with the vet and going back through his records we concluded that these last two reactions are more than likely a contact/inhalant allergy.

Currently Finn is back on steroids Medrone this time (which is not as bad as Pred) and again we are getting hardly any sleep. His dose is being reduced this week so fingers crossed he starts sleeping through the night. Its like having a tiny puppy again.

Test results should be back any day soon. Will be interesting to see what is causing the problem.

What do you feed Finn

Poor Finn, I have no experience with allergies at all, Hope they can get to the bottom of it soon....

Hope that the tests help Carole - its no fun having a dog on Prednisolone is it, although Benji was never that bad on it and instead of losing weight he put it on because his appetite increased. Good luck and hope you find a cure soon for his allergies poor lad.

Hi Carole,
I can fully sympathise with you and the allergies, much of Molly's first year was spent trying to eliminate the things that made her flare up, she got terrible ear infections, scratching constantly- sometimes till she was red raw! We got her allergy tested when she was about 18 months old and it came back that she was alergic to over 25 different things including foods, plants, grass, fleas, trees, all sorts! We are in control of her food allergies and aslong as we don't feed her anything she cannot have and we stick to her strict diet she is fine. I would say for a lot of the time she is 100% happy because of the way it is controlled.

Good luck with Finn, it can be a trying time whilst you work out what to avoid!
Frances xxx

Thanks for the insight Ca, I know (to a lesser extent) how he feels as I have various food intolerances/alergies too In fact I had an appt with my specialist today and my arm is now dead cos of all the bloodtests. Give Finn a big hug from me