Hello. Mother to special needs furkids...

My name is Peggy (obviously) and I actually came here hoping to find some advice or tips from people that have some experience with "Black Skin Disease" or "Alopecia X", as I believe my elderly rescue Puggle, Otis, has it.

I have had him for 5 years now, and he was already 8 when he went from being a foster kid to an adoptive one. He has had his condition the entire time, and no vets in this area could ever diagnose it so we have run the gambit of different meds, medicated baths, food, sprays, and ointments...some helped a little but eventually stopped working and some didn't help at all. I was online researching his symptoms (again) early this morning as he is currently having a terrible outbreak and his medicine recently stopped working when I ran across (finally) a dog owner who's dog was having the same symptoms. I swear I saw the heavens open and heard an angles choir singing Hallelujah

The first thing I did was email all the links I could find to my vet and now I'm just kinda waiting for him to reply and thought I would see if others have gone through this issue and what all they've tried that helped. I've read that melanoma sometimes helps. I'd like to stay as much in the holistic area as possible, as Otis has been taking Prednisone for quite some time to treat the symptoms but now has a dependence on it, and I DO NOT want him to be taking any more drugs that can harm him

That's it in a nutshell. I'm a magnet for all the "special needs" dogs in my area, for some reason. I should have went to college to be a vet

Thanks for listening and any suggestions are welcome and appreciated by both myself and Otis,

Peggy Sue

I am sorry to read of Otis' skin problems but am afraid I cannot help - hopefully someone with more experience than I will be able to give you some advice. I am rather puzzled about what you meal by "melanoma sometimes helps" as melanoma is a form of skin cancer.

In the meantime though

Oops, that was supposed to be melatonin

Welcome to Dogsey. I can't help with your problem but I'm sure someone here will be able to.

Thanks....

Thank you for clearing that up! I do hope that you find something to help Otis.

Hi, I'm from GA too and have experienced the monumental incompetence of the vets that can be here. I can't help, either sadly

I know that someone here can likely help, so if I were you, I'd wait it out a bit and maybe someone useful will come along.