Hmm where do I start? From the beginning I suppose... My name is Jay, I am new to the forum, my wife and I have a 9 year old frenchman named Andre.
I decided to join this online community after reading through some very helpful threads this morning. Our little guy has been struggling most of his life with skin allergies. We have taken him to the vet pretty much his whole life when his flair-ups have got out of control. In the earlier years we were controlling the bad episodes with a round of predisone. Would have to do this maybe a couple of times a year when things got out of control. His main symptoms include red, inflamed itchy paws. He will lick them obsessively for hours. We got him on ZD ultra "hydrolyzed" dog food (vet recommended) which helped for a while, but the symptoms starting coming back after time. I never really liked this dog food, because of the quality of ingredients. We used it though, because it did seem to help him clear up for a while.
Recently Andre's paws have taken I turn for the worse (starting last summer). The licking turned more to biting. He would go at his paws so hard they would be raw and bleeding. We took him into our vet and they suggested we put him on Apoquel. That seemed to work immediately and he cleared up about 90%. He still wanted to lick and bite, but much less and his paws starting getting back to a normal white. 2 months later, he started chewing again and his paws were getting worse so we stopped giving him the apoquel. I decided to maybe try to change his food to a more quality limited ingredient option. I have never been able to figure out what he has been allergic to over the years. We did some expensive skin testing done at a dog skin doctor years back but the results were pretty inconclusive. I personally think he has food allergies because he has immediate reactions to human foods we have included into his diet over the years. I decided to try acana duck and pear but Andre wouldn't eat the stuff. I wouldn't even consider him a picky eater so I thought we should try the Zignature duck. He like it, but his allergies turned from just red paws to hive spots on his body. At this point we had to take him back to the vet again and get him back on the apoquel. It cleared him up again immediately and the vet told me to go back to the hydrolyzed dog foods now recommending Royal Cannin HP.
He has now been on this food for a month along with his daily apoquel and his allergies have started to come back once again! So we made another appointment yesterday with the vet and took him in. They suggested we try cytopoint and told me there are really no side effects other than the hassle of the injection appointments and of course the cost. I have read a little bit about the drug and it seemed a pretty safe option. I went ahead and had the injection done yesterday. Ive since started to read up more on cytopoint and came accross a dog thread online saying to stay away from the drug. A bunch of different owners were saying they had seen some pretty negative side effects after starting their dog on cytopoint (ranging from lethargy to a bunch of individuals saything they had to soon put their dog down from complications) This has me pretty worried!!! I was wondering if any of my fellow french owners have used cytopoint and have any insight to the after effects? Sorry for the novel, just trying to include as much of my story as posssilble! I will link the forum I came accross to the cytopoint warnings below (it started getting scary around page 5 if you want to skip through)
Has your dog reacted badly to 'Cytopoint' injection (new anti-itch shot) - Page 5
Jay
I decided to join this online community after reading through some very helpful threads this morning. Our little guy has been struggling most of his life with skin allergies. We have taken him to the vet pretty much his whole life when his flair-ups have got out of control. In the earlier years we were controlling the bad episodes with a round of predisone. Would have to do this maybe a couple of times a year when things got out of control. His main symptoms include red, inflamed itchy paws. He will lick them obsessively for hours. We got him on ZD ultra "hydrolyzed" dog food (vet recommended) which helped for a while, but the symptoms starting coming back after time. I never really liked this dog food, because of the quality of ingredients. We used it though, because it did seem to help him clear up for a while.
Recently Andre's paws have taken I turn for the worse (starting last summer). The licking turned more to biting. He would go at his paws so hard they would be raw and bleeding. We took him into our vet and they suggested we put him on Apoquel. That seemed to work immediately and he cleared up about 90%. He still wanted to lick and bite, but much less and his paws starting getting back to a normal white. 2 months later, he started chewing again and his paws were getting worse so we stopped giving him the apoquel. I decided to maybe try to change his food to a more quality limited ingredient option. I have never been able to figure out what he has been allergic to over the years. We did some expensive skin testing done at a dog skin doctor years back but the results were pretty inconclusive. I personally think he has food allergies because he has immediate reactions to human foods we have included into his diet over the years. I decided to try acana duck and pear but Andre wouldn't eat the stuff. I wouldn't even consider him a picky eater so I thought we should try the Zignature duck. He like it, but his allergies turned from just red paws to hive spots on his body. At this point we had to take him back to the vet again and get him back on the apoquel. It cleared him up again immediately and the vet told me to go back to the hydrolyzed dog foods now recommending Royal Cannin HP.
He has now been on this food for a month along with his daily apoquel and his allergies have started to come back once again! So we made another appointment yesterday with the vet and took him in. They suggested we try cytopoint and told me there are really no side effects other than the hassle of the injection appointments and of course the cost. I have read a little bit about the drug and it seemed a pretty safe option. I went ahead and had the injection done yesterday. Ive since started to read up more on cytopoint and came accross a dog thread online saying to stay away from the drug. A bunch of different owners were saying they had seen some pretty negative side effects after starting their dog on cytopoint (ranging from lethargy to a bunch of individuals saything they had to soon put their dog down from complications) This has me pretty worried!!! I was wondering if any of my fellow french owners have used cytopoint and have any insight to the after effects? Sorry for the novel, just trying to include as much of my story as posssilble! I will link the forum I came accross to the cytopoint warnings below (it started getting scary around page 5 if you want to skip through)
Has your dog reacted badly to 'Cytopoint' injection (new anti-itch shot) - Page 5
Jay
