Jake first started showing trouble in the middle of July. Minor hair loss around his nose and what appeared to be blood tears from his eyes. Taken to the vet who said it was an allergy and put him on Tremidol-P (an antihistamine/ with low dose of prednisolone. He appeared to get better for the first week and then had continued hair loss from snout, hair loss on his inner upper ear, and occasional blood from eyes. Vet put him on prednisone to stop his immune response and cephilexin antibiotic to prevent infection from open lesions on his nose and in his ear. Two weeks pass and symptoms getting worse. Continued hair loss on nose, hair loss on both ears, hair loss around eyes with open lesions at all locations and a swollen tongue. Back to vet who said it appeared to be a severe allergic re-action with an auto immune response. Areas would start to scab over and just fall off. Vet took three punch samples for a biopsy. Vet wanted to just keep him on same meds and just up the dose of prednisone. In the mean time I had been researching on the internet, his behavior med which was Amitriptyline has been found to react with TRK receptors controlling immune system. He reluctantly agreed at this time to take Jake off of these (had been taking since January). Results back from biopsy, could be a drug reaction, pemphigus was considered but certain tell tales were not present, leaning towards drug reaction but not sure. Back to vet, no progress. Noting that Jake did have 4 separate tick bites (and yes he is on advantix) I asked vet to run a full tick panel, all negative. I mentioned that we could have false negative due to prednisone and seeing no improvement, plus additional bleeding from jowls, to switch antibiotic to doxicycline. We did and I think I am now a pain in the rear for the vet. He gave us the name of a specialist in Dermitology. Now seeing her at 4x’s the cost, she is leaning towards a drug reaction and we kept him on pred and doxi. Bleeding had stopped from jowls and eyes while on doxi. Now another two weeks and bleeding returns, getting sores in webbing of toes and on one elbow. Off of doxi , still on prednisone and trying Atopica. Jake is being a trooper through all this but in his eyes he is asking for help. I promised him I wouldn’t give up !!!
P.S. lesions open on their own, Just wrinkling his snout to eat will cause bleeding, so no he is not scratching everything open.
