Any update from the derm vet?

Yes I have info. Sorry I've been slow about posting results. Overall, I felt the derm vet was nice, but not super helpful. She looked at dog and my pictures and said I could start with one of these: 1) try Atopica for a month, if dog responded, she would want to do full skin panel to see what he was allergic to and then I guess develop shots for it; if he didn't respond to the Atopica, he could mean he was either a) one of the dogs it didn't work for or b) he didn't have allergies; 2) go straight to trying a full skin panel to see what he reacted to 3) try a food allergy diet.

When I took him in, she did do a small skin test. He had a mild reaction to fleas and a very strong reaction to one kind of house mites and also to storage mites. But since almost everyone reacts to that, I'm not really sure how to take it. It's been a week and the fur really isn't even growing back on the little strip she saved. I'm guessing it'll be a good 4-6 months before it fills in which seems freakishly long to me but maybe that's normal.

She also gave me a printout of a webboard exchange between vets who have seen this weird raggedy ear thing along with other itchy symptoms that present like sarcoptic, but were NOT sarcoptic in several dogs and primarily German Shepherds. The gist was it was a weird thing confounding the vets. Oh good. If I can figure out how to scan and attach here, I will.

In the meantime, he's had 2nd dose of Advantix (doing every 4 weeks) and I gave him Trifexis. Will start 2nd dog on Trifexis too. Since Trifexis, he's had a little fur loss, but I can't tell if this is an adverse reaction to Trifexis or just blowing coat (it's not a lot of fur...yet). I have yet to get a baseline normal on this dog and it's that time of year...

I have been giving 30 mg of Zyrtec a day which DOES seem to help his itching and goopy eyes a fair amount. Makes me think he does have some kind of environmental allergy.

Still doing anti-flea stuff. I got a flea comb but misplaced and since I'm 99% sure i will get nothing if I do the white sheet test, I haven't looked too hard for it.

Will bathe again today.

So overall, disappointed but not surprised at uselessness of vets. The Atopica seems useless since it just leads to a skin panel and the skin panel is really only good if you are getting allergy shots. I am not sure if I believe my dog might really have a food allergy on a raw diet free of corn, wheat and soy. I am sticking with raw, trying to get as much fish oil down him as I can (he's picky--today he decided he didn't want his duck necks; whatever dog), doing the Trifixis, Advantix, baths, etc and just waiting and seeing. I've hit a point of frustration as I'm sure you can tell. :-) I dislike oral flea meds, but I need to get him around the corner.

Oh, derm vet also gave me Vetericyn spray for his rash in his rear hip/groin area.

I scanned the vet exchange and put here at the end:

Fenris-skin--vet exchange scan

"the uselessness of vets"

Some conditions cannot be easily figured out-- some can't be figured out at all. If you could contact the breeder perhaps you might get some useful information about healthy/not so healthy skin in littermates or parents.

Some dogs end up on prednisone and owners are grateful for the relief it provides.

Betty you are right and I apologize. I am just frustrated and that wasn't really a fair statement. At the least, I should have credited the vets with Zyrtec because that is helping a decent amount. And the Vetericyn which looks like it will be pretty good stuff. I know it's know not the vets' fault. Vague chronic stuff is hard. Science is not always black and white. The vet exchange I posted was pretty interesting (to me anyway).

I did contact the breeder months ago when this started and she suggested flea allergy or food allergy and said she had no reports of other issues w/ his litter. At that time, I know now his flea med was making him sick. I have personally checked with one of his littermates (owners) and she is doing great with zero issues.

Prednisone actually helps him a lot-the itching just goes away. I haven't asked for him to be on a long-term dose of that though because I feel like I need to know what the cause is first before I remove the symptoms and I'm still hoping I don't have to go there. But I also know that if I never find the cause, I may have to make a different choice.

Fenris is actually doing not too bad right now. The zyrtec is keeping the itching at bay a fair amount, so I'm hoping over the next 2-4 months that I'll see some slow improvement.

And now I'm realizing I probably should have crossed out all those names on my image of the vet exchange..off to figure out how to do that.

Tossing this into the mix as anecdote. Take it for what it's worth.

The small pit-mix in my signature picture, Cinco, has patchy areas of hair loss on both hind flanks. He had every diagnostic test that exists, and even underwent a several-month course of high-dose ivermectin on the off chance this was an "occult" presentation of demodex (never revealed by scraping).

After ruling out everything else (including bloodwork for anything endocrine-related), my derm vet prescribed melatonin as a "can't hurt, might help" treatment.

Some hair loss in dogs is simply idiopathic (unknown cause). It goes by lots of names in the literature: "Canine recurrent flank alopecia (CRFA) is a recently recognized skin disorder af unknown cause that is characterized by episodes of truncal hair lass that often occurs an a recurrent basis. It has previously been described under several synonyms: seasonal flank alopecia, seasonal growth hormone deficiency, canine idiopathic cyclic flank alopecia, cyclic follicular dysphasia, and others..."

I offer all this for a couple of reasons: First, in sympathy. I'm the author of some of those flea rants on Leerburg, so been there.

Second, to confirm that it's entirely possible to have more than one issue going on a a time-- but get the fleas under control first. And, finally, to confirm that not everything is knowable or fixable.

There are some things that canine dermatology as a science (not just the individual docs) doesn't understand. Idiopathic hair loss is one of those things.

BTW, the melatonin for Cinco helps, but not completely. If you and your vet get everything else under control and the dog still has areas of hair loss, it's one of those things that might be worth asking about.

Thanks Tracy. I actually have your totally epic flea war post bookmarked. It's a stellar post packed with good info!

I am rather inclined to believe it's multiple things myself: some very likely flea issues, some environmental issues/allergies, and weird idiopathic german shepherd showline skin hooey.

I'll keep the melatonin in my pocket then and we'll see how the next few months go.

I was just reviewing my skin saga pics and looking at the dog, and I do think his patchy left side has improved the last month. I also haven't seen any more little red bitey bumps in the last couple of weeks so perhaps I am making progress on the Death-To-Flea front.

Is anyone able to read the text at the end of the scan?

Is it just me?

I see it as tiny and unreadable.

I had to increase the size to read it when I accessed it from the webpage.