BS: Dog dermatitis

Subject: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 04:32 AM

The vet has given me steroid cream to put on my young dog's paw, which is red and raw-looking between the pads. Dermatitis, the vet says.

I've goggled and found it's supposed to be a lifetime condition. Has anyone tackled this successfully?

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 06:45 AM

I take it that your vet has ruled out bacterial or fungal infection...

If the cream is 1% hydrocortisone, don't waste any more money on vet's bills: you can buy the same stuff in supermarkets, sold for insect bites and stings in people (ASDA £1.50). I'd be slightly concerned about your dog licking off a steroid cream... The cream should break the vicious cycle of the dog aggravating the soreness by licking, once it calms the irritation. Dermatitis is often triggered by some kind of irritant, but you'd sort of expect more than just one foot to be affected. I'm no vet. Just ruminating. Good luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 09:45 AM

You need to look at where your dog is walking and what it is stepping in. Do you use chemical products on your lawn or garden the dog is coming in contact with?

It's hot this time of year, are you walking the dog in the heat of the day on hot pavement? They literally get burned feet from that.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:17 AM

I have had good results from vitamin D, specific for skin problems as well as general good health. A dog with sebacious gland cysts all over her back: I paid a big bill to have them removed and by the time, the incisions healed, the cysts were back. Vitamins, esp D & E put her fur into beautiful condition- at age 13.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:33 AM

Vitamin D in excess is toxic to dogs. You shouldn't need supplements if you're giving your dog standard dog food, as such foods are carefully formulated to be correctly balanced. Are you in Ireland or have I got you mixed up? If so, hot pavements aren't likely to be a problem in late August. I have a dark slate patio that I can't walk on barefoot on a sunny June day, but it's fine at this time of year.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:39 AM

She's talking about topical, but dogs lick off stuff, so point taken. My vet talked about how people can end up killing their dogs by walking them in the middle of the day on hot concrete in Texas summers.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:43 AM

Topical vitamin D? That's a new one on me!

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 03:12 PM

Yes, I'm in Ireland. I walk my dog a few places - he often swims in a local river, otherwise we generally walk to parks and have a play with a ball or a Frisbee.
You've got me thinking, though, Stilly; there's another stream nearby, and he seemed to get the itch first when he'd been playing in that. It has black algae in it, so I stopped letting him play in there; however, a few days later we were playing near it and I saw a couple of lads from the drainage department putting in booms and flat sheets of polystyrene. They told me the stream had been polluted with some kind of polycarbonates - petrol or kerosene or diesel - probably by a cab driver servicing his car upstream and letting the resulting liquids flow into a storm drain that debouches into the stream.
My worry, and obviously the vets', is that the itch may spread.
The cream is called Isaderm, and the ingredients are listed as a gram of gel with fusidic acid 5mg, Betamethasone (as valerate) 1mg, in 1g of gel. He doesn't lick it off, because when I put it on I immediately bring him for a short walk. The cream is up inside his paw and between the toes as well as on the pads, so this doesn't wipe it off, and by the time we come back he's not bothered to lick the feet.
I'll ask the vet about vitamin D and how much is safe.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 04:01 PM

Your cream contains a steroid (betamethasone), which is anti-inflammatory and which should help to settle the irritation, and an antibiotic. I reckon it should do the trick. I'd avoid the vitamin D for now if I were you.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 05:13 PM

Thanks, Steve! Fingers crossed. He's to see the vet the day after tomorrow.
Incidentally, I was advised by a herbalist friend to take vitamin C and Vitamin D3 when I had a tough chest infection that wouldn't give in to antibiotics. Half an hour after starting taking them, the infection suddenly cleared - which may of course be a coincidence.
The doctor told me to be careful of Vitamin D and not to take too much, because it's one of the few vitamins you can overdose on. I've accordingly taken it but in careful doses since.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 06:19 PM

On the whole, western diets provide all the vitamins you need. Vitamin D can be an exception, as its good food sources aren't that numerous and many of which are frequently avoided by veggies and vegans. Get thee almost naked into the summer sun is a partial solution. It's much more fun if you don't do it alone. Down, girls... Hardly anyone needs extra vitamin C. It's in most fresh plant foods. Onions contain even more than oranges and it's there in all your greens. Folic acid can be an issue for people who live on junk food. Otherwise, the supplement industry should be right there on the shelf with snake oil.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 04:34 AM

Irish people had a severe deficit of folic acid until recently; our very high rate of spina bifida and allied birth defects was thought to be a 'Celtic' thing until it was discovered that these were caused by folic acid deficiency.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 06:27 AM

A diet containing plenty of pulses and green vegetables gives you sufficient folic acid. If you like liver you'll never go short. Unfortunately, junk food diets tend to avoid such things. Obsessive supplement-taking of folic acid can mask vitamin B12 deficiency. The answer is always a good mixed diet. Vegans and vegetarians are at severe risk of B12 deficiency unless they consciously seek out things such as fortified breakfast cereals or those soya/oat/almond "milks" which have B12 added. Or take supplements. Makes you wonder whether being a veggie is such a great idea when resort to artificial additives is required...

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 12:35 AM

It seems to me that if the dog has dermatitis on only one paw, then most likely the dog stepped on something with that paw, possibly getting the item trapped between two pads.

A noxious insect comes to mind.

I wonder if they make the dog medicine taste awful to discourage the dog from licking it off.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 09:54 PM

It's a dangerous old world for dogs to go walking in, these days,
but what can you do?

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 10:14 AM

When he went back to the vet, apparently that paw was better but the other back paw was kind of scabby. Unless the vet (a different one) mixed up the paws.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 11:47 AM

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 12:11 PM

Expensiver and expensiver too at around €100 a visit, though hopefully the pet insurance will kick in soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Aug 20 - 03:18 PM

At 100 a visit,you have every right to insist that they check the record and not mix up the paws.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Aug 20 - 03:35 PM

Leeneia asked I wonder if they make the dog medicine taste awful to discourage the dog from licking it off.

In a word, no. If you don't want them to lick it off, there is nothing that tastes so bad that will keep them from licking.

I have a really hard-headed lab who was licking a wound (stitches) and made it infected; I tried the bitter sprays, I tried the awful tasting bandaging. We were about three weeks out from the surgery and still having problems when the vet re-wrapped the foot in a new bandage and I topped it with the stretchy bitter bandaging and went to work. When I came home that evening the bandage was gone, and he stood there calmly in front of me and threw up - the bandage - at my feet. At $50 a visit I wasn't going to do that every day (keeping it covered, clean and dry, etc.). After that I kept him in the house and he only got to go out to walk on the leash and after another week it finally healed.

Subject: RE: BS: Dog dermatitis
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Aug 20 - 05:12 AM

The vet told me to put the cream on his paw before a walk. That worked - by the end of the walk he'd forgotten about it. I was putting some on his pads, but mostly up between the toes and in between the pads.