About one third of veterinary visits now center around itching. Itchy ears. Itchy feet. Itchy fanny. All over itchies. These dogs are suffering and they are often keeping their owners up all night to. Why is this? It wasn’t always so.
Of course there are many answers to that question. Much as chronic pain is an abnormal response to pain from unaddressed acute pain paired with chronic inflammation in the body, chronic allergies are an abnormal immune response from relentless tweaking of the immune system paired again with chronic inflammation in the body. Part of this is genetic. Certain breeds such as Frenchies and Bernedoodles are incredibly prone to merciless allergies due to some gene expression more prevalent in that breed.
There is a significant link to unhealthy GI microflora. Puppies treated with antibiotics while their nascent immune systems are developing have a radically higher incidence of allergies as young adults because their immune systems did not properly learn what is normal and what is a foe.
Heavy vaccination particularly in young puppies or dogs in early adulthood can really cause havoc. The effect will not demonstrate right away but surface 8 to 12 weeks after a visit where the dog receives multiple antigens to respond to all at once. In the first annual visit after puppyhood many dogs receive the DHPPV, Rabies, Lepto, and Bordetella vaccine which totals between 10 and 11 antigens to which the patient must mount an immune response all at once. It stands to reason the immune system may not stop there but start reacting to pollens, environmental molds, dust mites,and anything else it encounters. Finally dogs fed primarily a highly processed kibble are already dealing with so much chronic inflammation and unhealthy GI flora that they are made more prone to surpassing that “allergy threshold” where the immune system starts attacking anything in its path making the dog miserable.
How do we back down this cliff?
We do need to first stop. Stop tweaking the immune system. Short of Rabies which is a zoonotic and fatal disease endemic in wildlife, do all you can to stop administering vaccinations for anything else. The Bordetella vaccine is a localized vaccine to the nasopharynx and can be the exception here.
Next we need to provide fresh wholesome balanced nutrition (see the post on diet). To this we need to add Omega fatty acids from a reputable source and kept in the fridge so the product stays fresh. There are also supplements that combine fatty acids with cerumides that tighten the junctions between skin cells to keep allergens from penetrating the skin.
We should consider certain herbal formulas known to nourish the skin while toning down abnormal allergenic responses. These herbal formulas will be a future topic but can be a ticket off the allergic merry go round.
These approaches are slow medicine and take time. The truly miserable itchy dog needs conventional medicine to dial down the allergic response right now. This can be an injectable that binds allergic mediators (cytopoint); cortisones to shut the immune system down albeit with alot of side effects; or a “Jak inhibitor” medication that shuts down not the allergic response but the itch pathway. Examples of these are Apoquel and Zenrelia. For the patient that truly needs these to function these can be a gift with the goal to only treat long enough for our restorative strategies to work. It must not be forgotten that itching is painful for the dog and often pain medication such as gabapentin or pregabalin is needed at least temporarily for comfort.
Can we prevent all this misery? We can try.
This all centers on informed choices in puppyhood. Unless the puppy’s life is in danger consider declining antibiotic therapy especially metronidazole. When presented with vaccine options complete the vital DHPPV (Distemper and Parvo) series first spacing the vaccines four weeks apart and aiming for no more than three in the series ending at or over 16 weeks of age. Consider waiting 6 to 8 weeks before giving the rabies vaccine by itself, and waiting another 8 weeks before giving the Lepto series of two. You are giving the immune system precious time to respond properly.
In farm children throughout the world there is a consistent and dramatically lower incidence of childhood allergies. The link is even higher for children given unprocessed milk from the cows on the farm, This can be replicated in puppies using a commercially available goats milk supplement. This has the most benefit for young puppies especially if they have been treated or need to be treated with antibiotics for such therapy can have lifelong repercussions via its effect on nascent GI flora. Seventy percent of our immune system is in our GI tract and taking good care of our GI flora through fresh healthy food that nourishes the microbiome is the foundation of an allergy free life.
