The importance of a proper treatment plan
Firstly, it is very important to rule out a flea bite allergy or even just parasites such as fleas or mites on your dog. Your vet will help with this. Even if you are using a product for tick and flea control, please do not skip this step.
Secondly, it is very important to determine whether there are secondary bacterial and/or yeast infections because they need to be identified and treated for successful management of the allergy. Your vet will collect samples from the affected and itchy areas and examine these under the microscope for bacteria, yeasts and the types of cells present.
At the same time, a strict diet trial must be performed to rule a food allergy in or out. Your vet will recommend a suitable hypoallergenic diet and explain exactly how to do the diet trial. This is a crucial step, because if a food allergy is the cause of the allergy in your dog, the skin will no longer be itchy as long as your dog eats the correct diet. It is important that all secondary infections are treated while you are doing the diet trial.
If it turns out not to be a food allergy, your dog most likely has an environmental allergy. Unfortunately, environmental allergies cannot be cured, only managed, and therefore, if not managed appropriately, the condition will return, and the dog will become itchy again and the secondary infections will relapse again and again.
As vets, we always recommend an initial treatment plan that treats the infections and allergy symptoms, but thereafter a long-term plan is essential to keep the allergy under control and prevent the infections from recurring. The initial treatment plan usually includes treatment of all the secondary infections with special shampoos and sometimes creams or ointments, antibiotics when there are bacterial infections, antifungal medicines when there are yeast infections and ear medications when there are ear infections.
Very effective medicines are also used for successful initial, as well as long-term, management of the allergy itself to stop the itchiness, redness, and discomfort.
Cortisone is often prescribed for allergic dogs, but this is not a treatment recommended for safe, long-term management of a skin allergy as there are too many serious side effects associated with long-term use of cortisone.
We are very fortunate to have safer, very effective medications for the initial and long-term management of skin allergies. The one medication is a once-a-day tablet, and the other is a once monthly injection. Both are as effective. There is no cortisone in either of these treatments.
Both these medications can be used long-term to manage the allergy effectively. If there are untreated infections, these can make the treatments less effective, therefore one needs to address all the problems associated with an allergy for successful management of an allergy.
