Ditch the Itch

You do not have to put up with the constant itchy dog keeping you up at night or the half balding cat.

A constantly scratching dog or cat is not normal and we can do something about it.

For the most part, skin allergies are a genetic disease. Everyone knows a family that that seems to be allergic to everything. Likewise some breeds are more prone to allergies: German Shepherds, Staffies, Labradors and many terrier breeds. That's a lot of popular breeds. We call these allergies Atopy, you would probably know this more commonly as hay fever. 

Yep, dogs and cats don’t often sneeze and have runny eyes with hayfever. They will often scratch, rub their eyes/cheeks, chew/lick their feet, have itchy ears or sometimes be just one big itch.

If allergies are in your genes they cannot be cured but need regular management to keep your pet comfortable. The vet’s role is to give you guidance so you can control the itchiness at home and reduce those visits. 

1) Act early , long term skin disease is difficult to treat and can take months to settle down. Not only do they have allergies, but constant scratching has lead to deep skin infections that are difficult to treat 

2) If 90% of allergies are flea related, make sure your pet is on constant, premium flea control. Supermarket brands of flea control are nowhere near stringent enough. We advise Bravecto. 

3) To rule out food allergies: You can expect we will recommend a food allergy trial. This is an incredibly strict specialised diet. You can expect to be placed on this diet for about 9 weeks. If your pet responds , great we control the itch without medication.

3) Medications: These can be used seasonally or in the most severe allergies all the time Up until recently cortisone based drugs were the only real option to control symptoms. Everyone knows these are not good for humans, the same goes for pets . 

Thankfully there are some amazing new medications to help reduce allergies that are not cortisone based. Some pets require daily Apoquel medication or in many pets we can use a monthly injection Cytopoint to vaccinate them against allergies.

You know how distressing it is when you get itchy and cannot get comfortable. If your pet is itchy make an appointment today and we can ditch the itch together.