Allergies, Mange...not sure what's wrong

[Cali's_Mom]

I took Cali to the vet last week to see why she was losing her hair on her hind legs. The vet initially thought Demodex...but the skin test came back negative, and she said it was probably just allergies. She recommended that I wash all of Cali's bedding in Dreft (the baby laundry detergant) in case she was allergic to our regular laundry detergant, and give her Benadryl. If she wasnt better in a few days I was to bring her back. Well, over the weekend her hair loss started moving up to her sides, so I took her back this morning. After another negative skin test they decided to keep her to see if they can figure out what is causing the hair loss. She said to call back around 4 p.m. to check on her, and if they cant find anything they might do a biopsy.

Im worried about my baby, and I hope nothing too serious is wrong. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced unexplained hairloss or if anyone knows what this could possibly be???

Thanks! ~ Cali and Victoria

 

[Net45582]

You may want to do a search here on seasonal flank alopecia. I have no experience with it personally,but your symptons sound similar to others who have posted here. Good luck

 

[Cali's_Mom]

Thanks for the help! I will be doing some research!!

 

[Louise501]

Ruby had a tiny scratch like area on her front left left, the skin was white as a baby pup, now the area is a little larger and the skin has gone darker, the skin is normal, its just a tiny patch of hairless skin. I hope you find out what is causing Cali's hairloss.

 

[Cali's_Mom]

Well, I got to pick Cali up from the vet today. The vet still thinks allergies. She said to keep taking the Benadryl, and she also gave us a steriod to give her for 2 weeks. After she finishes the steriod treatment we go back in for a check-up. Hopefully things will look better then. If treating for allergies doesnt seem to help, they are going to look into other things like hormone problems. It doesnt sound like anything serious and the vet doesnt seem to think its anything to get too worried about, so that relieved me some.

*We also have wonderful vets here! I dont know how much a skin test for Demodex cost, but we have had 2, and my baby spent most of the day with them today at no charge. We have only had to pay out $5 for her steriod meds! Im very thankful for such nice people!!!

*thanks for help from the wonderful people at boxerworld, too!!!

 

[OurBabyChamp]

We've had a similar problem with Champ. After 2 bouts with Dmange, the vet said that she is sure it's allergy-related and we are putting him on a hypoallergenic diet for 2 months to see if it is food-related before we do any other allergy testing. She suggested this because she said the allergy testing that they do would be inconclusive for food allergies so it's better to do it this way and see if we can solve the problem. She also said that if it does get better within 2 months, then we will slowly start introducing new foods back into his diet until we find the culprit. Right now he is on a venison and potato diet, and he's loving it!!! His foot-chewing and face scratching is so much better already and it's only been 3 days. So we will see how his mange does, since hopefully if we can clear up the allergies then we will be able to clear up the mange also. FYI: he was on Chicken Soup before we changed to the venison and potato. We have also done the dreft thing before but nothing really changed, and that's what lead our vet to think it was a food allergen versus an environmental allergen.

 

[vetstudent]

We had a boxer come in to the clinic I work at the other day. She has been battling hair loss for over a month and had been seen at another clinic previously. They had done several skin scrapings and could find nothing. The owner was sure it was demodex and decided to come to our clinic. This poor girl had hardly any hair on her face and was losing lots of hair on her hind end as well. We did a skin scraping and found nothing, so we did another one about 10 minutes later on a few different spots and sure enough, demodex. I know you've already had two skin scrapings done, but if the hair loss continues to get worse (despite current treatment efforts)maybe you could get a skin scraping on some of the new areas to see if that shows anything. Sounds like your vet is not ruling anything out and is looking into several possibilities. It's good to have an open-minded vet and I hope you find an answer soon so you can get a little relief and get Cali feeling better. It's so hard to know that something is wrong with your baby but not know what that something is or how to fix it. Good luck.