Skin Problems

We saw a patient by the name of Duke back in October of 2010.  He was emaciated, almost completely hairless, lethargic and his owners were considering having him euthanized because they had been to vet after vet with no consistent results

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With some labwork, skin tests and a culture we were able to figure out (at least partially) what was wrong with him.  His main problem is an underlying autoimmune condition initially brought on by an allergy to something, but now raging out of control.  This condition was causing his small intestines to not properly absorb nutrients such as B vitamins.  It also made the intestinal cells "leaky" so that protein that should have stayed in his body and blood was leaking out into his intestines.  Duke weighed 46 lbs when we first saw him because he could not take advantage of the food he was getting.

To make matters worse poor Duke was bombarded with a variety of secondary infections.  He had a

Pseudomonas aeruginosa in his ears   He also had a Staphylococcus intermedius (bacterial) and a Malassezia (yeast) infection on his skin.

The first bout of treatment for Duke included a topical ear medication for the external ear infection and eight weeks of oral Cephalexin for the Staph infection.  We also started him on medicated baths twice a week. Then we waited a few days for the blood work results to come back and found out he was hypoproteinemic (low blood protein levels) so we started him on Vitamin B injections and Prednisone.  About a week later the ear culture came back and we started him on an antibiotic that the Pseudomonas was susceptible to (Ciprofloxacin).  We saw him again on November 11, 2010 and he was already starting to grow some hair back.

That is when we started to treat him for the Malassezia (yeast) infection with Fluconazole (brand name is Diflucan).  By January he was growing some hair back and was up to 66lbs! 

We saw Duke again on July 25, 2011 and he was actually overweight at 88lbs! I am happy to say Duke is looking great though he now has some hair loss from the chronic use of Prednisone.  It is unfortunate that even the best of medications all have some side effects.  Prednisone is a medication that, especially with chronic use, can have some serious and severe side effects. 

 The next part of Dukes story will be balancing the dose of Prednisone to minimize his side effects, but yet maintain his skin and GI health.  There are some other medications that we can try but for now we are slowly lowering his dose and will see how he does.  With long term problems there are no quick fixes.  Duke has actually come a long way in a short time.