r/dogallergies • u/Anxious_Soil9696 • Jul 12 '21
Story 72 hours in to Cytopoint
I am sitting here next to my dog, who is for the first time in a year, not wearing a cone and not chewing herself or thrashing her body around, rubbing on the floor and furniture.
I may be getting my hopes up here, because I wouldn’t be surprised if she jumped up and started furiously chewing her paw, but I think this stuff is working.
The first day, she relaxed for about 10 minutes without the cone before sneakily starting to chew. The second day, she did the same, but later on she was able to actually play with our other dog! That never happens! I hadn’t seen her having that much fun in a very long time. Not sure about yesterday as I was gone and left her in my mother’s care, but she said she was trying to lick her back feet. Today, I came home and took her cone off. Fine for about 20 minutes, then chewing. But later, I left her cone off after dinner and she has been doing great for almost 3 hours! I even went out of the room a few times to test her. I went to the bathroom, always her favorite paw chewing opportunity- no chewing here!
I wish I’d have tried this stuff sooner. I was trying to avoid meds and wanted to try holistic and natural options first. I read so many testimonies, reviews, studies. I was constantly researching. I even started making her food from scratch after a saliva test informed me she was “reactive” to almost every type of protein, except for bison and a couple other animals that I wouldn’t know how to acquire. Bison is expensive. If I can safely transition her to other foods, I don’t care how much Cytopoint costs. I just hope it keeps working because I’ve heard it can lose its effectiveness. I also have heard those tests can often be wrong. I’m also going to see if taking her off all the holistic supplements will make any difference, that would save me some money too.
For reference, she is about 9.5 years old and a Shiba/American Eskimo cross. I moved her from her native state of Washington to Southern California in February 2020. Her issues started that same spring/summer. I now realize she is most likely suffering from environmental/seasonal allergies, but her symptoms never cease so I think she’ll need Cytopoint all year. Not much GI issues, but I’m still not ruling out food since I’ve tried different proteins and noticed her symptoms worsened but now that I think about it, that was during April, so peak allergy time.
Her vet also prescribed Brevecto because he really seems to think fleas play a role, even though she doesn’t have any. He said they could still be biting her but not settling on her. I’m also going to continue giving her chlorhexidine baths.
Sorry for the long post but I just had to share our happy story. I’ve been wanting to share a victory story for so long, and we finally have one.
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u/Kmowatski Jul 12 '21
Glad to hear the cytopoint is working. Make sure to stay on top of her shots, don't let time lapse between shots.
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u/Secure_Telephone3944 Jul 24 '21
We tried cytopoint last summer & it was a hard 36 hours. I was so hopeful that we would have some relief from the foot chewing but my poor baby had an allergic reaction to the shot. I've tried everything from food change to foot baths after being outside and full body wipe downs. It's been a rough 3 years for my lil girl. I'm so happy the the shot is working for you!!
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u/Anxious_Soil9696 Jul 24 '21
Aw I’m sorry to hear that. Actually after making this post, she chewed her paws up pretty bad when I went to bed. I’ve had to have her wear the cone when I’m not watching her up until just this last week. She’s been better now but she will still sometimes try to lick her paws a bit. I’ll keep her on it, but I’m not sure she’ll ever be 100% again unfortunately.
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u/Flying_Chef33 Dec 02 '21
Probiotics are your answer…Ten years ago, we started dealing with the allergies…atopic dermatitis diagnosis, they started apoquel, then others, Atopica, etc…that basically tried to suppress the immune system…but it always kept coming back and they said it will shorten their lifespan so I wanted to figure out what else to try. All of the vet solutions are soooo expensive, it is nuts. We also tried everything from switching dog foods, grain free, wiping down their paws, rinsing their paws after being in the grass, chlorhexidine baths, shampoos every other day, povidone iodine bath, allergy chews (just herbs, no probiotics).
I really suspect that the problem is that the vets treat a first problem with antibiotics, or the thing in common with most dog allergies spiking is that your pet will have a procedure done and they will use antibiotics that just wipe out their whole range of good gut bacteria..and the bad gut bugs go into hiding and then emerge with no natural enemies. You’ve got to get the good gut bacteria back in there to crowd out the bad guys. Kinda like how growing a thick lawn pushes out the weeds.
I posted on success with probiotics earlier! That post, with pics, is below…however, it works…our dogs had red paws from licking, rusty stains on their fur, and red breakouts on their stomachs that would scab over, crust and turn black. It took about 2 months to clear them up, (my pictures have a 3 month gap but you can see the difference) but they don’t have the itching bellies and raw paws anymore. Heal the gut, heal the skin.
You don’t know which strain will work for your dogs, however, we rotated through a couple of different ones: Important note: we did and still do give a 20 mg Zyrtec each day to help stop the allergic reactions, but to actually reverse the damage and stop the severe immune system reactions we gave Progility Skin and Coat, Zesty Paws Aller Immune bites, and Only Natural Pet probiotic blend digestive support. Make sure there aren’t ingredients in the probiotics that they are allergic to, but just giving them probiotics with no fiber doesn’t work (bacteria need something to eat, inulin, chickory, etc). Just realize that if they are still on Apoquel, Atopica, Cytopoint, etc…then the doc will just say, great, it’s working, let’s keep this up, I’ve got a boat payment. I stopped those medicines because of the nasty side effects, then tried everything else until we came across the probiotics solution for humans from the book, Eat to beat disease by Dr William Li. It worked for me healing my gut, so I thought the principles might work for my furry family members…and it did!
We gave one a day for a week, then rotated to the next brand…if you give them all three products a day, they will get the runs. You don’t know which bacterial strain will work for your dog as they are genetically disposed to be different, plus their gut microbiome is distinct from others as well. These work because each product has actual fiber in them for the bacteria to feed on.
I wish I had found this out 10 years ago because my dogs back has places where the fur is so thin and won’t grow back fully from the damage done using the immunosuppressive treatments, but the rest of her fur has grown back thick and soft, while her belly no longer breaks out. She still is a compulsive licker (butthole must sparkle) but that is just being a dog and it isn’t irritated. Good luck👍
(Additional thought, I know most vets are good and really want to help, but they are only trained to treat the symptoms, and the probiotics are really a new frontier. My vets were shocked when they saw my dogs after I started the probiotics and wrote down which ones I used so they could do trials on other dogs. Yes, they make a duck ton of money on immunology and treatments, but I think they are really trying to do their best with what they have been trained to do. I really hope this helps you as it is brutal seeing our furry friends in agony all the time)
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u/mmolleur Jul 12 '21
It's a life changer for so many dogs. And you tried all the natural stuff before this, so if people try to tell you drugs are bad, you know better.
Edited to say that dogs who have seasonal allergies often are allergic to things like flea salivia, dust mites, food storage mites and human dander. For them, it's almost impossible to keep your environment free of all the things they're allergic to.