This medication saved my dog (warning: yuck pictures inside)

Dear Steemians, as you might or might not know I adopted this little stray dog about a 1,5 year ago. I had expected these dogs to be very strong in health, because the are used to living on the streets and surviving everything. This is not really the deal with my dog. Even though he is the sweetest animal alive, he is kind of a problem child in his health.

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In February he started developing all kinds of itchy spots, where his hair would fall out. The veterinarian gave us prednison for his itch. Indeed his itchy complaints disappeared, but he got a whole line of side effects in return for it. He would just sleep the hole damn day, no energy left in the animal. He would scavenge for food everywhere, as if he never got any food from us, while normally he does not care for food that much. Also his drinking routine became really crazy. He started to drink like 6 containers of water a day, where he would normally do 1 a day. This also had effect on his bladder of course, he would let urine run in the house without the ability of holding it. And in the meantime looking at us like : 'sorry guys, I really cant help it, and I dont know what is happening to me'.  So we were really happy the treatment ended fast, and he would turn back to normal with no itch no more.

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About a month later it starts again, only now the itchy hairless spots turn into pussy, bleeding spots with risk of infection of course. We start the prednison again, and do an allergy test on the dog. Results came back, and the animal turns out to have more than 25 allergies.. Say whaaaaaat. For all kinds of elements in food, for bushes and trees, for ants and cockroaches, name it...he has it. His immuunsystem is suppressed, and he for sure he can not stay on prednison forever, he would have a miserable life.

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So the vet comes up with  an option for us to try, a relatively new type of mediation named Apoquel. You have three types of dosages, depending on the weight of your animal. It does all what prednison does, only with zero side effects.

We are skeptic, but give it a try. I have to say, it works fantastic and I am super happy we found this option for our animal. There are two con's for it. It is REALLY expensive, and the long term results most likely will do some damage.

But as my human friend with psoriasis always says:'i'll take the experimental drug that will kill me five years earlier, but at least I had 60 years without itching in stead for it.'

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This article was also written in Dutch by me on a Dutch blogging site here

Yeah you are right, I like dogs, and I like to write about them, check out these posts

https://steemit.com/animals/@karinxxl/world-animal-day-2017105t142025502z

https://steemit.com/animals/@karinxxl/dogs-and-digging-2017103t214445133z

https://steemit.com/animals/@karinxxl/stray-dog-turns-into-our-guard-dog-2017929t19554989z