Skin problems - help! Health

Discussion in 'American Bulldog' started by LaurieL, May 6, 2016.

  1. LaurieL

    LaurieL New Member

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    Skin problems - help!

    Hi I'm new here. Searching everywhere to find more information about skin disorders. My 5 yr old AB has suffered with many skin issues. He just finished his second round of antibiotics and his skin on his body seems to be improving. Special shampoo for weekly baths. But the bigger issue is with the sores between his toes. Blistery things. Filled with fluid...always bleeding. Vet took biopsy to rule out cancer. They come and go daily on all toes. They seem to be stumped at what is causing these. Soaking them as much as possible in Epson salt bath. Anybody have similar issues?
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  3. 6JRT's

    6JRT's Member

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    LaurieL and LMost like this.
    Many things can cause skin problems in dogs :
    Grass- some dogs are allergic to grass
    Food-some dogs can't have grain & there's some dog food that's full of E numbers
    Fleas- some dog can have reaction to flea bites
    Heat- dogs can overheat & this can cause sore
    Carpets- dogs can cause sores by rubbing themselves on carpets

    Above is just a few things that can cause dogs skin problems.
  4. LaurieL

    LaurieL New Member

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    Thanks. I have him on a grain free limited ingredient salmon dog food. His skin seems to have improved over the last few weeks but the toe sores just keep coming!
  5. BoerboelMom

    BoerboelMom New Member

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    Hello, Laurie. I would highly recommend purchasing Only Natural Pet Ultimate Daily Canine Vitamins Plus. You should also purchase some Only Natural Pet Brewer's Yeast & Garlic. Instead of antibiotics I would recommend using Only Natural Pet Eye & Upper Respiratory Homeopathic Remedy (contains herbs with antibiotic properties). As far as shampoo, I would recommend Only Natural Pet EasyDefense Herbal Shampoo & Conditioner. The shampoo doubles as flea prevention. I would recommend you stop using any chemical-based flea/tick prevention and use this shampoo and Only Natural Pet EasyDefense Herbal Spray. To heal the sores between his toes, I would recommend purchasing a product called CocoTherapy Organic Virgin Coconut Oil for Pets and applying twice per day directly to the sores. Only Natural Pet Wild Alaskan Salmon Oil is another great supplement to give. Only Natural Pet Pure Icelandic Salmon Oil is a bit more expensive, but better quality, so you can choose the one you can afford. Even better would be to purchase Only Natural Pet Salmon Oil Gelcaps. Only Natural Pet Skin & Itch Homeopathic Remedy is another supplement I recommend. I also very strongly recommend you purchase Only Natural Pet Skin Wellness. This is something I dealt with in my previous dogs, but not my current puppy (new puppy is not vaccinated, has never been given chemicals and will be kept intact) .
  6. Scott64a

    Scott64a New Member

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    Hi Laurie,

    Our AB, Ollie used to get rashes, sores and really irritated areas of his skin but I changed him over to Fromme's food and he improved dramatically.
    The thing is, it's not just his skin, like your dog, but the areas between his toes, too.
    Your dog, like mine, may be allergic to grass, or some plant he keeps walking through, but we don't know exactly what it is.
    The vet we got to is really good, and she said usually the first sign of an allergy is trouble at the feet; red areas, blisters, sores, etc at the toes and between them.
    The last vet said the same thing, though we changed vets because he retired.

    I wouldn't recommend all of the "homeopathic" stuff listed above. The reason is simple: homeopathy is not proven by actual scientific evidence -you know, the evidence they use to test drugs, develop vaccines, fight resistant bacteria, make planes fly, convert fuel to energy, split an atom... science. Homeopathy and homeopathic "medicine" isn't based on actual science; only what people want to believe or want to hear.

    It's nonsense.
    People like to cling to a flimsy belief system in the face of REAL evidence, and well... if I had cancer or heart disease... the last thing I'd do if I wanted to get healthy or find a cure for my disorder would be to seek out "homeopathic" anything. Don't take my word for it, the medical and scientific community is 99% aligned against that nonsense, because it's NOT based on any science and in most cases it does nothing and lets people get sicker and die.
    Here's what people who know better than I do say:
    1. ‘The principles of homeopathy contradict known chemical, physical and biological laws and persuasive scientific trials proving its effectiveness are not available.’
    Russian Academy of Sciences

    2. ‘Homeopathy should not be used to treat health conditions that are chronic, serious, or could become serious. People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness.’
    National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia

    3. ‘These products are not supported by scientific evidence.’
    Health Canada

    4 “Homeopathic remedies don’t meet the criteria of evidence based medicine.”
    Hungarian Academy of Sciences

    5. ‘The incorporation of anthroposophical and homeopathic products in the Swedish directive on medicinal products would run counter to several of the fundamental principles regarding medicinal products and evidence-based medicine.’
    Swedish Academy of Sciences

    6. ‘We recommend parents and caregivers not give homeopathic teething tablets and gels to children and seek advice from their healthcare professional for safe alternatives.’
    US Food and Drug Administration

    7. ‘There is little evidence to support homeopathy as an effective treatment for any specific condition.’
    National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health, US

    8. ‘There is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition.’
    National Health Service, UK

    9. ‘Homeopathic remedies perform no better than placebos, and the principles on which homeopathy is based are scientifically implausible.’
    House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, UK

    10. ‘Homeopathy has not definitively proven its efficacy in any specific indication or clinical situation.’
    Ministry of Health, Spain

    11. ‘There is a constant increase in the quantity of evidence and the conviction of the scientific community in medicine, that homeopathy should be treated as one of the unscientific methods of so-called “alternative medicine”, which proposes worthless products without scientifically proven efficacy.’
    National Medical Council, Poland

    12. ‘From a purely clinical perspective, the fact remains that there is no valid empirical proof
 of the efficacy of homeopathy (evidence-based medicine) beyond the placebo effect.’
    Federaal Kenniscentrum voor de Gezondheidszorg, Belgium

    Whenever I see someone post recommending homeopathic nonsense, they usually show some brand loyalty and it's clear they have bought the lie hook, line and sinker.

    Steer clear of that crap. You'll save a fortune and not waste money and time, (and your pet's health,) on this bunk "science". It's not science. It's a religion for the gullible.



    As for your dog, I recommend using chlorhexidine wipes, (I use Duoxo brand,) and a chlorhexidine shampoo here and there. He's walking in something that's causing an allergic reaction. It could be the salt on the roads in winter, it could be any of the varieties of weed or grass in your yard or along the street where you walk.
    The only way to tell for sure is to conduct a comprehensive allergy test, which costs a bit and takes some time.
    The practical method here is to wipe between his toes with chlorhexidine wipes, give him an anti-inflammatory like Apoquel, or if it's really bad, a steroid, and keep an eye on him.

    We wipe Ollie's toes as often as we can, (usually once a day when whatever it is is in full swing,) and keep it at bay with Apoquel. It works, but it takes a little effort. I know that if I just ignored it, he'd probably lose toes to infection or worse, develop cancer form having a chronic set of sores that never fully heal.

    Epsom salt soaks on occasion help, too.
    American Bulldogs are susceptible to all sorts of allergies, though most only get mild irritations. Consider a couple or few raw, sore spots between the toes as minor. Major is when the rest of the body starts having a histamine response that causes big raw patches of skin, hair loss, infections and the like. I've seen both.

    Steer clear of bogus homeopathy, so you dog doesn't one day require a toe amputation because the homeopathic "cures" don't do anything and an infection or reaction is allowed to roll on without actually being treated. It's not medicine, no matter how hard those who push it believe in it.
    I'm not one to believe something just because someone passionately believes in it, too.
    I like when actual doctors -MDs who studied and tested drugs and treatments under a rigorous set of parameters designed to rule out what DOESN'T work or have an effect get on the case and find out what's really going on; not what someone imagines is happening.

    This is where the rubber meet the road, so to speak. It's testable, it's real and dependable. Homeopathy is not. It's voodoo mumbo-jumbo that somehow, in this "information age" people choose to believe in the face of factual evidence.

    It makes me mad enough to post this long response to this thread in the hopes that you won't fall victim to the charade that is homepoathy.

    Side note: My dad died of cancer, not because treatment wasn't available, but because he chose to listen to his chiropractor, (another non-science BS entity that has been disproven over and over again, and go to homeopathic "medicine" though I, (a paramedic,) urged him to see an actual oncologist and get treatment for his lymphoma. He didn't, and went with homeopathy.
    It did nothing, and the cancer spread, and he died three painful years later when the cancer destroyed the function of his liver, pancreas and spleen.
    Homeopathy doesn't offer a cure. It offers a belief system. That won't cure cancer or treat an allergic reaction.
    All it will do is let things get worse as you spend a fortune on junk that was never put through trials and testing.

    Ditch that nonsense.
  7. Scott64a

    Scott64a New Member

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    Let's see: Pushing a range of homepathic junk, All or mostly from the same brand name, no vaccinations...


    You don't believe in vaccinations, or actual medicine... though you were probably vaccinated against whooping cough, diptheria, polio, measles and the like... and even though polio was ERADICATED in the US... you think vaccinations are wrong and probably believe that they cause cancer, autism, you name it.

    Vaccines work, dummy. Coconut extract DOESN'T.

    How dare you give such bad advice to someone trying to fix their dog's skin irritations and allergies? You're basically telling them to do nothing but spend a fortune on a range of products that:
    A: Aren't designed to or proven to treat the above-listed conditons,
    B: Aren't tested to see if they actually DO anything to help the above-listed conditons,
    C: Have been disproven a thousand times by research staff run by real doctors, vets and goverment bodies designed to keep people from being poisoned or mislead by bogus cures,
    D: Cost a fortune,
    E: Rely on scare tactics used to discredit the hundreds of thousands of people involved in treating disease, testing treatments and drugs, finding the causes of disease and making sure that what IS recommended isn't toxic or poisonous.

    I suppose you think that all of those people who went to school, studied hard, practiced medicine and conducted trials, testing and rigorous development are all just in on some vast conspiracy to undermine "natural" and "safe" treatment of medicines?
    The reality is that it's the homeopathic witch doctors that are flying in the face of reason here and conspiring against people who devote their lives to medicine to make a fast buck off of people's ignorance.

    They're the conspirators, not the scientific community. They're the bad actors.

    Only on the internet will you find people defaming an entire group of communities who devote their lives to medical science with good intentions and that back up their claims through trials and testing, regardless of what they personally believe and for the sake of finding out the truth. The real, testable and concrete truth.

    How much more wrong or backward can that be?


    Think about it.
    The people pushing for psuedo-science and for bogus treatments have NO evidence that they're nonsense works... they rely on smear campaigns against some spooky shadow operation of collaborators that are actively trying to undermine the health of people and animals. So they say.

    Who would you suspect of committing such fraud?
    The hundreds of thousands of people who work in medical science, or the few hundred who simply claim that there is a conspiracy and that the facts don't matter?

    This lady wants to clear up and heal her dog's allergic reaction and you recommend $500 worth of crap that won't do a damned thing to help.

    I'd say you are the one who is conspiring -against goodness and truth.
  8. CaroleC

    CaroleC Member

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    Hi Scott. This thread was last visited in 2016. The Only Natural fan doesn't visit the site any more. I seem to recall that her puppy contracted a disease that would have been covered by vaccination. I don't think she posted again after that.

    Your detailed post could be very useful to the owners of other dogs with skin problems.
    Personally, I agree about homeopathy, but I have several friends who claim to have cured complaints this way, and strongly believe. To each, his own.
  9. Sarah Cartwright

    Sarah Cartwright New Member

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  10. Sarah Cartwright

    Sarah Cartwright New Member

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    Hi, I’ve only just joined this forum! I hope my reply will help your dog.
    I have a 9yr old American bulldog, who has suffered with many skin problems. After spending £1000’s of pounds on tests skin allergy, blood tests etc, I changed my vet.
    I had taken him initially about his ears and as we were leaving the vet noticed a small black scab on his back leg just above his pad and then examined the rest of his paws and suggested a skin condition called furronculosis and bring him in for a biopsy the next day.
    To cut short he was right in his diagnosis as his biopsy was positive.
    After five years of tests etc my new vet had diagnosed him on meeting him. I was over the moon as we finally had a diagnosis. In short he told me that we would try predisolone steroids but wasn’t sure of how he would tolerate such a high dose as he is 75kg. After a week, although his blisters between his toes had improved slightly his quality of life was affected and he was drinking excessively and was miserable. On returning to the vet he said the only cure was a medicine called Modulis and it is very expensive. It worked out £130 every thirteen days and it wasn’t a permanent treatment he should only need it for approximately 6 months and then possibly a much less expensive maintenance dose.
    The Modulis has cured him and I’ve had to put him on a lower dose to keep it at bay but after the initial dose it was minimal cost in comparison to the initial dose. I now buy it perhaps once a year if he has a flare up.
    After years of frustration and cost my local corner vet diagnosed this and I had been taking him to a high end commercial vets for five years with no result.
    I hope this helps.
  11. CaroleC

    CaroleC Member

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    I'm glad that you seem to have got on top of your AB's problem, and hope this might help someone else too.
    Welcome to Breedia, Sarah and Reggie.

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