u/Shimabui

Hello all I had posted here about a month ago venting about my dog having issues and since then we have been to the dermatologist twice. 2000 more dollars later on top of the hundreds I spent at her primary and we are feeling somewhat better… sort of… but nothing seems to be eliminating the itch.

My dog did wind up having a yeast infection hiding in her nail bed, which she has been on her oral (fluconazole) and wipe (clorohex) medication for for about a month now and since her last recheck the other day, the yeast is almost gone, but not quite gone. She also wound up with mometamax as another topical for her paws because they became quite inflamed during all this. So that’s 3 whole meds for yeast. The paws smell way better than they did and they are less swollen, which is great however, if I take the cone off, even for a second, we are right back to vigorously licking them nonstop. The vet said there was still a small amount of yeast leftover but it’s gone down.

We started zenrelia and it’s been ok? Every post I have seen about the medication makes it seem like it’s some sort of miracle that stopped their dogs allergies instantly unfortunately after a month on it, my dog is maybe like 30% less itchy, but still very itchy. Has anyone had a similar experience? She also received an injection of a new cytopoint adjacent thing called befrena but it certainly hasn’t done much in the past 2 days to reduce her want to itch in my opinion. Maybe it needs more time so I will withhold judgment. Cyclosporine was floated as another alternative but I don’t love the cost and the loading time. Final option is of course thousands more for allergy testing and immunotherapy, making the thousands I’ve thrown at this problem already pointless- and there’s no guarantee any of these other things will work either.

TLDR we are now up to over 2k in credit card debt and 5 entire current medications (7 if you count the discarded apoquel and cytopoint) with only moderate “success”. She still lives in a cone 24/7 to prevent constant paw licking and restarting her yeast infection. All I wanted was to have my dog out of a cone and we have not achieved this goal. I feel like I’ve done everything recommended to me and gotten no significant progress or results out of it besides anxiety and debt. If I could be assured my dog would stop itching I would throw another thousand at this problem but I just can’t afford this constant stream of meds and rechecks with no great results. I know it’s not the vets or really anyone’s fault but it’s literally causing me so much mental health problems between the finances and an obviously miserable dog

I love my dog but I genuinely never want to own another animal ever again after this.

Hello, I have an almost 4 year-old Shiba that was diagnosed two weeks ago at an animal dermatologist with a yeast infection in her paws.

We started with a daily dose of fluconazole and medicated wipes (along with zenrelia) to start getting rid of the infection and address the underlying issues. A few few days ago we also started a round of Mometamax on her paw to help because it was still really bugging her. She’s now been on that 2x daily topically on her paw for 4 days. She also wears a cone 24/7 so no licking can occur.

Her dermatologist and primary are both closed over the long weekend here and I’ve never dealt with a yeast infection on a dog before. Over the past few days the swelling has gone down but the skin is now hard, darker, and flaky. Is this a normal part of the healing process?

Not asking for any specific advice, we have a treatment plan in place, just curious if the skin getting less swollen/pink but flaky/darker is a normal thing. I can’t find any information searching it up unfortunately

I have a 4 year old Shiba Inu who has suffered from seasonal allergies in the spring her whole life. This year I just haven’t been able to get her allergies under control. Hundreds of dollars down the drain on cytopoint and she’s currently temporarily a double dose of apoquel right now. She has no skin infections and has had two exams in the past 3 months. I’m hesitant to start steroids because the allergies are seasonal and by now they usually wind down… not this year.

She’s been wearing a cone full time for almost two months, and I dared to take it off of her today and she chewed a raw spot on her leg fur in the span of two hours. I’m just so frustrated and have no money left to spend on this, and I feel awful for making her wear a cone basically full time for almost 2 months. But nothing else keeps her from ripping her fur out. I’m just afraid she’ll have to wear the cone forever at this point, it feels like there’s no end in sight.