Really bad skin.

Question
QUESTION: Hi. My dog, an 8 year old Black Lab, has had really bad skin problems. He is really itchy, and he is loosing hair all over legs and a little bit on his face. His skin is, i guess scaley, and is sweaty-like. His skin also flakes alot. We have tried medicines and special shampoos, he almoste got completely better, but it just came back. Do you know what is wrong? And what we could possibly do?

ANSWER: It sounds like he has seborrhea. Have you had this diagnosed by a vet? This could also be mange or even ringworm. He needs to have a skin scraping done to determine what he has. This is not something you can leave to chance and treat on your own. It sounds like you had some medical care but was a scraping done? Ringworm and mange itch, seborrea itches some but is more sweaty.

Diet plays an important part of the equation also but since I don't know what you are feeding I can't comment on that.
The sweatiness that you are describing is what seborrhea sounds like. It will never go away but can be managed with medications, baths and diet.

Let me know if you get him in and what the vet finds. That needs to be the first step.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: We're feeding him, kibbles n bits. but before that we had him on Iams. We took him to a vet, and they said that he had an infection. I think it was a bacterial. That's all i know.

Answer
In that case you need to get him onto a hypoallergenic food such as Hill's Z/D. This is a prescription diet that the vet carries. It will help with the problem while it is being sorted out with medications.

If he has a bacterial infection is he on long term antibitoics? Have you discussed diet with the vet?
Both Iams and Kibbles and bits are bad diets and are certainly not for dogs with skin like this. He needs to be on an hypoallergenic elimination diet to help calm his skin down.
This is where Z/D comes in. There is also D/D which is a dermatitis diet and you could start with that. It is a bit less extreme than the Z/D in strictness of ingredients.

Here is a link to the diet and what it's about:
http://www.hillspet.com/hillspet/products/productDetails.hjsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_i


That is about all I can tell you for now. You need to enlist the help of your vet in finding an answer to his misery. He should be willing to help you with diets and information. Ask questions and don't stop until you get answers for him.

Please let me know what you find out and how he progresses.