Veterinarian explains Pet Allergies
Veterinary dermatologists like our friends Dr. Terry Grieshaber, ACVD of the Circle City Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Hospital, and Dr. Lori Thompson, ACVD of the Animal Dermatology Clinic, like to explain pet allergies in terms of what they call a �threshold model�.
The threshold model suggests that if your pet has �allergies�, she has the potential to show symptoms at any time during the year. The variable determining whether she is symptomatic is the total number of her allergy triggers that she is exposed to at any given time. If she’s exposed to all of them at the same time, she’ll show symptoms. If she’s exposed to none of them, she won’t.
Springtime Pet Allergies
Let’s say its springtime, and your dog is allergic to lamb, dust mites, fleas, oak trees and grass. Let’s also say she’s eating a lamb-based diet, she has fleas, and she spends most of her time outdoors rolling in the grass and breathing in oak tree allergens. Since she is exposed to ALL her allergy triggers at once, she chews her feet, shakes her head and scratches her back like it’s her job.
Now let’s say you change her to a prescription hypoallergenic diet, she’s on monthly veterinary-strength flea prevention, and to reduce dust mites you change your furnace filters monthly, have a HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner, and take meticulous care of her bedding. Great!! Her symptoms are probably a lot less. You may not even need prescription medication for her allergies at all. Congratulations!
If, however, after all those wonderful management changes she still shows symptoms, it’s probably because she’s still exposed to her airborne and contact allergens, like the oak and the grass. No matter how you try, there isn’t a darn thing you can do to keep every last airborne spring and fall allergen out of your home. Plus, she has to pee, right?
Prescriptions for Allergies
That’s when prescription drugs, prescription topicals, prescription supplements and prescription shampoos may come into play, to reduce the body’s excessive response to the allergens. We can discuss various options at Leo’s Pet Care, but here’s the key � if, on any given day during �allergy season�, your dog is exposed to her allergen triggers, you will probably need to give her some sort of medicine.
You might not get to stop giving pills at the end of your pet’s first prescription of the season, because those 20 pills don’t CURE the allergy. Allergies are chronic and recurrent, but they can be managed with chronic and recurrent vet visits.
A veterinary diagnosis of �allergies� means a lifelong prescription of ongoing, daily management on your part, closely monitored by your family veterinarian.
What else have you found that works to reduce allergies & symptoms in your pets?
