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Dermatology Photo Gallery
Week 11 Progress Report
The Dogs: at the start of the week, the decreasing prednisone dose was taking its toll. Early in the week, Asia seemed to become markedly more itchy and started licking a lot (flanks and under her tail) and chewing her feet. She also had a periodic rash on her belly. Simba's changes weren't as drastic, although he seemed to be concentrating on his feet and developed several red and raw spots on his hind feet. Overall, they just seemed more pink/red and uncomfortable. Their symptoms were really variable even within a single day though, especially on Asia. At one point her skin would look fine, and an hour later she might start licking and then look a terrible red patchy color.
At the beginning of week 11, Simba was due to have a recheck of his urinary tract infection. He had done a 10 day course of antibiotics, and was symptom free, except for having an accident in his kennel on the morning I collected his urine sample, oddly enough. Unfortunately, his sample showed up positive for blood and a few calcium oxalate crystals, causing some concern there might be a stone, so we decided doing abdominal radiographs would be the best bet. After a couple of inconclusive results (Simba's intestines were getting in the way) Dr. G. did an "air cystogram", injecting air into his bladder to get better contrast. Happily, there was no stone. This was good, but the fact that Simba still had blood in his urine was worrisome, as it is unusual for male dogs to get recurrent urinary tract infections. So, Dr. G. decided to culture his urine again, and started another course of antibiotics. I remarked that it was bad enough dealing with the skin problems; we don't really need extra problems piled on top! The culture revealed the presence of one bacteria this time, and Dr. G decided to change antibiotics and do another urine culture at the end of treatment to see if the bacteria was cleared.
Food Trial: I forgot to banish Simba at breakfast one day and he swiped a piece of toast. He was truly driving me crazy, and I think it is mostly that he wanted more food! Out of pity, I gave them a couple of apples this week (stuffed into their Kong toys) when they were really hounding me for food.
Next week: off of prednisone - for better or for worse.
