Complementary Treatment For Dog Allergies

When you visit the vet to find treatment for your ailing dog it is very likely that they will prescribe some form of medication such as corticosteroids or antihistamines. These conventional treatments may treat the skin allergy directly but you have to take into consideration things such as whether there may be any side effects from taking the drugs, whether the treatment is dealing with the cause of the allergy or simply covering up the signs of the scratching. You also have to determine whether the treatment will give long term benefit or harm to the dog.

Traditional medicinal treatment of skin allergies in dogs is not the only avenue of treatment available to you. Just as natural treatment is available to people for the treatment of their ailments, so is the alternative for pets. For the treatment of atopic dermatitis in dogs there are three methods of complementary treatment that can work effectively.

These three complementary treatments are topical treatments, nutritional supplements such as fatty acids and antioxidants and finally, a proper diet. By introducing or increasing the use of these three methods of treatment, it can actually turn out that there is no need to use corticosteroids or antihistamines.

One of the most vital ways of treating your dog’s skin allergy is to avoid the allergens that are causing the allergic reaction. You won’t be able to avoid every allergen in the environment but you can remove a majority of them through frequent bathing and conditioning. Bathing your dog regularly will help remove many of the allergens that are absorbed into the dog’s skin. Doing so will make your dog less itchy and a dog that is less itchy will scratch less.

Frequent bathing means 2 or 3 times per week with a shampoo and conditioner during the allergic season. As you notice the scratching decrease, the bathing frequency can also be reduced. This frequency will vary depending on the severity of the itching experienced by your dog. A severely allergic dog may require daily bathing until greater comfort is achieved.

An allergic dog will benefit greatly from a number of nutritional supplements. Look for supplements such as enzymes, green foods, fatty acids and health formulas containing antioxidants to add to their food bowl. Adding any or all of these supplements to the dog’s diet won’t automatically cure a dog’s atopic dermatitis and there is no one product that is best for all dogs.

Using nutritional supplements will take a few weeks before any improvements are noticed. Supplements can be used in concert with one another or alone, alternatively you can give higher doses to begin with before scaling it back and the treatment might have to be used along with conventional treatment. What you are hoping to find is that through the use of the supplements the need for conventional drug therapy is reduced more quickly.

Nutritional supplements should only be used under veterinary supervision. The supplements should meet the following criteria:

• They should be safe for your dog.
• They should taste good to your dog.
• They should be reasonably priced, although if it is found that terrific results can be achieved with a certain supplement cost may not be a factor.
• They should not interfere with other therapies.
• A recommended dosage should be available.

When we talk about a suitable diet as a complementary therapy treatment for a dog with a skin allergy we are talking about raw foods and glandular products. Both of these types of foods are used to treat diseases.

Raw foods might be a processed raw food supplement of a number of different types of vegetables that have been blended together to give all of the biochemical components to supply, for example, vitamin C. The idea is that you are supplying your dog the entire nutritional value found in the raw food rather than the fraction you would get with a chemical vitamin.

Put simply, diets that are high in fresh fruits and vegetables give your dog the necessary protective benefits that a synthetic vitamin will not.

Glandular products are extracted from the glands of cattle, swine or sheep and then concentrated. The aim of using these products is to make use of the high biochemical activity that is contained within. So instead of a vet prescribing a chemically produced thyroid hormone, they can prescribe a glandular extract from the thyroid gland of an animal.

Using any or all of these complementary allergy treatments will not necessarily cure your dog completely of scratching. Nor will it mean that conventional medication won’t be required. What it may mean is that there may not be as high a level of drugs required or the drugs may not have to be administered in way that is quite as invasive, i.e. orally rather than injected.

With any type of treatment that you decide to go for, only do so under the guidance and instruction of your vet.