Wiggle - Day 265

Wiggle has been to see Bridget the dermatology vet today. As I mentioned recently, I'd taken Wiggle off the Atopica to see if his body was able to cope without the drugs.

Unfortunately, Wiggle's not ready to come off the medication just yet. Bridget explained that a good result is for a dog to be on the minimum dose every other day, which in Wiggle's case would be 50mg. Although Wiggle is nowhere near as bad as he was, clearly his body is still having a reaction to the allergens which have caused his skin to become a little pink and one of his ears is inflamed.

So, he has some more capsules to take for the next few months and will start on the higher dose for the first 2 weeks and then drop back to the 50mg every other day. This time of year and the next couple of months are when the allergens are most prevalent and as we don't want Wiggle to start losing fur and scratching again, he will definitely be on the medication for the next few months. In addition, I will still be giving Wiggle his Malaseb bath every 2 weeks.

In himself though, Wiggle is absolutely fine and tomorrow morning he'll be going back to the vets to have blood tests. It's a routine check to make sure that the medication is not affecting any of his major organs etc.

I was maybe being over-optimistic in thinking that Wiggle could cope without the Atopica but considering how bald and itchy he was less than a year ago, Bridget said that to get down to one capsule every other day is a really good result, so that's positive at least.

Of course the downside to todays news is that Wiggle will still be incurring vets bills for LRSE&C, so I'm going to have to think of something we can do to help raise a few pennies towards the handsome chaps ongoing costs ......