Anyone know the success rate or have experience with "desensitizing", a dog for allergies?

[NNN0LHI]

I have a dog and she is allergic to a lot of stuff. We had a customized allergy profile done for her so at least we are now only feeding her foods she is not allergic to. But there is so much other stuff she is allergic to that we have no control over. Things like bluegrass, fescue, rye grass, cottonwood/aspen, box elder/maple, pecan/hickory and a bunch of other grasses, weeds, trees and fungi. For those all we can do now is keep giving her medication which we don't like doing.

The company that did her allergy profile is Spectrum Labs, and they can provide us with some kind of "serum", that I think is supposed to overload the allergy receptors after injecting her with the stuff. My vet said some time it works and some time it doesn't but he has not had much experience with this. Never really heard about this process until now and we are skeptical. It is not cheap and neither my wife or I are enthused about having to give the dog injections. Especially if it is a waste of time and money.

Anyone familiar with this process?

Don

[hlthe2b]

1. I think it works best when an animal has just a couple of signficant allergans...

When they react to multiple antigens--especially triggers that share some cross-over component antigens, I don't think the success is particularly good.

The alternatives--especially high dose steroids-- have so many complications over time, though, that you might still give it a try. But, if it does offer relief, just remember you are in it for the long term.

Good luck.

[MiniMe]

2. I have 1 friend who gave their dog allergy shots, and it worked

And 1 friend who tried the shots where it didn't work. In that case, the dog is now on generic benedryl

[NNN0LHI]

3. Thank you and hlthe2b for the help with this

We have been giving the dog a prescription antihistamine called hydroxyzine from my vet that has been costing us about $800 a year and the cost was killing us.

I searched on line and ordered a bottle of a thousand generic benadryl (enough to last over a year for $17 dollars), after you guys posted to this thread and received them by US mail Monday.

She has been on the generic benadryl for five days now and she is doing better on them than she was doing on the expensive hydroxyzine.

You guys really helped me out a lot here.

Thank you both very much again for your suggestions.



Don

[MiniMe]

4. Glad it helped. Had my last dog on them

It does help. Glad your dog is doing better.

[Mosby]

5. We had a dog with bad allergies

He took generic Atarax for years, it was very cheap if I recall but maybe the prices have gone up a lot. He slowly "outgrew" most of his allergies over time and we were able to reduce his dose and eventually take him off it altogether.

edit:

here are the 10mg 30days for 10 bucks:
Hydroxyzine HCl 10mg Tablets
http://www.healthwarehouse.com/hydroxyzine-10mg-tablets.html

the 25mg is 10.75
http://www.healthwarehouse.com/hydroxyzine-25mg-tablets.html

[NNN0LHI]

6. She was taking Hydroxyzine 50mg 3xday so that would still cost close to $400 a year from that site

Then I would need to ask my vet for a prescription regularly which is a real pain. My vet will do it but it seems like he raises the prices of the other services we need to make up for what he isn't making on the medicine he wrote the prescription for. That has been my experience anyway. So I would really prefer having her on something that doesn't require a prescription like the generic benadryl she is doing good on now that costs less than $17 dollars a year.

Thank you for the information.

Don