Mags has been an itchy dog for a very long time but we never thought anything was wrong until we got Abbie. We noticed that what we thought were normal ears, were actually very red and irritated.
So, last October began a journey with her that started with a possible diagnosis of mites and has ended up much worse. At this point she is very young (not even 2) and nothing is life-threatening.
When the treatment for mites didn't help we started getting a little nervous. She started developing aural hematomas in both of her ears beginning in late January early February. At the beginning of February we took her back to our vet and they put her and Abbie on the 'best' mite medicine out there (REvolution) to give it one more shot. About a week after the second dose and 6 weeks on Prednisone that didn't do much for her itching, we took her back again and the vet immediately suggested we get her into Cornell ASAP that something else must be wrong.
I just wish we wouldn't have waited so long. Because of the trauma to her ears from her scratching them, her aural hematomas were big enough that she had to have surgery to remove them. Her left ear A.H. was so big that it caused the cartilage to break down and her ear flopped over from the weight of it. The doc said she doesn't think it will stand up completely again, which originally made me pretty upset, but I think that is the least of the worries now.
The internal medicine doctor was concerned enough about her symptoms to date, including an abnormal breathing episode, that she wanted to test her IgA (immunoglobulin A) level. Unfortunately, the test detected no level at all, which is not a good thing. They took two skin biopsies to assess the correlation of markedly decreased IgA level with her skin and they sent a stool sample to Texas to assess the correlation of markedly decreased IgA level in her GI tract.
We are still holding out hope that this might just be a food allergy, however, it is more likely that the food allergies are a secondary cause as well as her chronic diarrhea to the root problem of her IgA deficiency.
In reading up on it (including the article below), I hate to say that so many of her symptoms match having this challenging problem.
Basically what happens with IgA dogs is the symptoms and diseases that arise get treated as they occur, there is no medicine to cure it or make it go away. I did read that there is mixed success rates with stimulating the immune system to stave off complications from it, and I will definitely do more research on that.
So, I have attached an article that describes in greater detail what IgA deficiency is all about if this turns out to be the cause of her problems. We are hoping that Abbie doesn't end up in the same boat. If either of the tests come back confirming this diagnosis, then we will have to take her up to Cornell and have her tested as well.
The GOOD news is that we will have access to great medical professionals so close to home (Cornell), and that she is an AMAZING dog who is loved so much by us and we would do anything for her!
http://www.gopetsamerica.com/dog-health/selective-iga-deficiency.aspx
Take Care and have a great weekend :)
Traci
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