StarDeb55
05-28-2009, 09:58 AM
As many of you know, I have an 8 yr. old Lhasa boy, Chewy, that I update you on from time to time. I sent an outside e-mail to Alison about a month ago concerning the recent discovery the Chewy appears to be suffering from allergies. Alison has encourage to me post the e-mail on the boards, due to comments that Dr. Lewis, my derm vet, made concerning hyperestrinism. I am copying the e-mail I sent to Alison, so you will have all of the information in context of Chewy's symptoms. I have bolded Dr. Lewis' comments.
last week the groomer alerted me that the hair down Chewy's back was terribly thin, & his skin seemed to be quite dry & flaky. He has always worked on his paws like there is no tomorrow, you look at his pads & they're just screaming red.
Chewy had a follow-up with the eye vet this morning & as I'm sitting there waiting, I'm taking a close look along the middle of Chewy's back, yes, his hair has thinned out considerably. I was stunned though when I flipped his tail back, & here's this big bald spot at the base of his tail, on his butt. I'm thinking, "Great, here's a $300 trip to Dr. Lewis in the derm clinic, as I'm not going to get on the "treadmill" that Barkley & I were on, with 3-4 severe ear infections a year for something like 3 years before the GP sent us to Dr. Lewis. I guess it was fate as the eye & derm clinics are in the same section of the speciality clinic, sharing the same reception desk. I finish checking out with the eye clinic, tell on of the derm clinic girls that I guess I'd better make an appointment to see Dr. Lewis ASAP. Guess what, Dr. Lewis had a cancellation at 230 this afternoon, so we went back down.
I took a copy of Chewy's labs that were done right before last Christmas which included the normal UCCR. Dr. Lewis agrees with me that in all likelihood, it's not Cushing's, nor a thyroid issue. He did skin scrapings, no demodex or anything else suspicious. His paws are pretty badly infected with bacteria. One ear does have a small amount of yeast, while the other, right now, is just an excess production of wax. Poor guy looks like he's got "allergy eyes", too. Derm Clinic is working with Pfizer on a trial allergy medication that Chewy would be an excellent candidate for except his use of Tacrolimus eye drops knocks him out of the trial immediately. Dr. Lewis feels that there is a distinct possibility it may be Alopecia X, or an overproduction of estrogen, but feels more strongly that it's allergy related, even though hair loss usually doesn't occur with allergies. My comment was that with hyperestrinism wouldn't that affect the liver function. He said not necessarily. He said it's more likely that the hair follicles are just extremely sensitive to estrogen, even at normal levels, & react by causing hair loss, so there's a possibility that lignans + melatonin may, also, be on the agenda.
last week the groomer alerted me that the hair down Chewy's back was terribly thin, & his skin seemed to be quite dry & flaky. He has always worked on his paws like there is no tomorrow, you look at his pads & they're just screaming red.
Chewy had a follow-up with the eye vet this morning & as I'm sitting there waiting, I'm taking a close look along the middle of Chewy's back, yes, his hair has thinned out considerably. I was stunned though when I flipped his tail back, & here's this big bald spot at the base of his tail, on his butt. I'm thinking, "Great, here's a $300 trip to Dr. Lewis in the derm clinic, as I'm not going to get on the "treadmill" that Barkley & I were on, with 3-4 severe ear infections a year for something like 3 years before the GP sent us to Dr. Lewis. I guess it was fate as the eye & derm clinics are in the same section of the speciality clinic, sharing the same reception desk. I finish checking out with the eye clinic, tell on of the derm clinic girls that I guess I'd better make an appointment to see Dr. Lewis ASAP. Guess what, Dr. Lewis had a cancellation at 230 this afternoon, so we went back down.
I took a copy of Chewy's labs that were done right before last Christmas which included the normal UCCR. Dr. Lewis agrees with me that in all likelihood, it's not Cushing's, nor a thyroid issue. He did skin scrapings, no demodex or anything else suspicious. His paws are pretty badly infected with bacteria. One ear does have a small amount of yeast, while the other, right now, is just an excess production of wax. Poor guy looks like he's got "allergy eyes", too. Derm Clinic is working with Pfizer on a trial allergy medication that Chewy would be an excellent candidate for except his use of Tacrolimus eye drops knocks him out of the trial immediately. Dr. Lewis feels that there is a distinct possibility it may be Alopecia X, or an overproduction of estrogen, but feels more strongly that it's allergy related, even though hair loss usually doesn't occur with allergies. My comment was that with hyperestrinism wouldn't that affect the liver function. He said not necessarily. He said it's more likely that the hair follicles are just extremely sensitive to estrogen, even at normal levels, & react by causing hair loss, so there's a possibility that lignans + melatonin may, also, be on the agenda.