Today we went to the vet for health certificates - a couple hundred dollars later - we walk out & Roxy was diagnosed with damp-heat at the skin level. I go to a holistic vet & I asked what it was, he said it was a Chinese term - but I didn't get a lot more information from him - as it was crazy there today.
Has anyone else ever dealt with this? I have been reading online - and apparently damp-heat can effect many different parts of the body. Roxy is now on Si Miao San powder - it will be mixed with her food.
She has been licking & chewing her paws - I have been trying to figure out if she had a food allergy or if it was habit. I have been all over the place with trying to figure out if it was food allergy - some of you may have read my previous threads.
They were on Innova (which I like for many reasons) but the paw licking got bad - they were both doing it to a point. But you should see Roxy's legs - she has so little hair left. And this is even after I switched them to Merrick's Before Grain -- I had them on this for months, but their poos were so much bigger, I thought something else was going on with that food. Also, I wanted to switch the food again because I thought what if it is chicken she is allergic to - so we bought a small bag of Wellness Core Ocean Formula - the only dry food without grains or chicken that I could find. Well, both my dogs got constipated on this & the blackest poo I have ever seen.
So, this week after finishing off the Wellness with some canned pumpkin every day - I went & bought Innova Red Meat - thinking if it's the chicken, and not grains we should be ok. But I think her licking has increased this week.
Now with today's diagnosis - I told the vet how I had switched foods & somehow I still left without a definitive answer about the grains. But I just read something online that says with damp-heat the dog should definitely have a grain-free diet. So, I'm off to the store again! I'm just kicking myself, because I wish i had bought the Sojo's Europa when I was at the vet - but I'm getting ready to travel & thought making that would be more of a pain while I'm out of town. Now I want it & when I was at the pet food store the other day all they had was the huge bags - which would take us at least a year to go thru.
I will also be interested to see - if what I thought was leather ear clears up a bit more for Roxy. Really, it's the bridge of her nose more than her ear right now - but I'm sure she had leather ear last winter. The vet had done a short term skin scrapping in December & hadn't found anything.
Oh, the other thing was the vet tech mentioned how hot Roxy's body was - I thought she was talking that Roxy might have a fever - but she didn't have one. This has to do with the damp-heat too, I think. What a difference to hold my 2 yorkies - Bubba feels cool & Roxy's body was a heat box today - I'm hoping I get her off the grains again & with the chinese herb we will see a difference quickly
sorry so long
