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Originally Posted by Buster Brown  Buster has a Holistic/Western Vet that I use for regular appointments. We also go to a more Traditional Vet for xrays and emergencies. He also has a Specialist hospital that I use for second opinions and where his Orthopedic Surgeon is located. I am going to do the food elimination trial but was going to use the Nutriscan results to look for indicators of possible problematic foods that may cause triggers. There were some foods that were flagged in his blood tests that I would like to see if they are still triggers since I have not been feeding him these food. He showed an borderline intolerance to berries but they lumped all the berries in one group so I am not sure if it is all berries or maybe only strawberries. Blueberries and cranberries are added to a lot of foods that I have had to exclude. They also lumped in Salmon which he had a positive result to in one of the tests into the other fish mix test so I have had to exclude all fish products. I figured I would exclude all the food that appear as issues in both tests from my elimination trials so as not to add to Busters discomfort. Some people believe in the beneficial properties of antioxidants, omega 3's and 6's, and glucosamine and chondroitin and others debunk their effects. Buster did test positive for environmental issues as well but I wanted to see if I could get a handle on his food issues to better see if they were causing more of the issues. Since I stopped feeding him the main triggers from the blood test of Chicken, Duck, Pork, Turkey, Rabbit, Green Peas and Fish Mix he has greatly improved. Buster has no hot spots or major issues he just scratches and chews his paws occasionally. I tried a food with Millet in it which was not in the blood tests and he seemed to start up scratching again and the Nutriscan test does test for Millet. But it is allergy season so it might not be the Millet so why not use the test as a reference.
We do xrays, cat scans and ultrasound testing with the understanding that they may or may not be able to indicate an ongoing issue as a diagnostic tool and that is what I am planning on using the Nutriscan test as a reference. |
Blood testing for food allergies is not reliable. I paid for these tests about 12 or 13 years ago and I was really mad at my vet when two tests showed inconsistent results. One day Daisy was "allergic" to sweet potatoes, and then upon retest was somehow miraculously not allergic anymore. Most people pay for one set of tests and never see how there are problems with it. I confronted my vet at the time and asked her to explain this apparent lack of consistency and she had no answer - just looked at me with embarrassment. I let it go and met the vet derm shortly thereafter and got my dog on a plan that's worked for 11 years now.
Since everyone keeps mentioning Apoquel, I had an interesting discussion about Apoquel w/ my vet derm just a couple of weeks ago when my dog was flaring. Obviously, this derm uses Apoquel all the time but wouldn't in my dog finding it harder on the liver than Atopica. There have been a couple of dogs who got really sick on Apoquel -- not reported in clinical trials, not widely seen, but discussed on listserves among vet derms. I found that very interesting. I learned also that Apoquel works within 4 hours so if it is a good match, it's great. It's also out of the dog's system in 18 hours if it doesn't work. It is a consideration for my dog as an "add on" if we get desperate but I would not want to use Apoquel in a yorkie unless I knew for sure the dog had a good liver.