Quote:
Originally Posted by pstinard  My understanding is that Apoquel and Atopica don't destroy the immune system, they just suppress it. If you take your dog off of Apoquel, the immune system should bounce right back. I suppose that there could always be rare exceptions, though.
The reason that they use immune system suppressants to treat allergy symptoms is that those allergic reactions (like excessive scratching) are due to the body's overreaction to allergens. The modern medicines suppress that response and relieve the symptoms. An alternative would be to find out what is causing your dog to itch and scratch and remove those allergens from the dog's environment, but sometimes that's nearly impossible, so that's why they prescribe the medicines. Just giving some food for thought... |
Sorry, I used the term "destroyed" instead of "suppressed"
I thought I understood her to say destroyed. I did do some reading and found that it does suppress the immune system..
We actually had allergy tests done on Coco shortly after we adopted her and found out that she is allergic to practically all the grasses in the area where we live
So, she has been on some form of allergy medication since the tests were run which was about 2 years ago.
Thank you for the information.