Pyoderma in dogs

My dog is petrified of storms. Something about them scares her. Every summer (storm season), my dog gets a skin bacterial infection called Superficial Pyoderma. My vet says her immune system is lowerd due to her extreme stress/fear and the natural bacteria acts up on her skin. Which means every year I must take her to the vet and buy the same antibiotics and steroids, which we have just done again recently. I was wondering if there were any over the counter remedies I could use. I'm trying to get advice from other vets or professionals in the field because I'm starting to wonder whether if my vet is legit on the treatments, or is he just taking advantage of the fact that I'd pay anything for her? Isn't it true that she will eventually become resistant to the antibiotics since she has been on them so much? I heard that humans can become resistant to antibiotics. I just want to know if all those pills are really necessary, or if there is an over-the-counter treatment.

Hey there! welcome! Few questions first off?

What medications is your dog on?
What do you feed your dog?

Do you treat her with any medications for the storm issue? What does the vet say about the immune system issues related to the medication?

Hi, thanks!

She is on Ciprofloxacin - antibiotic, dexamethasone - steroid, and some fish oil pills to help her skin heal. She isn't on anything for the storms. The vet gave these meds to heal the skin and the infection within. He said her immune system was fine, but it lowers it's ability to fight infection when she is scared or really stressed, which gives the natural skin bacteria the opportunity to go against her body. I was just wondering if there is an over the counter cream I could use on her skin when it pops up; I know some people give their dogs benadryl when they have allergies. I was just worried about pumping her up on all these meds.

Benadryl is okay for use in a pinch really but I would be concerned about getting to the root cause of the problem.

What are you feeding her?

I'm feeding her Iams for adult large dogs, sometimes we use Eukanuba

Have you ever tried a food change? I know your probably thinking I am crazy but if you look into the ingrediants in dog & cat food you would be really amazed. Especially once you know what a few things mean. It can be a little overwhelming but well worth a change in the long run.

My lab is 10 and for the first almost 8 yrs of his life I fed him vet prescribed crap as I now call it. My pup had really bad skin issues and was always itchy, with red welts that would almost look like a large chicken pox. He would have ear infections and his poop was horrible. Having said that I made the change to a good quality food and honestly everythin went away. I no longer had to go and get prednisone for the itchies and the metronadizone for the loose stools and to boot I was paying alot for the vet food.

If you take the time to search around the forum there are tons and tons of posts about food. For starters a few things I would most definately change are: go with no grains, no by products and perhaps choose something where the first few ingrediants are meat..not meat by products, just meat and it will likely show meat & a meat meal. Some examples would be Wellness, Orijen, Acana. Basically there food ingrediants work like a humans so the main quantity is the first item.

I feed Orijen which is 75 % meat and 25 % fruits & vegetables. Something I never thought about really was that in the wild dogs are carnivours so they eat meat..they dont eat corn or wheat unless digested through prey. However there are tons of things to learn abnout food and I really think if you gave a new food a try it may help with skin issues...it did for us!

Oh an I really like the fact that Orijen is a Canadian Company! I just checked out some of the Iams products and there is very little meat in them!

Have a look around and there will be more people around with food answers for you!

While her infection may be due to an immune system issue, which could be affected by food, I'd wonder why her immune system is fine the rest of the time. I know that stress does some really bad things to the human body, and I wouldn't doubt that dogs are the same but if the stress brings on the infection, then I'd say treat the stress before it ever has a chance to bring on the infection. Have you talked to your doctor about a mild sedative for the storms? Have you ever worked on desensitizing your dog to the noise of the storm?

To answer your questions: No, there really isn't an over the counter treatment for bacterial infections and yes the infection could easily become immune to the antibiotics - and they can also have some unpleasant side effects when used for long time periods. Steroids also have side effects.

After many visits to the vet, she concluded it was an allergy and I give my dog Medical Hypoallergenic food. It's a fortune but it helps a bit.

good luck