So in the 4 days waiting for the vet appointment the rash got waaaaaay worse. The worst areas have quite a bit of thinning hair, lots of red flaky skin pretty much all over but the worst places are between her front legs, the front/side of her rib cage, ears, and around the backside of her thighs. A few of the blemishes are gooey crusty (like minor infection starting).
The difference is that she has been kenneled during the day (for 4-6 hours), so maybe laying on her irritated skin is bothering her. Maybe it needs to be able to air out. Not sure...but it's a lot worse now.
The vet did skin scrapings and couldn't find any parasites, nor any fungi, abnormal bacteria, yeast or anything like that. So we are treating for sarcoptic mange as it is difficult to confirm via scrapings. We are using Revolution drops for her and Peewee (he has no symptoms as this point). We would like to use Ivermectin, but I am not sure of Roxy's history so we are worried a bit about heartworm (not likely, but why risk it?). Seeing as there isn't heartworm in this area the blood has to be sent out for heartworm testing, so we decided to just go the safe route with Revolution. Revolution isn't as effective for sarcoptic mange as Ivermectin, but if this is the problem we should be able to see a difference at which point we can do the blood test and switch to Ivermectin if the assumed mange needs a good kick in the butt. Revolution on its own might do the trick. Roxy is getting a daily dose of oral Cephalexin (antibiotics) 2x500 mg to prevent a serious infection of the blemishes which could occur seeing as the blemishes are covering so much of her body. Roxy is also getting a once a week bath in Hexadene shampoo which should be fairly effective against mange, and is also a general antiseptic, antifugal, and antibacterial shampoo.
The vet is not suspecting allergies at this point. She thinks that these treatments are a good place to start. I agree. She laughed when I told her I already did skin scrapings (I have a microscope) and didn't find anything.
So...pill the dog, bath the dog, and add drops to her neck. Should be fun...