Through a series of password mishaps, I've been locked out of my blog for the last few weeks. I'm thinking if I did have any loyal readers, they've now given up all hope of my ever posting again....Well - finally I'm free...and can update what's been going on since we got back from FL.
As I'd said, as the weather got warmer, we were noticing an increase in Jack's itching without changing anything about his diet, which was concerning and discourging. Also Amos was/is scratching as well. The specialist we see is in MA and only travels to ME once per month, so sometimes getting an appt with him is tricky but we can communicate via email.
We wrote and expressed our concern about Jack as well as our concern that the 60 day elimination diet time period was just about up. We were worried about reintroducing "regular" food again as we would not be able to tell if his increased symptoms were due to the external allergens or the new food. He agreed with us about staying on the diet, but as the diet is not 100% nutritionally complete, and is only intended to be used for a set amount of time, we need to add some supplements. We're consulting info found on www.balanceit.com for what's needed.
Additionally, his scratching got so bad week of 3/22 that we resorted to a steroid shot to give him some relief. Unfortunately those only last so long - I expect to see it begin to wear off again in another week or so, poor guy.
We've discussed all of this with the specialist and he does want us to continue with the injections but we are also going to do a skin test for allergies, either to cooberate (sp??) results of the blood tests or get clearer info on what exactly the poor guy's allergic to! We're doing weekly oatmeal baths to help keep the allergins from accumulating on his skin and he can be rinsed off daily to accomplish the same. Right now he's rinsing himself in the muddy stream that runs thru our property in the spring! He "rinses" a couple times daily....
We're not quite ready to tackle Amos' issues but when I do move to a regular (albeit likely home cooked) diet for Jack, we'll move Amos to the same food, and that may help.
So kind of nothing conclusive to report - long, sort of frustrating process to deal with....stay tuned to see where we go next.
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