What are the common treatments for dog allergies?

As you can see by what I've got here on my table, there's quite a bit that's out there. It's not uncommon that your veterinarian might recommend combining these to get your pet the most relief and try to get things managed the best we can.

And so, here I have a bunch of ear flushes that we use here. I also love to use bathing therapy. I think it's beneficial and sometimes prevents us from using oral antibiotics. I've also got things like Omega-3 Fatty Acids and some medicated sprays.

And then, a lot of times, we'll recommend either Cytopoint or Apoquel to help with your pet’s itching because that tends to be one of the most common symptoms. Apoquel and Cytopoint are great tools that we have to help manage your pets itch.

Sometimes we'll recommend a hypoallergenic diet if we get to that point and feel like that will be beneficial to your pet. And then, any pet with allergies benefits from being on flea and tick prevention, but of course, I'm going to recommend full prevention, so heartworm, intestinal parasite, and flea and tick, which we have here. Simparica Trio does everything; BRAVECTO here does fleas and ticks. And we carry both of these in the clinic.

It depends on the allergy. If we have a seasonal allergy sufferer, so environmental allergies, we'll often start treating them the day that we suspect they have that disease. Hopefully, if your dog is allergenic to things in the environment, we'll be able to get some relief for them within one to two days, sometimes within hours after we start our treatment. If it's a food allergy, it can often maybe a couple of months to see full results for those patients.

First, let's identify. There are four different types of allergies we see. In order, the most common ones we see are seasonal allergies followed by indoor or what we call environmental allergies. The third would be food allergies, and the least common, surprisingly to most people, are flea allergies. The treatments depend on what the allergy is. If it's fleas, we have to get the appropriate flea medication. If it's food, we're going to try to identify what the source of the food is and then change the diet and get away from that ingredient. When it comes to seasonal and indoor allergens, it becomes a lot more complex mainly because we want to identify the season or seasons of the year causing the problem or if it's a year-round problem. There are lots of ways we can try to manage those problems. We generally have three different medications we'll commonly reach for. One is cortisone, or what we call Kenalog. That's an injection that we commonly give. Many veterinarians use prednisone tablets. Perhaps you've had an experience with prednisone or prednisolone to manage allergies. The newer products we've had for 6, 7, 8 years now. One is called Apoquel, and the other's called Cytopoint. Apoquel is a tablet, and Cytopoint is an injection. They don't have the side effects that cortisone does, so it makes them a great choice. We have to see the pets in order to decide what's going to be the best course of action to try to manage or treat the allergies.

Common treatments for dog allergies include shampooing to remove allergens, allergy testing and hyposensitization to desensitize the pet to certain allergies, medications like corticosteroids, Apoquel, and Cytopoint (a canine antibody against a cellular receptor for itch). Antihistamines and other treatments are less helpful.

The common treatments for dog allergies include steroids, which are quite popular. There are also monoclonal antibody treatments, with Cytopoint being the current patented option. Apoquel is another option in pill form, but its effectiveness can vary, and it can be expensive. Additionally, you can try over-the-counter antihistamines like Benadryl and Zyrtec to manage your dog's allergies.

We often use antihistamines, but we also sometimes prescribe drugs such as Aboquil, Cytopoint, or even Prednisone.