itchy dog & benedryl questions

[bcnewe]

Howdy all! I am a looooooong time lurker (acme & here) and have a question. One of my girls has inhallant allergies and they always start kicking this time of year. This year has been much worse and she's slowly turning pink. In the past I've given her the occassional benedryl for minor scratching, resorting to prednisone when we had a bad outbreak. This time her skin doesn't look infected, but she is chewing. I wanted to try benedryl before starting prednisone again. She is a lhasa and weighs 14 lbs. I've given her one benedryl a day (on the advice of my vet), and wonder if this can be increased to twice a day while she's so itchy? We're going to the vet next week and I'll check with him, but wanted to ask here as well.

Thanks!

[Mary Plummer]

...a day schedule, but I would definitely recommend talking to your vet first. You may need to try a different antihistamine for her. We've tried several, under vet guidance, and we're using Tavist for him right now with great results. If you're not already doing so, you may want to add a fatty acid supplement to her diet; that's supposed to help some. Is she chewing on her paws mostly? That's what Mr. Blue does, so I also wash down his paws with an anti-itch rinse after our walks. That seems to help, too. Good Luck!

[DeVon]

I have two dogs that get seasonal itchies. Toby, our cocker mix, and Shiloh, our golden mix. My vet recommended 1 mg per pound with the benadryl, and since Mr. Toby weighs 30 pounds, he gets one 25 mg benadryl. Shiloh is 40 pounds and I also stick with the one pill, I'm not comfortable dosing her at 50 mg. I do try and limit to once a day, but will give one every 12 hours when the itching is worse. It's usually limited to a day or two of using it for my dogs. I would go ahead and try dosing your dog every 12 hours, but I'm concerned about a full 25 mg pill for a 14 pound dog. Are you using the 25mg capsules?

[bcnewe]

Yup, I use the 25 mg. capsules per my vet. Actually, both my regular and holistic vet have okayed the dosage. In addition to the seasonal itchies, she sometimes has bad reactions to things unknown and gets welts on her face. When that happens, she gets a benedryl. Because of her size, I'll probably just keep her on one a day until Monday.

Thanks!

[davet]

then go for about 3 days of pred..sometimes if you juust break the itch scratch cycle for a couple days it passes..low dose pred is no problem and it is a quick remedy for releif and stoping the itch trauma....