Symmetrical Lupoid Onychodystrophy Slo

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Well, I have been fortunate enough to have found some of the threads on SLO, even though you can't search for three letters. A little back story:

 

Over the summer I changed their food. Biggest mistake ever. They were on TOTW Pacific Stream, which was working fine for me. But I got all thoughtful and decided they might need a change in protein, and tried to save some money since Fancy has had TWO tumors removed this year, etc. Fed them Purina for two months. Fancy chewed all her fur off, Tempe got a hot spot (a real one that I've never even seen before in my life! alarming!) and Jesse licked his feet. OFF.

 

Soo...Jesse has always been a foot licker, since the day I got him, and I chalked his up to seasonal allergies. They kept getting worse. Saturday they bled, for real, and one of his nails looks dead, like it's going to fall out.

 

Vet yesterday. She says we have to "climb the ladder". Treat with fungal spray, and anti-biotics. However, she is a genious and recognized that it does look like the very very early stages of SLO. He is on the Derm Caps, and Rimadyl in additional to the other stuff. We don't want to start him on the Vit E, in case he gets the runs and we don't know which med is causing them. It's been a lot to take in.

 

The Grassmere site is the one I took with me to the vet, she looked it over and said she did use some of those things to treat the ONE other dog in her practice that ever had it. When I left she was trying to remember the other dog owners name. The Grassmere site seems to be the one everyone is going with? He has three toes, on three different feet that look like Desi's did. (my apologies to Desi's owner for using his name here) So I was really hoping it turns out to be fungal. But I am trying to prepare myself for SLO.

 

It seems to me that there are quite a few dogs with foot troubles this year, something I've never really heard of before. I haven't been on the board that long, so just wondering if anyone can tell the occurrences are becoming more frequent?

 

I have him back on TOTW, NONE of my dogs are getting any other commercial dog food or treats, and I am just so angry right now. What the heck is in the "regular" dog food that is making everyone so sick? And by the way, they were never totally grain free, when I fed TOTW for two years, they got two milk bones a day. The big ones!! So what the heck is going on? Oh and my favorite part about the Grassmere site is at the bottom where it says a change in food is thought to be a possible trigger. Oh goody, it really is all my fault.

 

Well thanks for letting me vent, I think I will join the support group on Yahoo. At least I won't feel alone

 

Any suggestions are welcome!

[tbhounds]

The traditional treatment protocol is tetracycline, (or doxycyline) niacinimide (not niacin) and EFA's. Sometimes a short course of prednisone is needed to reduce immediate infammation. This was the protocol prescribed to me by a certified dermatologist (and gh owner). It helped put my boy's condition in remission however, his nails were never considered normal again.

I'm not sure you are dealing with slo as it doesn't sound like your hound is losing nails. A biopsy would determine if it's slo or not however, it's a rather painful procedure-- easier to treat with the above protocol and await results.

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Thanks for your reply, sorry you are going through this. You are right, his nail hasn't fallen out yet, although it is sideways and looks dead. The vet said it would probably be for the best if that one fell out. Since he hasn't lost any nails yet, we are starting treatment as fungal/bacterial. To keep all the meds from interacting, we only added rimadyl and fish oil. That's what I'd like to start him on anyway if it is SLO. Biopsy and Pred would be last resort, if we can't get results from the other recommendations. Vit E is next on my list, after I make sure the Derm Caps don't make him sick. He is also on clindomyicin for 28 days, that's a long time! I would fully believe fungal/bacterial if that one nail wasn't so bad. Still hoping for the best here. Any treat recommendations or food recommendations?

[DesiRayMom]

Kathy here, Desi's mom. First let me say I'm so sorry you're going through this. Feet problems are a royal PITA.

 

Although I've been fighting Desi's problems for 18 months, I can't see that any of the foods made much difference. His foster mom

said that his feet got worse instantly when he was on TOTW fish, so I've avoided that.

 

In that whole time, Desi has never lost a nail, so we're going with bacterial or an immune issue. I did try the SLO protocol from

the Grassmere site for the entire summer (May - Sept) in 2010 with no change.

 

Right now, I've decided to try a natural route for a bit & see what happens. One of the vet techs at the clinic where I work is

heavy in the natural stuff & she's talked me into trying soaking his feet in natural, organic, apple-cider vinegar with "The Mother"

(whatever the heck that is). I did it for the first time last night, and I must say, those lesions on his feet didn't look quite as

"angry" this morning; I'm going to keep at it for a week or so & see what happens.

 

After I posted that miserably long thread about his feet, one of our vets called DVM Pathology (we use them for skin issues) and talked

to a vet there for quite a while. What we wanted to know is if we could do a small cytology or biopsy from one of those sites &

send it in, if they could help the diagnosis. After a lot of back & forths, she conceded that the whole mess didn't make any sense

& she'd need a fairly deep biopsy from the toe between the nailbed & pad & "MAYBE" she could tell something from that.

 

So just to not put his through that right now, I'm trying the natural vinegar soak for a bit. Wish me luck.

 

I'll be interested to see how your Jesse does. Best Wishes & a big hug for your hound.

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Thanks Kathy, we could use the hugs! Unfortunately his feet look almost exactly like Desi's, so that's not good news. I was going to go back and read your thread again, and all the others I can find tonight. SLO is rare, but the chronic problems you and others are having almost sound worse and immensely more frustrating! I'd have the toe amputated if it were only one! That's interesting the TOTW made it worse...hmmmm. He must feel better from the rimadyl already, he just did zoomies in the yard with me chasing after him, yelling STOP! Lol! Off to see if the nail came out...

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Kathy, I just realized Desi has a mini-me! I love your two, you responded to my "need help with coats" thread and posted pics of them in their matching coats!

 

Anyway...just looked over your thread, and oh my gosh you guys have been through the ringer with him. If the paw was white, I would think I was looking at Jesse's foot in your pictures. It is exactly the same I might print out that entire thread to keep on hand. I saw you had him on Natural Balance Fish, did you also try the TOTW? *Seems* like all this started when I took him off the TOTW kibble. This is awful! And the nail is still hanging there, looking as dead as ever. Off to try to find more threads...

 

ETA forget the TOTW question, I see it was a foster mom that had him on that!

Edited October 13, 2011 by 4dogscrazy

[DesiRayMom]

Day 2 of vinegar soaks......not much change. Another thing that vets & I have discussed is an immune issue, something like

pemphigus, where the body gets some weird message that it's allergic to nail tissue, causing the inflammation & weepage around

the nail bed, which then goes into the icky lesions. That sounds logical to my untrained mind, but why only a few toes & not

every one?

 

Last week, I tried epsom salt soaks, then we ran an in-house cytology on the weepage...still tons of bacteria; epsom salts did

nothing (but perhaps aggravate it further). I'll probably continue the vinegar the rest of this week & then do another cytology

next week & see if he's still loaded with bacteria.

 

Have you considered switching his food back to what he was on before all this started?

 

Let's stay in touch......I'm very interested in how Jesse's feet do.

 

Kathy

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Yes Kathy, let's keep this going, even if it's just the two of us....someone else might need it later. He is back on TOTW, has been about four weeks. He did immediately stop chewing. They do not get anything other than people food now. I just don't trust the companies anymore.

 

I think pemphigus is another name for SLO, thought I read that on-line. Not sure though!

 

Jesse's feet look better today. He feels much better and is coming back to his old self. Using hindsight, I realized his whining has cut down about 75%. He has always been a talker, didn't realize he was talking non-stop lately. He did zoomies last night! He tried to give me his paw several times last night...he likes to paw at you. I am afraid the rimadyl is working and when he's done with it, it will be pain again. They do look less red and inflamed today. I will go in the house and post exactly what we are doing for you.

[Guest Yankeegreyhound]

Hi there.

 

A couple of months ago Sara lost a toe nail. Thought nothing of it until she started loosing more and noticed she was licking her feet raw. She has white feet but they were red from her constant licking.

 

Someone on here suggested she had SLO and told me about the Grassmere site. I called my vet and she said it definatley sounded like Sara had SLO. So, I went and bought all the vitamins and started her right away and within a week or so, she stopped licking and now, about 6 weeks later, her feet aren't red anymore, she's not licking at all and she hasn't lost another toenail!!

 

I haven't changed her food. Never had. She's always been on Proplan chicken and rice.

 

2x a day she gets 1000mg of fish oil, 400 iu's of vitamin E, 1 capsule of vitacaps (from Doctors Forster and Smith - they don't sell dermcaps anymore) and 1 capsule of niacinimide (can't remember dosage but whatever Grassmere recommended).

 

This helped her so we never had to give her steroids or anything else.

 

Hope your baby gets better soon.

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

okay:

 

Spray: DermaPet (Katoconazole w/v) mixed with Cholrohexaderm

5 or 6 times a day. This was odd, and something she just came up with on the spot. The Katoconazole is an ear cleaner, but she wanted to mix it together with the anit-funal and put it in a spray. I just lay a towel down and spray between his toes.

 

Food: Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream

2 c in morning, 2 c in evening ~75 pound dog. NO other commercial dog food or treats. I have no idea what started all of this, but we are starting back at the beginning. I will add Milk Bones later, but for now no other commercial dog food items. They get people food on their kibble, marshmellows, bread, french fries whatever I have for a snack. It's been difficult, Jesse gets hungry and needs a noon milkbone and a 9pm milkbone. When I give him one french fry as his snack he looks at me like I must be kidding The girls don't seem to care. I leave a bowl of dry kibble out now just for him.

 

Rimadyl, 75 mg every twelve hours for pain. I will be sad to see this go, he seems so happy now.

 

One Derma-3 (omega-3 fatty acid and vitamin supplement) per day with evening meal.

 

2 150 mg Clindamycin twice daily, at each mealtime. He's on this for 28 days!!

 

That's it! His feet look much less inflamed, but it's only been 1 1/2 days so they still look pretty bad. He is white, and has little fur, so it really stands out now. As I said, he did stop licking when we put him back on the TOTW. I thought things would be better by now. But, I think it's something internal at this point. Hope the above helps, you probably already did most of those things.

 

He's due back at the vet in two weeks, hopefully I can have his nails trimmed by then!!! They are way long now and he wouldn't let me near them last time I tried.

 

ETA- thanks Yankeehound, just saw your post. I will go with the Grassmere protocol after we have tried the fungal/bacterial treatments. Vet insists we start there first, and he hasn't lost the nail yet.

 

Tina

Edited October 13, 2011 by 4dogscrazy

[Blitzen_n_Simone]

Buster most definitely has SLO. All of the quicks have separated from the nails.

 

Joined this group http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/SLOdogs/

 

Pretty active with lots documents on the subject. He is on fish oil and vit E. Going back to the Vet on Thursday for the usual protocol of Niacinimide and something else. :(

 

Vets are just getting up to speed on SLO.

 

So glad to see a thread on GT about this.

Edited October 14, 2011 by Blitzen_n_Simone

[EllenEveBaz]

My dear Scout had SLO.

I think pemphigus is another name for SLO, thought I read that on-line

People tend to use the names interchangeably, but they are NOT the same, although they are both auto-immune diseases. SLO is the right name for what you suspect. Greyhounds are one of the breeds that seem to be more prone to it.

 

Scout's nails were never cured, but we slowly got them under control with an initial bout of tetracycline/supplements, followed by the supplement protocol listed above. His last couple of years he only lost one nail a year, and it only appeared painful for 3-4 days. My memory is dimmed with time, but I don't think we ever had to use prednisone. The affected nails always stayed gnarly. At first they were soft when I cut them. As he got better, they hardened up but were often hollow inside. He hated having his nails cut, but they grew very fast.

 

As for "giving" your dog SLO with food changes; don't beat yourself up about it. ** happens.

 

Best of luck to all the nail dogs out there.

Edited October 15, 2011 by EllenEveBaz

[DesiRayMom]

Day 4 of vinegar soaks.....lesions on feet look SO much better. EXCEPT....after soaking this morning, left him alone for a minute while I washed & rinsed rags & bags; the infamous TONGUE got on one foot, now it's back to square one.

 

It seems Desi will be wearing toddler socks forEVER. Bless his heart, he just lets me do whatever, & never has tried to take those

socks off.

 

Going to pick up a perscription for antibiotic in different family from those earlier....see how that goes.

[joejoesmom]

Day 4 of vinegar soaks.....lesions on feet look SO much better. EXCEPT....after soaking this morning, left him alone for a minute while I washed & rinsed rags & bags; the infamous TONGUE got on one foot, now it's back to square one.

 

It seems Desi will be wearing toddler socks forEVER. Bless his heart, he just lets me do whatever, & never has tried to take those

socks off.

 

Going to pick up a perscription for antibiotic in different family from those earlier....see how that goes.

 

Much love and crossed fingers for my sweet Desi, the best foster dog ever (after Joe of course). Thank you for loving him so much and taking such good care of him.

 

Jane, Joe and Shelby

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Hi guys! Jesse's mum here. He looks a lot better today. We actually have scabs forming. I am trying desperately to keep him from licking!

 

Kathy, do you keep socks on him all the time? Someone offered their boots for Jesse, and I considered it, but then thought they might need air? Especially is its a fungus? Just random thoughts I had.

 

Thanks to everyone who is trying to help, this situation has been frightening and I feel for all the doggies dealing with feet trouble. So miserable!

[DesiRayMom]

Hey Jesse's mum!!! Yep, Desi wears toddler socks (with a piece of medical tape wrapped around the top to keep them from coming off)

nearly all the time. The problem is, he won't keep his tongue off one or the other. Which just undoes all healing I've managed to

get started. So I soak....then I watch him like a hawk until his feet dry....then on go the socks. He doesn't wear them out to walk,

just inside; that's where he gets bored & goes.....oh yeah, I need to check those toes.

 

Sometimes he's only in one....sometimes two....

And he does go to bed barefoot....for some reason, once he's in bed, he's fine about not licking.

So they get plenty of air all night, and the socks are cotton, so they breathe.

 

Good to hear Jesse's feet look better today. Hugs to Jesse from us!

[Guest 4dogscrazy]

Kathy,

 

You'd think the stinky vinegar would keep him from licking!! lol The fungus medicine seems to keep Jesse from licking most of the time, but if he's insistant he gets his muzzle

 

We'll see, he does seem to be healing but he is still really sore. I did get some nails cut yesterday and we only had words once, but I can't get the nails cut on his three sore toes. And really, they are the longest. His nails grow really fast for some reason. I am going to keep nippinig away at them this week. Thank god for muzzles!

 

Tina

 

Edited because I can't spell my own name!

Edited October 17, 2011 by 4dogscrazy

[packmom]

SLO can be a frustrating thing to deal with. The slow bloody loss of all the nails can take a while. Arwen eventually lost every nail even though she was being treated with the standard protocol listed above. (no Pred!)But then she grew back some reaaly gnarly looking nails and lost no more for almost 2 years. She just lost one last month and I feared we were starting again. We interrupted her SLO treatment for a few months of chemo for hemangiosarcoma so now have started up again. Tetracyclin is very hard to get now. The drug companies just aren't makeing it. There is a Yahoo group called SLO Dogs that can give you some more info for comparison.

Best of Luck!

Edited October 17, 2011 by packmom

[msjpk]

Plummer has infected nail beds for years. He had a biopsy but hard to diagnose as sample was so small.

He is being treated with Clavamox 325. mg and 125 mg 2x daily.

It keeps his infection under control but another paw is showing infection.

I soak in Epson Salts 2x daily and keep paws clean with Epson salt baths and Zeasorb a super absorbent powder to keep paws dry. Plummer takes the socks right off an when he starts licking I am able to tell him No, and most times he listens. Who knows what happens when I am not home!!

It is a tough disease to control especially in rain and snow, constant drying of paws. Nails do grow fast and I try to dremel when he is resting. One nail did fall out some time ago but not recently. His nails are really odd looking some look like they have no blood going to them. Keep up this thread, very interesting and maybe we can brainstorm a great protocol.

[DesiRayMom]

msjpk: Wondering how long Plummer has been on Clavamox? It is an all the time thing? Or just when his nails are really bad?

 

I tried the epsom salts soak, but they really seemed to irritate his nailbeds worse.

 

We're trying Ciprofloxacin right now. Just started, so seeing no effects yet.

[msjpk]

Plummer has been on Clavamox for about 2 years- it is constant- as his nail bed is constantly inflamed.

I forgot to mention in my previous post that usually according to the vet, these disease can Plummer is on low dose thyroid also. Clavamox is getting expensive so I really don't know what is next- we will see at next check up. As for now, he is walking better, not licking as much so the Epson salt soaks have worked for him.

[Blitzen_n_Simone]

Buster's nailbeds have never been inflammed but all the nails have separated from the quick. Most of the quicks are dry with no blood flow.

 

Feel like my appointment on Thursday is going to be the first of many.

 

Have been on Vit E and fish oil for a few weeks.

Edited October 18, 2011 by Blitzen_n_Simone

[JJNg]

Plummer has been on Clavamox for about 2 years- it is constant- as his nail bed is constantly inflamed.

I have to wonder about long term use of antibiotics like this... Has an infection been confirmed with a culture? Inflammation does not necessarily mean infection. If the Clavamox was working, it should have cleared the infection well before now. And if it's not working, then there's no point in continuing on it. Even long courses of antibiotics are usually only 6-8 weeks.

 

And in some cases where there's an underlying factor which doesn't allow the infection to ever be completely cleared, there's the option of doing pulse antibiotic therapy. With pulse therapy, you're usually using antibiotics for 5-7 days every month. I've never heard of continuously having a dog on an antibiotic like Clavamox for 2 years. I'd consider getting a 2nd opinion, or even consulting with a veterinary dermatologist.

[tbhounds]

I agree with the above post. Clavamox for 2 years? Yikes

[msjpk]

What is pulse antibiotic therapy? when he is not on Clavamox his condition worsens and the lesions ooze and lesions spread to the other toes.