A Dilemma:

[KF_in_Georgia]

My six and a half year old dog, Silver, was picked up by animal control in July as a stray. When they found her, she had a severe rash on one front leg. They did skin scrapings and found nothing. She was treated with Simplecef and prednisone; no improvement. I adopted her in August. SEGA's vet prescribed Cephelaxin and prednisone for the rash; no improvement. With my own vet, we tried antihistamines; we tried wait-and-see (hoping it was an environmental allergy that would improve when ragweed pollen counts dropped). We tried four weeks of doxycycline. And she was muzzled nearly 24 hours a day through all these months to keep her from chewing on her leg when it itched. (She had itching sometimes in other places, but the leg was the only part of her body that she was mutilating.)

 

Then we did our own skin scraping. And because he saw some thinning hair on her foot, my vet scraped along a toe as well as on two places on her leg. He was really excited when he reported seeing what looked like half of a scabies mange mite from her foot. (He said it was that--or it was a funky hair follicle.) But for the first time he had what looked like a valid diagnosis--rather than a guess. He prescribed two doses of ivomec, administered two weeks apart. She got .7 ml of what he said is about 40 times what she'd get in a heartworm preventative. He said I needed to give her the dose when I could keep an eye on her all day to watch for a bad reaction (that is, don't give the dose at night and then go to bed; give the dose on my day off), then skip her heartworm meds the next month. She got the first dose on Tuesday the 10th, and she had no problems. She gets her second dose this Tuesday (the 24th). The vet said that if this worked, we'd need to treat eleven and a half year old Sam, as well. Sam has shown no symptoms--no scratching or chewing. He and Silver aren't "close" (an understatement; she's a snarky little girl), so it's quite possible she hasn't transferred the mites to him. And the vet said the mites don't live in bedding. But he said Sam could be carrying mites, and if we treated only Silver, Sam could pass the mites back to her.

 

The good news is that it's worked: Silver tolerated the first dose very well and it has been effective. Scratching and chewing has almost completely stopped. She hasn't been muzzled--even during the day, when she's crated and I'm at work--for the last four days, and her leg looks wonderful. There's almost no visible difference between the formerly chewed leg and the other leg. The second dose in a couple of days should finish off the mites.

 

The bad news is that it's worked--and now I'm supposed to treat Sam.

 

Sam has spinal arthritis. He has lung cancer, diagnosed in November. That lung cancer appeared on x-ray to be a secondary cancer (several smaller spots, not one large tumor), and we haven't explored to see where the primary cancer might be (beyond doing x-rays on his back to make sure there wasn't osteo there). Sam takes methocarbamol and meloxicam for his spinal arthritis; he takes gabapentin for general pain. He feels well enough to eat everything in sight; he still does zoomies in the living room. But he coughs, and the coughing is getting more serious--longer coughing spells, although he's not coughing up blood and he's not having any spells where he can't get his breath.

 

I don't want to give him the ivomec. Given his age and his health, I figure he's more likely to have a bad reaction to the ivomec than Silver is. (And I understand that she might yet develop a sensitivity to ivermectin.) I realize that Sam's time is limited. But I don't want to be the one who cuts his time short by giving him a drug that isn't going to do him the least bit of good. Is it possible that the Interceptor that Sam has faithfully taken every single month for nine and a half years has given him some immunity to the mites?

 

So either I risk Sam by giving him two doses of ivomec to treat mites he doesn't appear to have...or I risk having Silver get reinfected and have to take a repeat treatment, thereby increasing her chances of a bad reaction to ivomec.

 

What I think I ought to do is to have my vet do skin scrapings on Sam. Then, no mites = no treatment. Does that sound reasonable? Does anyone have another suggestion?

[tbhounds]

I wouldn't treat an a symptomatic dog.

[JJNg]

I agree with tbhounds. If he's not itchy, it's unlikely he has the mites. Especially if Sam has a weakened immune system from all his other health problems, if he did get mites from Silver, you'd know pretty quickly from the intense itching. Fortunately, scabies is fairly easy to treat, if either of them start to show signs again. I actually prefer to use topical Revolution (normal HW preventative dose, given 2 weeks apart for 2-3 doses) instead of the high dose ivermectin.

[tbhounds]

Totally agree --I would also use the Revolution.

[JohnF]

Agree too. Don't treat Sam unless he actually has those mites, and only then if they are out of control and causing himoproblems.

Sam could do without the stress Ivomec might add to what's aready on his plate.

[Guest BrianRke]

I agree, I wouldnt start any treatment unless he starts showing symptoms.

[sweetdogs]

I have no idea but I'm so happy for you & Silver that this has worked. I remember some of your other posts about her & felt so bad for both of you. Best wishes for your Sam.

[MaryJane]

If you are not seeing mange on the dog - I wouldn't treat.

 

Years ago one of my friend's dogs got mange on his face and the treatment he underwent was either a cream or a shampoo to get rid of it. If you check online, you might also be able to find a "natural repellant" for it.

 

I'd would also do a google search on this as it seems that you really need to wash all the bedding and so on because of the possibility of re-infection.

[KF_in_Georgia]

The vet agrees with no Ivomec for Sam. Sam and Silver have been sharing beds--well, not at the same time; let's say they've been alternating beds--for five months now. If Sam's not itching yet, he's not likely to start. (I'm not itching, either, despite months of bed sharing and cuddling with the dogs.)

 

And I asked about doses of Revolution rather than Ivomec. My vet said he did that when the practice of using Revolution to treat mange mites first was recommended. He tried it on two dogs, neither got well after weeks of the Revolution doses, then Ivomec cleared up the problem, so he now goes straight to the Ivomec.