Skin irritation in my 13 year old male rough haired terrier(about

Hello,
I am sorry to hear you are worried about Billy. My name is***** am a veterinarian, and will do my best to help.

This could be due to many things, and the treatment would be different depending on what is causing the skin irritation.

Skin conditions can be caused by infections, which would be treated with antibiotics.

They can be caused by allergies to things in the environment. Allergies can't be cured, but can be treated with antihistamines, Fish oil, Vitamin E, and sometime needs prescription medication such as steroids, cyclosporine or Apoquel.

Food allergies can cause itchy irritated skin. This can be cured, if the food that the dog is allergic to is eliminated. You start by getting a "limited ingredient" diet with only one grain or starch and one meat. Both these two things have to be things he has never eaten before, such as venison/sweet potato or duck/potato diets. You feed nothing else but the diet for 4 to 6 weeks. If the skin gets better, it is a food allergy.

Mange, caused by parasitic mites living in the hair follicles, can cause skin conditions. It is diagnosed by doing "skin scrapings" and looking for the microscopic mites in the hair follicles. It is treated with prescription medication, ivermectin.

Unfortunately, all these different conditions have different treatments, but all look the same.

If I see a dog with an itchy skin condition, I start by doing skin scrapings, and starting the dog on a good flea treatment, even if no fleas are seen. When a dog is allergic to flea bites, it can take only one or two fleas on the whole dog to cause itching and skin irritation all over the dog, and the dog often swallows the flea when he bites himself. Not seeing fleas is not a reason to assume it is not fleas; fleas are the number one ( and according to many dermatologist, also number 2 and 3) reason for skin problems in dogs. Sea bathing will not kill fleas.

Tea tree oil can make dogs sick if ingested by licking, or by being absorbed across inflamed skin. It is not recommended to use it in dogs, and especially not in cats. You can use a tea tree oil shampoo, if it is thoroughly rinsed off.

You can try an over the counter antihistamine like diphenhydramine (25 mg 2 to 3 times daily) or loratidine (5 mg once daily). Vitamin E and fish oil may help. If no skin scrapings have been done, that would be my first step if I were able to examine him.

Let me know if this helps, and what else I can answer.

Rebecca

Let me know if I can answer anything else.

Rebecca