Dr. Maro: Pet allergy solutions: Options other than steroids – The Times

If your pet suffers from allergies, asthma, food sensitivities or autoimmune disorders, there is hope to get away from steroids. 
Many options for achieving improved quality of life and comfort for your companion are available. 
Contrary to what many of us have been told and taught, there is a method that cures allergies that is drug-free and it is available for humans, as well as animals of other species. 
Veterinary and human medicine have come a long way in creating solutions for allergic or sensitive patients over the last few decades. The first step in determining the ideal therapy for a pet is to confirm the diagnosis. 
In my experience, I have seen many pets with combinations of health problems that keep them from responding to traditional allergy treatments and in some cases, the allergy meds prescribed are not providing enough comfort.
Skin mites, fungal infections and thyroid and Cushing’s disease, both hormonal imbalances, often complicate symptoms for the allergic pets, and they don’t improve with allergy meds. 
When your vet recommends blood tests, prior to prescribing drug therapy, she does so with good reason. Allergy medications will make many hormonal imbalances worse, and the itching symptoms may escalate. 
Nutritional imbalances can also look like allergies, so it is important to discuss diet and supplements with your vet when your pet is having a consultation for allergy symptoms. Vitamin A, E or fatty acid deficiencies can mimic atopy and skin allergies, so I often perform nutritional profiles on my patients to specifically target balancing the diet.  
Additionally, yeast overgrowth in the bowel can produce an overgrowth of yeast on the skin, and trigger food ingredient sensitivities. Improving intestinal health is a key to successfully treating allergic patients and controlling skin fungal infections. 
Specific allergy testing may be ordered through serum and or saliva testing to help pet owners reduce exposure to known allergens, both food and environmental. Though there are shortcomings to serum testing, it can help identify some safer food items and use of an elimination diet.  
True anaphylactic or IgE-mediated (a type of immunoglobulin the body produces to protect the patient, which works against the individual when the immune system gets overly responsive to an allergen) allergies are often evidenced through dramatic signs. A patient eats a food item, gets a vaccine, breathes a perfume, or is stung by bee, and quickly develops throat swelling, hives, itching or other obvious symptoms of distress.  These serious allergic responses can be treated with antihistamines, steroids and in anaphylaxis, use of epinephrine to reverse the symptoms and save the patient from progression to hospitalization and death. 
These types of allergies, though severe and life-threatening, make it easy for the doctor to identify the cause.  
Most other mild allergies, sensitivities, intolerances and IgG-mediated sensitivities are milder with slower onset of signs which are often quite subtle. These types of allergens can include all sorts of physical and chemical items, and even emotional events which bring on slow responses like headaches, abdominal cramping, fatigue, an odd skin rash that goes away quickly, muscle cramps and more. When these symptoms occur 12 hours after eating, we often brush them off as stress, food poisoning or other hard to confirm problems. 
In pets, they have no way to communicate when they are feeling a little bit “off”, so in many cases, humans continue to expose pets to more allergens, until really big signs develop. Symptoms like losing lots of fur, chewing at the feet all night, hiding more and playing less, may be related to lots of low-grade sensitivities adding up to escalating health problems.  
Though steroidal drugs and antihistamines are still prescribed for short-term control of allergic symptoms, newer drugs have been developed that can intercept the allergic response chemicals in dogs’ bodies. Some of these  Monoclonal antibodies are available in injectable form to help dogs with atopic allergies. Other immune system regulators include specific antigen injections, custom-made for each pet, and a drug called Apoquel. There is some controversy over the use of Apoquel as some researchers have seen links to cancer development. 
In my practice, I often use a treatment protocol called veterinary NAET, which not only identifies allergens through NST (neuromuscular sensitivity testing), but also helps retrain or reset the immune system to allow future exposure to allergens. Once desensitized, the patient can have the food item again or contact the chemical or have a bee sting without a reaction. With repeated treatments for specific allergens, many of my severely allergic patients become drug-free. 
This treatment was developed for humans, and is available for the treatment of every type of allergy, including tree nuts and peanuts, through human certified practitioners.  
Pets can also get improvement by having veterinary NAET treatments, with a certified practitioner. Since 1998, I have been performing Veterinary NAET and have documented many wonderful success stories. Cases of food allergies, asthma in cats, recurrent bladder stones, relapsing infections, drug and vaccine allergies, cardiomyopathy and many other immune disorders have benefitted from this therapy.  
If your pet suffers from suspected allergies, be sure to get them diagnosed by a veterinarian who can guide you towards managing the diet and environment, while controlling the allergic symptoms with the safest drugs or drug-free methods for your pet.  
Dr. Cynthia Maro is a veterinarian at the Ellwood Animal Hospital in Ellwood City and the Chippewa Animal Hospital in Chippewa Township. She writes a biweekly column on pet care and health issues. If you have a topic you’d like to have addressed, email [email protected].

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