Saw for recheck June 2025 and no change. After AQ, the next day his nose was cold and wet, unusual for him, typically has heat wafting from ears and dry hottish nose. Still having whitish eye discharge. Most days on Apoquel BID, still scratches at ears, eyes, feet. Had been licking underside of feet, now licks between toes on topside of front feet as well. Tried one batch of vegetarian food, he loves it, but then O got lazy so back on Purina HA vegetarian. Tongue and pulse the same. So then suspected more of a Wei Qi deficiency with Liver Blood/Yin deficiency. After looking back on my Dr Steve lecture notes, Wei Qi deficiency made more sense because he is worse with allergies in the winter mths typically, worse at night with itching, more common in young dogs, common post vaccine vaccinosis, responds well to abx and Apoquel (but will eventually lose effectiveness), worse on fresh whole foods/better on processed. Changed to Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang.
1 mth later O returned BZYQT and never returned so I just reached out to her...and was crushed to get her reply. First of all, she reprimanded me for using "leaky gut and dysbiosis" for a DDX on her dog when describing Qi Stagnation and Shaoyang disharmony when I used Cessorex. Coles notes was she thought BZYQT was the wrong formula for him, and would make his symptoms worse, rather than better. She felt the list of indications she read up on were the opposite to his symptoms. Her words "He is a young and healthy dog, strong and full of energy, with an abundant Yang, he has an aversion to heat and thirst for cold beverages. He doesn’t curl up, but rather sleeps on his back belly up, with legs in the air to cool down. These are signs of a strong Qi, with signs of excess heat and Yin deficiency. In the “Commentary” it describes symptoms of severe Qi and Yang deficiency, such as organ prolapse and incontinence, which Ollie doesn’t have. The “Cautions and Contraindications” mention Yin deficiency, which Ollie does have".
And she went on..."I hope this gives you some insight into how complex it is. It’s unreasonable to expect you to know it after a short course. The important thing is that it is a very powerful medicine. It can be a cure, but, at the same time, if the wrong herbs are given, it can cause harm. If my advice would be welcome, I would suggest focusing on a solid foundation of TCM principles, diagnosis and treatment". Here she rec's a local human TCM college..."I truly believe that you would get so much more out of it, than from veterinary TCM seminars, where they teach the “paint-by-numbers” approach. It might get results with simple things like sprains and orthopaedics, but not with internal medicine, which requires a deep understanding of TCM, and that can't be achieved through short courses. I hope this explains my thinking. TCM is a powerful medicine and needs to be studied in depth if you are to use it. Otherwise, you get frustrated with not getting results, and TCM’s reputation is damaged, because people think that they’ve tried TCM, and it didn’t work."
So initially I was hard on myself and took it all personally but I am sharing this because I want your input to see where I might have gone wrong? I still see BZYQT as a good fit? What do you think?
Thanks in advance,
Corinne in Victoria