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Alopecia In Dog

by doris - March 1, 2010

Hi Steve,
So nice to catch up with you in HK. Hope you could have a good rest before your busy life starts again.

I have a tricky case that I need your advise.

It is a 5year old long hair Dashchund. It was a home bred dog with aspiration pneumonia at 4days old caused by stomach tube feeding by the owner. I was managed to get this dog survives until now but it has never recovered from the pneumonia completely. It always has runny nose with clear thick mucoid nasal discharge and intermittent coughing especially when the weather is cold. The clinical signs usually improved after giving it antibiotics and mucolytics. It is always petite in size but overall demeanour is good and has good appetite.

It came in to see me today with mild enteritis. Owner reported that the dog has hair loss problem since 2 months ago. The ventral body is completely alopecic with normal skin colour and no active lesions at all. Dorsal hair coat was a bit thin, not coarse nor harsh, with small mount of dandruff. Dorsal surface of the tail also alopecic.

Its tongue was slightly reddish purple with a red tip. Pulse was easily palpable ,reasonably strong, with stronger tone at deeper area. Slightly warm spots were located on BL 16/BL 17 and BL 25.
General blood profile was insignificant and serum thyroxine level was normal. Skin scraping was negative with ectoparasites.

At this stage, I suspect this dog has some sort of Yin deficiency but not sure about which organ I should direct the treatment to. Please kindly give me some advises.

Regards,
Doris

by naturevet

March 1, 2010

Hi Doris,

Nice to see you, too. I'm now home and jet-lagged, but happy to be getting on top of things again.

Regarding your patient:
The purple red tongue implies stasis and secondary heat.
We need a drying formula to address mucous build up.
The toned deep pulse also suggests a need to address stasis, and for an 'outward push'.
Given all these criteria, I would think first of San Ren Tang (Three Seeds Decoction). The only risk is if it was too drying, but right now that doesn't seem to be the problem.
Pure Yin deficiency problems will often just have a weak thin pulse.
I'd start there and see what happens.

Steve

by doris

March 8, 2010

thanks Steve, I will give it a try

by doris

July 7, 2010

Hi Steve,

here is the update about this case. Unfortunately, I 'm not getting much improvement so far.

Clinically, this dog has reduced nasal discharge ( from thick mucus becomes thin serous type ). The hair coat is soft and fuller on the body but is like puppy coat. I can easily pull out the hair on the body recently. Hair on the tail , caudal body (interesting enough there is a distinctive line, from tuber coxae backward, the hair starts shedding!! ) and head are spare with guard hair only. Hair on the 4 legs are normal. The ventral body is completely alopecic. Hotspot like lesions are found on the eartips and medial thigh every now and then which improved with topical medication.
The body of the dog is very hot, with cool paws and eartips. Pulse is a bit superficial with strong tone while the tongue becomes purple with a red tip. I repeated the T4 and TSH and both were normal. BIochemistry was normal but white blood cells were up. The dog is otherwise very bright and has good appetite.

I have kept doing acupuncture on this dog weekly with LU 5 LU 9 LIV 3 SP 6 SP 10 ST 40 BL 13 BL 17 BL 18 (very sensitive BL points when I put the needles in), San Ren Tang , biotin powder, skin supplements with omega oil and raw meat diet have been given since MArch.

I had tried to add some Dong Gui with SRT a month ago. However I stopped after 2 weeks due to the exudative type skin problem got worse with DG.

What else I can do now? SHould I use some formular that can push the Blood out to the skin to provide nutrients for the hair to grow? Since Lung controls the hair growth, any formular that I can use to strengthen the Lung and thus improve the hair growth?

here is another question. Please correct me if I'm wrong. SRT and SMS are anti-inflammatory and they are working to "draw" blood into the body and thus reduce the inflammation on the skin as seen in bacterial dermatitis?

thank you for your advise.

Regards,
Doris

by naturevet

July 7, 2010

Hi Doris,

Has hyperadrenocorticism been ruled out here? If not, with the more superifical and strong pulse, you can try Si Miao San, in case that is the problem.

The worsening with Dang Gui strongly suggests the problem is in someway related to Damp Heat.

San Ren Tang addresses Damp Heat, but pushes circulation peripherally to help resolve more chronically inflammed lesions. SMS addresses Damp Heat in its acute form, by pulling blood away from lesions, in effect putting a proverbial ice pack on them. Note that only Natural Path San Ren Tang has this hemodynamic effect. Formulas from human companies will pull inwards like SMS, because they lack sufficient Cardamon. It took us years to figure this out, and was a big reason we started making the formula. Once we made our own, according to the original recipe, then we saw the types of improvements we were expecting.

S

by doris

July 8, 2010

Hi Steve,

the blood test result of this dog had not shown elevated ALKP and ALT- plus no clinical signs of PU/PD, thus make cushings unlikely.

I will try SMS and keep you updated.
Cheers,
Doris

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