She had gotten Mugs as a puppy from a local breeder of Boston Terriers. While she was away at school for a few years Mugs had been her companion. But after school she got married and had a baby and there were some concerns that the baby and Mugs would not get along. (Mugs had a habit of taking food from small, low hanging hands without giving care and consideration to their owners.)
Mugs had always had some health problems. Specifically he would always "scratch up" his ears to the point of bleeding and swelling. This would happen at random and for no particular reason that anyone could see.
Of course my daughter figured that the vet would surely be able to resolve this problem...
And so the story begins.
Mugs went to the vet frequently for his itching and scratching - all to no avail. Since the scratching always seemed to be ear related the vets provided an array of ear drops (Momentamax among them). Of course these did not work for long if they worked at all.
So when one stopped working he went back to the vet and started treatment with the next one.
Eventually that all ran out of road and it was time for the heavy artillery: steroids and antibiotics.
Now the reasoning here seems unclear to me but I guess the idea is that the steroids make things appear "better" for a period of time by jacking up what appears to your body as adrenalin. If you have something like a really bad case of poison ivy this may be the only way to get rid of it. But sadly these are used in humans and animals for all sorts of trivial ailments and are even present in over-the-counter drugs.
However, even a single dose of steroids can cause your body harm. There are a lot of animal and human related discussions of this on the internet (see this) - most all run along the same threads.
Use of steroids can cause the pituitary gland to shut down (stopping the production of ACTH which regulates the adrenal gland) and flood the body with cortisone. The cortisone flood mimics the bodies response to "fight or flight" by elevating the heart rate. And, most importantly in the case of Mugs, it suppresses the immune response.
Suppressing the immune response stops the itching.
Note that it does not address the cause of the itching. It doesn't even help identify the cause. It does nothing but make Mugs appear to feel better.
However, since the immune system is being suppressed antibiotics are prescribed to prevent infection and supposedly to kill any bacteria associated with existing problems.
Thus one imagines that if Mugs had an ear full of bacteria causing itching the antibiotics would kill them. The only problem with this is that antibiotics do not work as you might imagine - honing in on the bad bacteria and killing them. No, they, like the steroids, can and do much more harm than good (I wrote about this extensively here in "Antibiotics: A Scourge on Humanity").
While there are several problems with antibiotics in general, in the case of Mugs they did two very bad things - killed all the good bacteria in his gut and gave him fungal and yeast problems.
Now your gut is where a large percentage of your immune system resides and bacteria play a role in that system. Antibiotics effectively kill them off to a large degree and leave you open to other problems like a screwed up digestive system.
So over the course of several years and several thousand dollars Mugs was turning into a complete disaster: bad digestion characterized by truly horrific gas, constant diarrhea and vomiting caused by the antibiotics and their disruption of his gut flora. Despite a variety of tests no base cause for the itching and scratching was every found.
The only real result, if you want to call it that, was that the symptoms would go away when he was given steroids.
He still tore up his ears regularly and now, with the wonder of modern medicine, had a bad digestive system and yeast/fungal infection as well.
Once Mugs was mine I was left to clean up the mess.
First it seemed pretty clear that the vets had no idea how to fix the cause of the problem and were only addressing symptoms with their treatments.
The second step was to figure out what was actually wrong. My initial list was:
1. Screwed up digestive system - 100% of the time - bowel misery and vomiting.
2. Ear fungal/yeast infection from antibiotics.
3. Itching and scratching (the original problem).
So to address #1 we gave Mugs a good diet (Blue Buffalo Dog Food) and probiotics to "reboot" his digestive system with the right bacteria. This process took many months but fortunately it was easy to see the results: no more diarrhea or vomiting, no more horrific gas.
The second problem (#2) was addressed with homeopathic supplements that kill fungi (we use CandidStat for this). However, due to the long term antibiotic usage it took a long time (probably at least a year). It also required that we keep after Mugs to not scratch his ears (which required Mugs to wear a cone from time-to-time).
After about two and a half years we got Mugs back into relatively good shape - happy and healthy - and more or less where he started before going to the vets in the first place. His really "bad ear" which had always "hung over to one side" was now standing up straight like the other one.
All that was left was the original problem: itching and scratching.
To me it seems to be somewhat related to A) food and/or B) external allergies (his stomach gets red if he runs around in the field though not when going out to the bathroom in the yard). Mugs does not have parasites (he was just checked) or fleas or mites and we think we have eliminated or supressed all of the yeast infections.
Now other than itching and scratching Mugs leads a wonderful life these days. We have other dogs - he plays, he runs, he fights over toys and chews. These days he sleeps all night (during the initial period when we got him he had to go out 3-4 times a night because of the digestive problems). All and all I think he is happy. The few days a year when he scratches up an ear or other body part are now limited to about 10 days a year - or in simple terms 97% of the time he is a happy normal dog.
Compare that to when I got him - he had bowel and digestive problems every day plus the itching and scratching - basically we was miserable 100% of the time - thanks to modern medical science.
Sadly, however, the his current vet things he is suffering and wants me to take him back through the relentless panels of test, antibiotics and steroids. She recently recommended I take him to a doggy dermatologist and seemed shocked that I was okay with his current life.
(FYI - my wife bred and showed dogs for a decade, had champions and one of the top dogs in her breed in the country. We have always had dogs and we know them and their problems well.)
They new doggy dermatologist sent me a long questionnaire and a warning my wallet would be lightened by up to $450 USD just for the initial visit.
I now have a serious choice to make which I think boils down to the following
#1) Continue to manage Mugs on my own giving him a 97% happy life with 3% misery.
#2) Go down the doctor road again hoping they might A) find the actual problem, B) not make him miserable again, and C) not run me into the poor house.
The doctor road, according to the current vet, might mean giving him a treatment which would shorten his life like cyclosporine (an immuno-supresion drug) or some steriod.
(Now I personally know people with serious problems like Crone's disease that treat themselves and end up getting along quite well. I really don't see why medical science has to impose itself on you if you don't want it.)
I particularly resent the vet telling me I had better do something about Mugs and his itching.
From my perspective its the vets that created years of misery for Mugs - not his condition.
Sure he has some skin problems but they would appear to be no worse than anything anyone or anything else might have and from experience they are not as bad as the cure.
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