What can be done for atopic dermatitis?

Avoidance

Since the trigger for symptoms is airborne, avoidance is practically impossible.

Symptomatic therapy

The disorder may be treated symptomatically (steroids, antihistamines, immune response modifiers and shampoos), but results are temporary while the condition slowly worsens. In addition, excessive use of steroids may cause serious side effects.

Intradermal allergy testing and allergen specific immunotherapy

The gold standard of testing for atopic dermatitis is intradermal allergy testing as the skin is the organ that manifests the allergy.

Certain medications must be avoided in the weeks prior to skin testing.

Atopic dermatitis is best treated with hyposensitization vaccine, also called allergen specific immunotherapy (ASIT). Immunotherapy is the art and science of administering increasing concentrations of the specific allergens to which your pet is allergic.

While research is ongoing into oral immunotherapy for dogs, it is currently only available as injections under the skin. It is a tool meant to help control your pet’s allergy, it rarely offers a cure.

In our experience, 75-80% of treated patients report improvement (decreased allergic symptoms and decreased need for symptomatic treatment) within 1 year.