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I’ve decided to keep a blog on Chance’s DLE. Mainly to try to help me remember when things happened, how it responded to various courses of treatment, etc.
If it helps others deal with this, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too! My 1st post is a timeline of events. Montana Vacation: Chance causes a little damage to her nose digging for gophers in the decomposed granite soil. Nothing bad, no real wounds, no blood, no scabs. July: The nose was healing and looking good. July 29: My husband had a life-threatening medical emergency. Ambulance and fire department came around 2:30 a.m., taken away via ambulance. 3.5 weeks of high stress. 1st Full Week August: Chance had hair loss on bridge of nose. Skin of nose pink and raw from bridge towards nostrils. 1 open sore over the top of each nostril. Noticed me leaving to go to hospital caused her to lick nose obsessively, tongue hit open wounds each time. Thought due to stress. August 11: Rehab vet dispensed an herbal tincture to soothe the raw nerve endings and help prevent scar tissue formation. Recommended Prozac if couldn’t reduce the Chance’s stress level and stop the stress licking cycle. Week Of August 11: Able to bring piece of clothing from husband home, used essential oil calming blend, stress licking stopped. Tincture seemed to be helping. August 22: Husband discharged. August 23: Chance swam. Scabs over wounds softened, nose bled a little when she rolled in back of vehicle. September 4: Chance seen by regular holistic house call vet. Asked her if it could be something other than stress licking that caused it. She said if the tincture was working to keep using it and to have rehab vet recheck and she had no ideas for anything else to do to treat it. 1st Weekend In September: Cut swim short because the scabs softened and got lifted, started bleeding. September 8 – September 19: Nose continuing to heal. Weekend of September 19: Canceled swim session because nose was looking good, wanted it to continue to heal. Then nose went from almost healed to horrible looking with huge open wounds, loss of pigment, horrible scaling, started seeing a spot on lip loosing pigment. Pretty sure was seeing DLE. September 22: Rehab vet. She came in, saw the nose, and said it was most likely DLE. Cautioned against biopsy due to the inflammation and rawness of Chance’s nose, the impossibility of keeping her from licking the biopsy stitches out of her nose, the damage she would do licking the biopsy sites, etc. Recommended a 6-week course of treatment to see how she responded. If her nose began to heal, we’d know it was DLE. Contacted regular vet. Her response: Was sure it was DLE on September 4 but didn’t say anything, doesn’t like long-term antibiotic use. Initial Treatment:
September 23: Saw a huge amount of improvement. September 24 – 28: Nose looking fantastic compared to it had looked. Lesions healing, little scaling, hair regrowing, pigment returning, nose texture returning to black areas, lip pigment back. Week Of September 29: Pink spot developing below nostril followed by lesions breaking open, scaling, etc. Contacted regular vet repeatedly with no response. Contacted the conventional vet we keep for the medical facilities/equipment to see how much experience and success they have with DLE. Only response was they would have to biopsy before treatment and then they could treat. Contacted a holistic vet clinic, found out they have a vet who has treated many autoimmune disease dogs, got appointment for next day. October 3: Appointment with new vet. She said we would see periods where it was doing really good, then would look bad, then look good, etc. She also said that what we were seeing – when it would get bad, it was still better than the bad time before it – was promising. She liked that I was taking pictures weekly so I could compare because it is hard to see improvement from day-to-day. She recommended several things she has seen help during her treatment of other DLE dogs.
The clinic had the antioxidat and the Standard Process but had to order the Blood Heat. I found a Vitamin E that was sourced from non-GMO sunflowers and ordered that from Amazon. October 4: Bought Aloe Vera plant October 5: Vitamin E arrived. Decided against using it topically because it tastes good and Chance would lick her nose until it bled. Found a sunscreen to try once the lesions heal up. October 10: Picked up Blood Heat Formula from vet. October 11 – October 16: Nose looking better every day October 17: Nose started looking really bad that night. October 18: Nose looking better in the morning. Swam for 1st time since 1st weekend in September. Nose looked great afterwards! October 19 – October 22: Nose continues to improve. Will it stay that way? No clue. Comments are closed.
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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information contained in these blogs is not meant as a substitute for veterinary care or as a replacement for advice or instructions given by a veterinarian. Contact your veterinarian before starting any over-the-counter products.
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