You've Come A Long Way, Budball!

After 10 months of trying, we finally hit on a new medicine which licked Buddy's skin monster allergies. You may remember when he came to the Casa, he had multiple wounds - so many that I couldn't pick him up without contacting an open sore (you can see here and here but be warned, it's not for the squeemish and these pics don't even show all of his wounds - his tummy was full of them).

Poor boy also had an hellacious ear mite infection and anemia. Doc immediately identified that most of the wounds were likely self inflicted and began treating him for allergies.  Prednisone helped initially, but when we tried to wean him off, we found he still needed a hefty dose to maintain progress. Even then he worried two spots with fair frequency. And poor Buddy was grumpy - really grumpy.  I guess I would be, too, if I itched all the time and we knew the prednisone wasn't helping with the grumpiness. We tried other things but the only med that seemed to work was the pred... Buddy was at the point where he shouldn't keep taking it and Doc was running out of ideas for alternate treatments.

Fortunately, a new med recently hit the market and Doc stood in line for it (OK, not literally!).  Within the first week on Atopica, our Budball was visibly more relaxed and the remaining wounds. Now, at a month, he's totally healed.

So here's what Buddy looks like today (with my lovely niece, Shelly!):

One drawback is that he hates the taste of the Atopica.   I mean hates.  With the heat of a thousand suns, he hates it.  It's a real challenge to dose him but so worth it.  (We will start weaning him off after his upcoming vet visit. Yay!) The other is that taking the Atopica can increase his risk of infection because he's FIV+.  Doc and I agreed that because Buddy was so miserable, and needed to come off of the prednisone, the slight risk was worth it for his quality of life.

It's so nice to have our boy decidedly less grumpy (happy, even!), healthy and itch free.  Doc Andrew and Atopica, I thank you and, let me tell you, the residents of the Casa thank you even more!!