Pigment loss

New Topic

Pigment loss

Posted : 2/27/2008 6:49:19 PM

Jules, my 6 year old neutered yorkie, has been losing hair on his ears and the top of his nose. In addition, he's what the vets have been jokingly calling (in good spirits, mind you) a 'metabolic machine' as he has to eat a ton for a dog his size (he's 9.2 lbs and quite thin) He had a full blood panel sent out (CBC, Basic, T4 and Free T4)..all came back completely normal. His skin doesn't itch at all, there's no scaling. It's thought he has alopecia or something similar, to explain the hair loss. It's not on his body..just the ears and nose. I believe color dilution alopecia can occur on the ears and nose in yorkies. His weight issue is unexplained..they've just said to feed more, or add canned.

Now he's losing the pigment down the middle of his nose..it's still dark, but you can tell it's turning almost a liver or dark pink shade. One vet said if it persists to possibly biopsy it lest it be an autoimmune issue, but I hate to do so if it's also related to some weird yorkie hair/pigment issue and won't cause an illness/discomfort. I certainly don't mind..it's just cosmetic after all, but don't want to overlook something that could harm him.

Any tips?

calliecritturs

Posted : 2/27/2008 7:58:06 PM

A T4 really doesn't tell you anything at all. But sending blood to Michigan State can truly tell you TONS. They do breed-specific protocols and it's really thorough. Given that this is a symetrical problem -- it's chances of being at least thyroid related are huge.

The other thing it truly COULD be ... and this is weirder still ... is some sort of ringworm type fungal thing. Ringworm LOVES the ear tips. And it also likes the nose. And just them sticking their nose in odd places can wreck havoc -- ringworm doesn't usually have 'rings' ... it often winds up being hair loss. And it can be majorly tough to diagnos because it can morph into 99 different types of fungal 'things' so standard tests don't usually find it.

I'd send off the blood to Michigan State (only Dr. Dodds and Michigan State do the breed-specific testing .. it really IS the 'gold standard' of thyroid testing -- blood pulled 4-6 hours after eating. REAL specific about that).

THEN I'd also try something 'easy' ... like tea tree oil or lavender oil (the essential oils) -- just a wee tiny bit massaged on daily for a few days. Not enough to 'lick off' ... be minimal with it and massage it in well (and wash your hands COPIOUSLY afterward) -- but tea tree and lavender are both very good natural anti-fungals and you may find a few days later you have new hair growing.

The other thing I'd try (and I've had weird spots like this come up on dogs before - particularly with the pigment change) would be thuja oil. You'll have to search for that on the internet or find a holistic vet who carries it. Thuja is a kind of pine-type tree. It's a substance used a LOT in medicinal stuff. But you want thuja OIL (not tincture, and not the homeopathic thuja) -- and alternate that with the essential oil I mentioned above.

So if you do the tea tree at night, apply the thuja in the morning. Thuja is just plain good for "weird skin" or "abnormal skin". I've seen it work awesome results. it's not toxic and it's not stinging or unpleasant. And while you're waiting for the results to come back it may help a bunch.

Even IF it comes back as a thyroid problem it's not going to 'fix' THIS problem. That's usually missed in the translation ... when the thryoid is 'off' that means that whatever you are doing for a certain skin problem just plain won't be resolved because the body is so out of 'balance'.

BUT once you fix the thyroid problem ... then the body can return to balance so whatever you are doing will work .. and STAY fixed better. does that make sense?