Oh man -- I am SO familiar with it. *sigh*
Atopica is cyclosporine. It's what they call a "super steroid" -- it's not actually a steroid but is "steroid-like". It's a major immune suppressor, Red. It's the same drug they give humans who have had organ replacement surgery -- specifically TO suppress the immune system so the body won't reject the organ.
It's not being used much for dog allergies --not like it was a few years ago (when they thot it was the greatest thing since sliced bread). It's unbelievably hard on the liver and kidneys. We're beginning to find that despite all the things we did to try to limit the damage to Billy's body, his kidneys WERE damaged. We don't know how much yet.
It's simply a bad month for allergies -- whether up north where everyone's running their heat and everything is 'dry' or down south where everything is in bloom.
The problem is -- there really isn't a 'cure' for allergies. Truly there is not. It's a lot of work to 'maintain' them without drugs that are injurious. I wish the vet had tried a different antihistamine ...
Sorry, you asked if anyone has had 'experience' and man, I sure have. And honestly? It doesn't *always* help the skin either. Billy's skin was horrible while he was on it. It helps some dogs. But boy there is a HUGE price to that 'help'.
A few years ago when I was at the UF summer "Dog Owners and Breeders" seminar, Atopica was all the rage. And now they don't mention it at all -- I asked one of the vets why, and she told me it was simply because the side effects are so great they really don't use it much for allergies at this point. 25 mg is a stiff dose for Chico. It tends to take a while for it to build up enough in the system to do much -- that's probably why they started him at such a high dose with the idea of tapering off.
As I've said before you may think the Benedryl isn't doing anything ... but it's often doing more than you think. But it can't do it ALL. Dog allergies can be incredibly severe and one medicine alone often doesn't do enough.