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| Shades of Grey - Pagan & Sebaceous Adenitis |
| Sebaceous Adenitis is a disease most dog owners have never heard of, in fact if you have, the chances are that either: you have a breed that is more commonly predisposed to it such an Akita or a Poodle or you are unfortunate enough to have an animal with SA |
| I am in the latter category, Pagan was my dream dog, my Sarplaninac. I'd spent hours going through any magazine with an article, I'd spent days & weeks waiting for my puppy to be born & then grow old enough to leave his mother & join our family of, myself, my partner Paul & our 2 dogs 'Gem' a German shepherd & 'Blue' a Newfoundland cross. |
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| We had decided on a male with the intent of later having a litter of pups with blue because she looks exactly like a sarpla but at 3 months of age he still had no testicles, Yes pagan was cryptorchid. 'Oh well, never mind' we said, Within a few weeks we realised he was also allergic to insect bites. The first year we baptised the veterinary clinic 'his second home' after he had a few minor complaints (limping & insect bites) & a series of ear infections. For the first year he averaged more than one visit to the vet every 2 months !!! |
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| In the second half of 2000 he had no less than 5 ear infections & our vet wanted to operate if he had another. (I now know that this can be a sign of SA) In October 2000 the skin on the inside of his ears started peeling & I could pull it off in large strips as though he had sunburn. I got a tube of cream from the vet, but that didn't seem to help much, it got better for a week but, then started peeling again. By February 2001 I was concerned that his tattoo was starting to fade because his ears just kept peeling, then the end of his tail started to peel too, great silver grey flakes & his big bushy tail was starting to look visibly thinner. We began comparing older photographs, his tail was starting to look more like that of a grey scaly snake than a dog. Several different vets checked for parasites, bacteria etc but found nothing (our other dogs had no skin problems so we didn't think it was that) One vet took a hair sample & sent it to be tested but they found nothing. He also had blood tests & apart from a slightly high white blood cell count found nothing. |
| By May 2001 pagan had developed a rats tail, just lightly stroking him was enough to leave you with a handful of hair, & his ears were still peeling but no-one seemed to know why ! Then one of our neighbours young dogs 'Roc' started to lose the hair on his tail. So off to the vet he went, they took a large amount of hair from him & found he had mange. After discussion with the vet Roc & Pagan were given a product to bath the affected areas every 2 weeks for a month. Well the hair on pagan's tail stopped falling out but still both his ears & tail were scaly. |
| Pagan & the others got their annual vaccinations in May with an early morning visit to the vet, later that afternoon I presumed he got stung by something in the garden because his face was swollen to 3 times its size & he wouldn't stop rubbing it against anything he could. It took both Paul & I to hold him down. I was used to him swelling up but normally the swelling was only around his eyes & he would come & lie his head on my lap & give me his 'sad baby look'. This time he was frantic, we ended up giving him 3 times the dose of his ant-inflammatories to stop the swelling. |
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| Ten days later he developed a growth on the back of his leg, if it wasn't removed straight away it would have to stay because they wouldn't have enough skin to restitch the back of his leg. Of course after only a day he managed to pull all the stitches out by walking around on it too much. So it had to be redone. It should have taken 10 days to heal & the stitches to fall out but it took pagan nearly a month !!! I had got myself on to the internet & had started a yahoo group for mountain dogs & around this time a new member called Jonathon joined my group so, off I went to visit his website, little did I know what a huge effect it would have on me. Two things immediately caught my eye. One was his articles on natural diets & the chemicals in dog foods… especially as he had put a 'special warning' against the top brand dog food I was feeding. There was also numerous articles on vaccines & vaccinosis (reactions to vaccines). I felt like I'd been punched when I saw 'swelling of the face' on the vaccine reactions list!! Worse, then I saw auto-immune problems that made my heart stop !!! I knew that was pagan ! I printed out all 'his health sheets' & began comparing his ill periods to dates of different vaccinations. This wonderful dog I love more than anything else …… I couldn't believe it !!!! I felt I had been making him ill!! It was strange! I realised that pagan limped 10 days after every rabies vaccination he had at 3 months, & each year since. |
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| Meanwhile Roc now had a tail as good as new but Pagan still had flaky ears & tail, worse there was no sign of any new hair growth. I'd always taken lots of photos of my babies but now I was careful to avoid shots of his awful looking tail. My reading on natural diets progressed, it sounded great but I had to be sure, so I changed to an orangic food without chemicals & started adding EFA's (essential fatty acids) to everyones diet. |
| I started to read all I could find on immune problems, I just KNEW pagan had an immune problem, I was sure of it !!! There were just too many signs to ignore. I discovered mange can be a sign of immune problems (it is present on all dogs but it is normally kept under control by the immune system). He was very very slow feeling… even the vets had commented on that, he fell ill easily & he had allergies & vaccinosis. One thing that had always bothered me was that even as a 2 month old puppy he had always had a dry crusty nose. We tried various creams but they didn't seem to help much. But looking at other sarpla's on websites & in magazines so did they. I'd never seen so many dry noses within a breed. This I found this could also be a sign of auto-immune diseases such as 'Discoid Lupus' or 'phemphigus'. |
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| On my next visit to the vet I told him about Pagan's reactions, he didn't think the lump was a vaccination reaction because it occurred 10 days after the injection. That made me wonder what he thought the month gap between the injection & when it becomes 'valid' is for ! (the immune system works against the rabies & makes anti corps) But I wasn't that surprised. I had found lots of American vaccinosis sites on the web but nothing in French except the ominous quote on a site about vaccinations in humans which said 'The number of reactions in children is largely underestimated & is practically a 'taboo' subject' so I wasn't hoping for better with dogs ! When I asked if it was possible pagan could have an autoimmune disease one vet at the clinic just shook his head 'no' & the other said it was possible although he didn't think so. But I had read enough about things like AIHA (autoimmune haemolytic anemia) in Akitas & the high rates of hypothyroidism & numerous other immune problems which have been linked to vaccines, causing many American states to change their vaccine protocols. By November 2001 it was clear something had to be done, Pagan's ears & tail were still flaking, but now the edges of his ears was a mass of scales. I was afraid to put any cream on them in case that made them spread or worse. Small scabs were beginning to appear on his face, at first just in a few places he had 'scratched' when playing rough with gem. The hair would fall out leaving a patch of grey skin which within a few days would develop into a mass of silver grey flakes. Then scabs began appearing on top of his head & around his eyes & the original patches seemed to be getting bigger. Although pagan had lost a lot of the hair from his tail only the lower end was dry & scaly, the top half had remained its normal pink colour, but now the dry flakes & dark grey skin began moving up towards his back. I began imagining the whole of his body with dark grey skin topped with silver grey flakes. Something had to be done ! We decided to do some more blood tests, again we found a higher than normal white blood cell count, so his immune system was fighting something (& I was very afraid it was himself !) the tests also showed he had a liver problem with the liver enzyme levels 6 times higher than normal (rises in liver enzymes can be a vaccine reaction) so he started a 2 week treatment & then was retested. He has been tested several times since with normal results. |
| In January 2002 after buying a 300 litre freezer just for the dogs !!! I at last made the switch to a raw diet (barf) after several months Pagan's energy levels started to pick up a little & although his coat improved his skin was still scaly. So we decided to have a skin biopsie, if that showed nothing the next step was allergy tests. To be honest I didn't think they would find anything on the biopsie but as soon as the vet phoned with the result 'Adénite Sébacée ' I was searching for info on the net. My vet had never heard of Adénite Sébacée so I didn't get very much information from him just the name & I couldn't find any articles in French. Luckily for me I'm English so after a little searching for glands & sebaceous I found several articles which described pagan's symptoms exactly. |
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| I had (& still have) very mixed feeling about SA. I was glad we knew what it was & that it isn't fatal (except in extreme cases) but after reading a few articles I was also very aware a few packets of tablets weren't going to solve the problem & that it meant a lifetime of care. Looking at the GRF site I was horrified by the photos of SA dogs knowing that one day that could become a reality for Pagan & us. My vet gave me "Isotrex" - a retinoid treatment but it did nothing to help his scales & only irritated his skin leaving him with red paches. I had read many articles including 'Taka's Story' explaining the success of the rampak oil treatment so I decided to start pagan on it straight away. |
| I chose to use olive oil of its natural healing properties & I was concerned about him licking off mineral oil for 2 hours. For the first treatment I mixed the mineral water & olive oil & put it into an old 'frontline' spray bottle ….. A BIG MISTAKE, Pagan took one look at it & immediately ran off !!! I had stopped using frontline because Pagan squealed if we even tried to put any on him. I had always thought that he just didn't like it, but I now know that it goes into the Sebaceous glands - which on an SA dog are inflamed (hence the squealing, I suspect). Trying to hold a 53kg dog (when he is determined to get away), hold a spray bottle full of oil, spray it on & massage at the same time is quite comical but at last I finished the 1st treatment. I didn't wash enough of the oil off the first time so he had to be rewashed the following morning. The first thing I noticed was the skin on his tail looked dark but normal, before his bath it was just a mass of silver grey scales afterwards it was smooth dark grey skin with not a scale in sight. I can't say pagan has had dramatic hair growth but at least it IS growing !!! |
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| Since I started the rampak treatment & his natural diet all the scabs on his head & face are gone & the hair has regrown. His ears are completely normal with not a sight of a flake. He has had no further hair loss & most of it is starting to regrow but with one stubborn patch at the top of his tail which still has no signs of regrowth. |
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| Oil baths aren't very practical in the winter months as he can't be washed or kept outside when covered with oil. So I'm currently keeping the baths to a minimum & oiling patches where necessary. I will increase the frequency again as the weather gets better. Once I started the oil baths & changed his diet I have found the physical side of SA quite easy to deal with, He now has long soft shiny fur & apart from a thin looking tail you wouldn't know there anything was wrong with him. The immune system is the hardest side to deal with. He still falls ill easily & seems to take longer than normal to recover. He also sleeps a lot of the day & he will be very soon tested for Hypothyroidism (common in SA dogs). A few weeks ago Pagan's annual rabies vaccine was due. I made the decision to give him the vaccine inspite of his SA & previous reactions (I felt I could just about live with him limping for a day 10 days after) but still I was very nervous about it. All went well & I spent an anxious day constantly checking for any signs of swelling etc. The weekend passed & monday morning my partner muttered something about pagan looking unhappy as he went off to work. I rushed to check on him & it was clear after getting him to move around the room a little that his back & neck muscles were contracted making him walk arched like a cat. This happened two days after the vaccine & it had previous occurred 1 day after his vaccination 2 years ago. He is now on his second set of muscle relaxants (the first product gave him chronic diahrrea & a lump the size of a Tennis ball where he had an injection of it). I am now praying this isn't going to turn into a long term problem. Of course I've now made the decision to no longer vaccinate him ! but I think a lot of damage has already been done ! |
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| I don't know why pagan has SA. As far as I know he is the first Sarplaninac with the disease, so I guess bloodlines can't automatically be blamed. In Pagan's case he does have the same great- great grandmother on both sides of his pedigree so in theory if she carried whatever defective gene causes SA he could have the disease. Apparently his parents don't have any skin problems but I know his sister has a lack of under-coat but whether this is possibly SA related I don't know. I do know as mentioned above that he's had a 'crusty' nose from a puppy & this seems to be very common in the breed. I think he's had immune problems & SA from an early age & it became more apparent after the case of mange. It is also possible diet plays a role, I've heard the suggestion that high protein diets can favour SA (although I haven't seen any evidence for this). I think the role of diets is more likely in the many chemicals in dog foods such as l'ethoxyquine, BHA, BHT, & the huge number of additives & agents. I also think the vaccinations had a role to play in the appearance of Pagan's SA & have continually weakened his immune system along with the many chemicals in products for ticks, fleas, vermifuges & dog foods etc etc. It was only a few decades ago this breed was largely unknown living in a more natural environment than is the case today but I'm not sure this can be said for all breeds affected with SA. Note: These are just my thoughts & feelings based on my dog pagan & my limited experience with SA. Pagan is now nearly 4 years old I'm just starting to treat him & the others with holistic medicines such as herbs & homeopathic remedies, I've also started to give him moducare to try & help his immune system but I think it will be a few months for I start to see the results. |
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| My french SA site |
| Pagan & Me |