Understanding and Managing Our Dog’s Allergy Challenges

I know I’ve talked about our struggles with Cooper’s allergies probably a dozen times (more if you count Facebook posts!), and this post is only tangentially related to that situation. First, though, a quick update: It seems he does have a food allergy, probably chicken, and the duck and potato food has thankfully cleared up all his stomach issues. His fur is still falling out, he’s still super itchy, and his eyes are faucets. His vet was thinking it was an environmental allergy, too, so two Fridays ago we started him on an antihistamine.

Which brings us to…

Last Wednesday, I was in the kitchen making my lunch. I saw movement from Cooper’s bed, and when I looked over, he was convulsing. I dropped everything and dashed over to him. He got out of his bed and started pacing around the kitchen. His head was shaking uncontrollably. I called John. “Something’s wrong with Cooper. I think it’s a seizure.” He said he’d meet me at the vet.

As I sped  drove cautiously to the vet’s office, he calmed down, and by the time we got there, he was wagging happily and smiling at everyone in the office. The vet examined him and decided to do a blood test and urinalysis.

Incidentally, that morning Cooper had eaten something green and gooey in the park. So, his vet seemed to think he might be having a reaction to something toxic, so she gave him activated charcoal.

For fear that this post is getting painfully long, I’ll sum up the next few days: Wednesday night, another round of tremors; Thursday, back to the vet; blood test and urinalysis came back clean but she suggested it could be a reaction to his new antihistamine so we stopped giving him that altogether; Friday night, another round of tremors; Saturday afternoon, another round of tremors and a call into the vet’s office, but his vet wasn’t in, so the tech just said to keep him off his antihistamine (duh); this morning, another round of tremors.

I’m waiting for a call back from the vet.

The particular antihistamine he started the Friday before the tremors started does have rarely reported side effect of tremors. It seems likely that that was causing the issue, but he’s been off it for almost 6 full days now but is still experiencing the tremors.

On top of that, without taking any allergy medicine, his eyes and skin are a mess, and he’s incredibly itchy.

There’s no real point to this post, I suppose, except to vent. It’s killing me that he’s so miserable from his allergies and this head tremor thing is terrifying. Each time it happens, my heart stops and my hair gets a little bit grayer.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before?