Hot Spots and Apple Cider Vinegar?

[Erica]

EDIT: After this summer's hot spot outbreak, I've found that for Opal, green or black tea bags work better than ACV; additionally, the tea bags don't bother her like the ACV did. It should be easy to find more info on this on the web!

Basically, we have our German Shepherd, Opal. She gets hot spots occasionally - twice above her rump (once on each side, a couple inches above her tail), once on her back right toe, and most recently, on her right hip/flank. The thing is that the medicine is a) really expensive and b) doesn't do too much except make her drink a ton of water. We got spray medicine for the first one, steroids or something for the second one, and by the third one I'd done quite a bit of research and kept hearing about how Apple Cider Vinegar (combined with water) makes a good treatment for hot spots. We tried it on her toe and it did help her not chew it. It didn't get any worse after we started the ACV solution (twice a day), and got better within the week (about the same timeline as the meds).

The one on her flank, though, seems to be really bad. It looks terrifying! I suspect it's from the stress of our family taking a week's vacation (though we had someone she knew taking care of her in our house)...next year we're going to try to find a dog-friendly beach house. ): Anyways. She will lie on both sides (and the HS is in contact with the floor when she lies on that side) and will leave it alone when we ask her to leave it (something she didn't with the first one)...but it's REALLY pink and the fur is either fallen out or clumped together so that it looks really bare.

What I'm really trying to ask is if anyone has experience with ACV and hot spots, and if it made a difference or if we should just go back to the vets. If the ACV bothers her (and she's a wimp! She'll tell us!) we'll obviously not use it, but...

Edit to add: Also, if I can see the entirety of the hot spot without too much moving of her fur, do I need to trim it anyway, or can I leave it? As it is now, she's groomed it so that the hot spot is exposed, and apart from gently rinsing it with a damp paper towel, I'm going to leave it that way.

[j-f]

I think you should trim it anyway to let the hotspot get as much air as possible. 2 cm from the edge, I suggest.

[Nettle]

Leave the fur and try the CV. As your vet has only offered steroids, which only suppress the immune system and so don't get to the root of the problem, you need a more holistic-minded vet. There can be lots of reasons for hot-spot, including obsessive chewing to relieve stress - if that is the reason, finding and dealing with the stress is paramount. Or there could be organ malfunction which means you need blood tests. Or it could be nutritional, in which case you need help with that.

"Find the cause: effect the cure"

THIS is why I get so annoyed when vets just deal out steroids

[Erica]

Thanks Nettle! There is actually a new vets' office opening up down the road...about half the distance of our old one, and the sign says something about holistic medicines or something...I'll double-check next time I go that way.

I'll keep an eye out for new hot spots and see if I can connect them to stress...this one might have something to do with our leaving for a week...if we get another one without a clear sign of stress, though, I'll try talking to my parents about getting her a blood test or switching her food. They've already said that it's just something that happens to GSDs, though, so I'd have to do some research and prove otherwise.

To be quite honest, I've thought our current vets to be idiots for quite some time...there was the time I got my parents to take Onyx in to get his nails clipped and they ignored his dewclaws, the time they thought he got kennel cough (a virus) and they prescribed antibiotics (which kill bacteria) (it ended up that he had a paralyzed voice box or something), the time we brought the cats in (all three at once) and told them the two girls terrify each other and to keep them apart...the idiot that brought them back out was carrying the two girls' cages so they were close to each other, and banged the cage on the wall. I don't care that it's an accident; the cats are already terrified, try to be nice to them! Ugh.

Well, after that rant...Opal's hot spot seems to be doing a bit better. It's not as red anymore, just pink. Yay!

[Sarah83]

Minor injuries cause Rupe to break out in a hotspot at times. He can graze his leg, no blood, just the hair taken off and a slight scrape, and a few days later he'll have a hotspot there. I've found just preventing him licking at them helps more than anything the vet's ever given me.

[Erica]

Yeah, we ask Opal to stop licking her spots ("leave"), and thankfully she does without intervention...it's gotten to the point where she'll turn her head back to lick it and then turn away because she knows we'll just ask her to stop.

[chay]

this is rather timely for me too...gypsy has just come over with hot spots for the second time in about three months :\ i recognised it much quicker this time (last time poor poppet had to have her butt-fur shaved off as they got quite nasty on her back/base of tail)

the vet just gave us another shot of cortisone and another course of antibiotics "because they worked so well for her last time" - but can't actually tell me why it might be happening in the first place.

the kicker was, i originally MADE this appointment to get her annual vaccinations done. cortisone suppresses the immune system. so she got a different shot than she bargained for, AND has to go back next week to get more

anyway, thankyou for the advice. we will give this a go

[peter18567]

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