Treating the Itchy Blues with natural ingredients

As I mentioned in my very first post Topaz has allergies. Our biggest battle has been her food allergies- she is allergic to grain, wheat, soy, beef, chicken and dairy. She was diagnosed with this allergy about a week after July 4th last year. At the time that she was diagnosed, her rash was so bad that the vet warned me that once her rash began to clear up I may find other allergy triggers including seasonal allergies. We have had our battles with foods and I imagine we will continue to do so.  I will discuss our many food struggles in other posts. Our current struggle has been medicine. The veterinarian had me put her on 50 mg of benadryl daily to treat the symptoms her allergy caused. Nearly a year later she is still on 50 mg of benadryl daily. I have tried taking the benadryl away and we can usually keep her off of it for a two to three week period before she has a flare up and has to be put back on it. However, as spring has come benadryl is not working.  The grass in the yard got tall (and by grass I mean several types of different plants including dandelion greens, nettles, wild onions, hay, grasses, etc. ) and I noticed her belly looking pinker than normal. I did a thorough check to make sure I had not missed any new hives and noticed that only her belly and chest seemed to be bothered. I made the assumption that walking through the tall grass/weeds was more than likely to blame. However, since she did not seem to be scratching more than normal I did not fret about it.

However, Tuesday our lawn was mowed.  Of course, halfway through the lawn being mowed she decided she had to use the bathroom so while the lawn mower was getting a gas refill we went and walked in the freshly cut grass. After the lawn was completely mowed, we went for another walk and I let her play in the cut grass. This resulted in extremely itchy doggie- we spent hours with her scratching and gnawing at her chest, belly and paws. She also gets extremely agitated when she is super itchy so if she was not gnawing or scratching herself she was taking out her frustrations on her bone. I gave her her nightly benadryl and then began to wait patiently for the next five hours hoping the benadryl would give her some relief. By 11 pm, her gnawing and scratching on her paws and belly had gotten worse. She was miserable so I decided to google natural antihistamines.

I discovered that chamomile tea, several vitamins and omega 3's  are all natural antihistamines. Thankfully, we happened to have three boxes of chamomile tea. I did not have just the vitamins that contain antihistamines, however, I do have a large container of multivitamins. So I researched each vitamin contained in the multivitamin just to ensure it was safe to give her. After determining it would not hurt to give it to her, I opened two of the capsules up and poured the contents in with the tea. I also add a tsp of salt because people had stated that their dogs took better to the tea with the salt added in. Thankfully, Topaz is not a picky eater and so after I few minutes of adjusting she happily drank it.

Topaz is a 45 to 50 pound dog so I gave her 6 ounces of tea. Topaz is normally a very active dog- rising between 7 and 8 am. Promptly needing to go outside for a walk then we come inside for breakfast. After breakfast, she plays until she wears herself out which is usually about 1 or 2 pm. She will sleep for about 2 hours and then get up, go outside for a walk and come inside and have play time until bed time. Today, was not one of those days. She awoke at 8 am on Wednesday and immediately began dancing in front of the door. I took her out, she did her business, and we returned inside where she immediately returned to bed. She slept until 11 am! She would wake if I moved around but so long as I stayed nearby, she happily snored the morning away. The rest of the day she was much more subdued than normal. We still had some play time but not as much as normal. 

 I have been brewing 8 ounces of tea at a time and then only giving her 2 ounces at night with the vitamins mixed in. I pour this over her dog food and she happily eats it up. Her itchiness is improved and a lot of the pinkness has left her skin. I have had to give her 25 mg of benadryl twice but that is much better than the 175 mg of benadryl that she would have had without the addition of the vitamins and tea to her diet.