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Hair loss and SM meds

Holly

Well-known member
Hi all-

Question for you. My girl is on Gabapentin, Previcox, and Prilosec. She has
never had a lot of coat, but recently it appears to be getting very thin-- I can
see the pink of her skin on her chest. It has also gotten very dry and coarse. I
do have her on a quality food. We are due to go back in for bloodwork (I try to
have it done about every 3 months or so). Just wondering if anyone else has had
this experience with SM meds. I know that Pred can sometimes have this effect,
but she is not on that.

I have the Isle of Dogs Royal Jelly supplement and was considering adding this
to her food, as it is good for the coat. I am planning to have her spayed within
the month, so perhaps that will improve the amount of coat.

I am just wondering if her meds are what is causing her to lose so much coat.

Thanks,
Holly
 
Hi,
I posted on this a little while ago, but Bosco's hair loss (in my opinion anyway) is due to being on pred. Lots of people suggested that I put him on good quality fish oil as a supplement. I intend to try this, but I haven't yet, because at the time I had just started giving him silica, in the form of homeopathic tissue salts, also known as Dr Schussler's salts and I wanted to see what they would do before adding anything else into the mix. He has been taking 3 a day now for about the last 6 weeks, and I am sure there has been an improvement - his coat seems thicker, longer, and when you rub or brush him there isn't the same dramatic amount of hair coming away. You can still see his pink skin though.
If you think about it, your dog (and any dog on a number of meds) is ingesting a lot of heavy duty stuff, and it is bound to have an effect somewhere in the body. Also, it is natural for dogs to shed at this time of the year, because of the warmer weather, but when they are already under stress, it gets worse.
Anyway, I would suggest you try the tissue salts as I have, or good quality fish oils.
If you scroll down this section of the forum you will see my posting (its about 11 down), and the various suggestions are there.
Good luck,
Charli
 
I haven't seen any hair loss on Leo but he is on gabapentin and cimetidine. Maybe one of the other drugs has some effect like this? How old is Holly again? If she is older and never lost hair before then I'd agree there may be some additional reason; but on the other hand, it isn't unusual for unspayed females in particular to blow a lot of coat including down to the point where you can see skin, depending on hormone cycles. After a heat or pregnancy or false pregnancy seems to be a common time for major hair loss.
 
She is 3 years old. I just came back from the vet-- I had them do her bloodwork and everything came back fine, except there was an indication that her skin was inflamed a bit and it's very pink. The vet gave her a steroid shot. She thinks the hair loss is probably related to the meds, as well. Her hair has become very dry, coarse, and sparse. She never had a lot of coat, but it was much better than this.

She isn't spayed and I am planning to have this done asap. I am going to wait just a bit to be sure that everything is ok. She has never had puppies or a false pregnancy. Perhaps it could be hormonal, but I have never seen her with this little coat. She isn't due t come back into season until August.

I will read back over the other thread on hair loss.

Thank you!
 
Riley, m dog, was losing all of her beely hair - most likely dure to prednisone. I started her on 1000mg pure salmon oil. Before she started the salmon oil, she was on fish oil, but it was a combination of mackeral, and some other fish, not salmon. Her belly looked like a bald old man with a combover - her belly was almost bare. Four weeks after starting the salmon oil her hair is belly fur is back as thick as it was on her belly before the prednisone. The rest of her fur is till coarser than my other dogs, but her belly is 100% better than it was. Her tail is still skimpy though. I use 100% pure organic salmon oil capsules.
 
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