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My dog scratches till she bleeds. Safe long-term allergy relief?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | Shiba Inu | Female | spayed | 7 years and 4 months old | 30 lbs

scratching face rubbing face on carpet or grass licking lags scratching till she bleeds i use predinsone works good but when we stop using it goes back to the same what treatment is safe for long term?

2 Answers

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Dr. Davis

Veterinarian

Published on August 6th, 2017

No I don't recommend prednisone for long term use as it can cause liver problems. The scratching can be from food, fleas, plants and grass in the yard among other things. Make sure you are using flea control on Kia since even one flea bite can cause excessive scratching in some dogs. Also if there is a secondary skin infection using a course of antibiotics can greatly reduce the itching too. The most effective long term solution is to find the specific reason and taylor the medication to the diagnosis. Skin problems can be annoying and difficult to get under control but you will have better success when treating the cause not just the symptoms. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Kia.

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    Answered By Dr. Massimo Orioles, DVM, Cert AVP, MRCVS

    Veterinarian

    Published on

    This is probably due to an allergy, although it could also be infection or mites. First of all, in order to rule out skin parasites, you will need to treat with a high quality flea treatment (advocate or advantage), then ask the vet to perform a skin scrape - this might reveal an infection or a mite infestation. If all of those came back negative, the next step is to treat the allergy symptomatically and try to discover the cause of the allergy. Three main type of allergies are usually affecting pets: food allergies, flea and parasite related ones and environmental type (allergens coming from trees, pollens, dust etc etc). Some medications can be given by the vet in order to repair any possible skin lesions (like steroids and antibiotics). Unfortunately steroids (prednisolone) can have many side effects in the long term, but that would depend on the dosage. There many other drugs available against itch and allergies nowadays (like Apoquel for example), so I would recommend to discuss another treatment option with your local vet. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

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