Apoquel

[victoria1140]

Well Raven is now on apoquel for her allergies.

Has anyone noticed any side effects or anything l need to think about apart from regular bloodworks

 

[Angela]

I don't know anything about it but hope it works. You have had more than your share of ups and downs.

 

[Jeannie]

Chase has been on it for over a year. No side effects. It is a miracle pill.

 

[Darwinsnewfie@1855]

Ella was on Apoquel for a couple months and it really got her allergies under control. However, due to the side effect concern of Bone marrow suppression, my vet and I decided to switch to Cytopoint injections, which, in Ella's case works just as good as Apoquel and without the concern for side effects. I know all dogs can react differently, but Cytopoint has been great for Ella. The only downside can be cost, but my pet insurance pays 90% and my vet doesn't charge an office visit to administrate the injection. Here are a couple links I read while researching some treatment options for allergy control. One thing to keep in mind is that Cytopoint is relatively new, so there are not a lot of long term studies conducted yet.

http://vetmed.illinois.edu/steroids-vs-atopica-vs-apoquel-vs-cytopoint/
https://www.drugs.com/vet/cytopoint.html

 

[Kburnim07]

Olive has been on Apoquel for the past 4 months and it is indeed a miracle drug. She has seen no side effects at all and her skin looks amazing.

 

[Sound Bay Newfs]

Apoquel is an immune suppressor which can lead to serious side effects so should be used for a short time.

 

[victoria1140]

Well so far Apoquel has been amazing n how quickly it's worked.Raven started on three 16mg tablets a day and responded fast.

No more feet chewing or ear scratching at all.

I have managed to reduce the dose to 1 1/2 tablets a day and she's still maintaining on that so may try just 1tablet per day and see what happens.then if it's a bad time l can always up her dosage a bit.

I may not like her being on them but all l can say is it's working great so far

 

[Jeannie]

Chase is down to 1/2 to 1 tablet per day. When her allergies get bad I just increase the dose enough to keep her comfortable.

Apoquel may have side effects but Chase has not experienced any. My Samantha was on prednisone for 10 years for allergies. At that time there were not many options to treat allergies. After trying all options my vet and I decided on the pred. I knew it would shorten her life but give her better quality of life. She lived to be 14 years 2 months and 3 weeks old. You just never know.

 

[Darwinsnewfie@1855]

Great to hear that Raven is feeling better. It's so sad to see them itching and scratching like that.

 

[Bailey Boy]

My Sarah has been on it for over a year now I guess, she is doing amazing on it. Depending on the weather I can back her down to just one pill with a benedryl to do the trick.

 

[shellyk]

McGee has been on apoquel for almost 2 years with no side effects except that he still had a break through double ear infections this late spring. The Vet said to try both cytopoint and apoquel with a short term goal to wean off apoquel. We are in the first month without apoquel and I notice he is chewing on one of his back feet. Not sure what the next step will be. The Vet thinks some of his foot chewing may be due more to neuroses than allergy. We had tried CBD oil and thought that it didn't do anything for him but he wasn't chewing his feet so we could try that again.

 

[Darwinsnewfie@1855]

How many months has McGee been on Cytopoint? Ella is on her 4th month of Cytopoint and gets it every 3-5 weeks. I use Apoquel inbetween Cytopoint injections, but only use the Apoquel for a couple days until I can get a vet appointment for the injection. As soon as I see Ella obsessively licking her front paws and scratching her ears, I know its time to give the Apoquel and schedule her for a Cytopoint injection. We also just started her on ProPlan Pro-biotics and she is having less loose BM and gas. Its so sad to see how allergies can effect these poor dogs. And I really worry about giving her all these medication to treat the allergies, but I also want her to have a good quality of life. I hope cytopoint works for McGee, it's been a life saver for Ella.

 

[reeves]

I would love to hear more about the transition/use of Cytopoint. We have two pups on Apoquel right now and our vet is encouraging us to switch over to Cytopoint. The price point, at twice the cost of Apoquel, is a serious concern, though.

We also have the dogs on allergy drops (rather than shots), but I'm honestly unable to say whether they are having any actual impact. Our hope had been that the allergen drops would reduce, over time, our need for other drugs such as Apoquel, etc. Has anybody else had that experience, or are we really just looking at planning on being on drugs forever?

 

[victoria1140]

We tried the immunotherapy and that didn't work for us .not sure which allergy drops you mean

None of the standard allergy treatments worked for Raven but the apoquel though increasing her weight a bit seems to be working, fingers crossed

 

[shellyk]

McGee has had 3 cytopoint injections. I am not sold on cytopoint. It seemed to help when apoquel wasn't enough but doesn't seem to do well enough on it's own. McGee is back on apoquel due to extreme feet licking. He was only 3 weeks into the last shot. I hate to think he needs one every 3 weeks.

 

[victoria1140]

What dosage of apoquel are you on.
Raven started at three tablets and now they've reduced her to 1 1/2 of the largest ones.not sure that's quite enough as her ears got itchy this week so had to zymox her as well������

 

[Jeannie]

Chase takes one of the large ones per day. When allergies are bad then she gets 1 1/2 -2 per day. If Raven's ears are bad she needs to take more..

 

[shellyk]

McGee is 145 lbs and started on two per day one in the am and one in the pm and then went down to 1 per day. Right now he might have to go back to twice a day as he is still licking his feet like crazy!

 

[Jeannie]

I have found it works better when you do not split the dose. I talked to my vet and she said she has a few dogs who do better that way.

 

[Darwinsnewfie@1855]

I have also had 2 months where Ella needed the Cytopoint every 3 weeks, but then the following month she went 5 weeks before needing it. I think it depends what is blooming or what season we are in. I really hoping things get better with fall being here and expect it to get even better in the winter.