As part of finding the optimal treatment for your pets allergies, it is important to understand what will happen during your visit to a vet for treatment of dog allergies.

Medical Condition Review
The history you provide will greatly assist your vet in properly assess your pet. Based on your responses, the vet will know to focus on particular areas of the body during the examination.

Since you are the primary input provider, your symptom descriptions will guide the vet to laboratory tests needed to arrive at a proper diagnosis.

What to Bring with You
To get the best results from your veterinary visit, be prepared to provide an indication of when you first saw the pet start scratching, itching and other symptoms, whether it has been a consistent symptom, particular times that it is worse, foods, outdoors, indoors etc. In addition, a good vet will ask if there have been any changes to the pets environment, diet or other surroundings.

Be prepared to provide your dog's medical records and copies of previous tests, vaccinations and treatments administered. Provide details on treatments you have tried and any effect these treatments had on your dog.

In addition, inform the doctor of any medications, including heartworm medications, flea and tick preventions that your dog is taking.  Provide the vet with details of your dogs daily diet. Track as much as possible your dog’s bowel and urinary output and any other signs of your dog’s general health.

Make a list of any other behaviors you may have noticed out of the ordinary, in addition to the scratching. Problems may indicate a diagnosis other than atopic dermatitis, or simply indicate additional medical problems in your pet.

Check yourself and other animal and human members of the household for signs of skin lesions.

The Examination
The physical exam is broken into two parts: the general physical examination which is a general examination of the pet from head to toe to detect additional problems that might exist. This is a true holistic approach to identify the patient from a whole body perspective.

The second exam will be a detailed evaluation of the skin, observation of the pet's reactions to itchiness, severity of the problem, how far along advanced the problem is, the existence of lesions, the condition of the lesions, whether the problem is stable or worsening rapidly, and the level of discomfort the pet is in. Particular areas of focus are usually the armpits, the abdomen, the feet, the ears and the groin.

Tests for allergic atopic dermatitis include skin testing, in vitro blood testing, and skin biopsy. In addition, tests should be performed to discover or rule out the other common skin disorders.

Skin Testing
The most common skin testing is called intradermal allergy testing. Most pets can be fully awake for the procedure. At 15 minutes and again at 30 minutes after the injections, the doctor inspects the injection sites and grades them as positive or negative reactions. (positive means an allergic reaction, negative means no reaction.) Each test includes an injection of sterile water, which serves as a negative control, for comparison. Testing a mix of allergens at once is a shortcut but the downside is that it fails to isolate the specific allergen.

Impact of Medications    False negative reactions may occur if the pet has recently been treated with corticosteroids, antihistamines etc. Intradermal skin testing is the best method for testing pets suspected to have atopic dermatitis.

In Vitro Testing
Your vet may also want to try in vitro testing, called blood ELISA or RAST testing, for diagnosis of atopic dermatitis. There are advantages to blood testing in that the dog does not need sedation, and it is less time consuming and medications the pet is taking are less interfering with the results. However, this test is not as accurate as intradermal skin testing.

Skin Biopsy
A skin biopsy may also be used in diagnosing atopic dermatitis. A minor surgical procedure is performed under heavy sedation or light anesthesia. The vet extracts several tiny pieces of skin. A pathologist examines the tiny pieces of skin through a microscope, and checks for various conditions including skin disease and other more serious disorders. Skin biopsies are quite accurate tests.

Skin Scraping
Skin scrapingis used to test for the presence of microscopic mange mites. Veterinarians perform skin scraping by placing a drop of mineral oil on the skin, squeezing a small area of skin to express the mites, and scraping the skin with a sterile scalpel blade.

Fungal Culture
Fungal culture is a very common diagnostic test for pets with skin problems.

Wood’s Light Examination
The wood’s light examination is a screening test for detecting ringworm infection in pets and sometimes for atopic dermatitis.

Orthomolecular Therapy
Orthomolecular therapy uses high doses of antioxidant vitamins and minerals to treat pets with allergies. .

Blood Tests
Blood tests also provide information on the general health of the pet, and allow the doctor to determine if alternations in prescribed medications need to be made.

Decision
Once the vet has determined the cause of your dog’s scratching, whether is atopic dermatitis or another condition, the veterinarian can design a proper treatment approach. Often this requires a combination of both conventional and complementary therapies.