Pet Skin Care

Constant licking, chewing and scratching can make your pet’s life miserable and uncomfortable and also very disturbing to pet owners. Most common skin conditions that cause itchy skin in dogs and cats are skin allergies, atoptic dermatitis, skin parasites like demodex and scabies mange, flea allergy dermatitis and skin infections.
At First Coast Vets, we diagnose and treat various skin conditions to relieve your pets itchy skin. At the time of the physical exam we do comb your pets fur to check for fleas as fleas are the number one reason for itchy skin. We perform skin diagnostics like skin scraping exam to diagnose demodex and scabies mange. We also perform skin impression smears and cytology to figure out the type of skin infection whether it is bacterial or yeast infection. We do recommend skin and serum allergy testing to diagnose atopic dermatitis for dogs who have skin allergies. Complex dermatological cases we may consult veterinary dermatologists for proper guidance on diagnosis and treatment of hard skin cases.
At First Coast Vets, we offer a variety of treatment options to treat your pet’s itchy skin. Our veterinarian may prescribe a variety of anti-allergy medications. These medications include anti-inflammatory products like steroids (prednisone) , antihistamines (hydroxyzine or cetirizine), cyclosporine (atopica), and newer drugs such as oclacitinib (Apoquel) and lokivetmab (Cytopoint injection). Along with anti-itch medications our veterinarian may recommend treating your pet’s skin infection with oral antibiotics (Cefpodoxime) for bacterial skin infection and oral antifungal (Fluconazole) medications for yeast or malassezia infection. Often skin infections heal faster with a combination of topical medicated shampoo baths along with oral medications. We educate pet owners about the importance of keeping your pets on flea tick prevention and also giving nutritional supplements like fish oil or omega 3 fatty acid supplements. ß