The Atopica might have helped him by lowering the level of attack – but who knows? Honestly I could not really say if it worked or not this time.  Autumn 2012 nobody could deny the effect of the Atopica.

The salt water experiment

When he became “naked” I took a chance and let him go swimming in salt water (not with bacteria from sea weed – that could occur when as hot summer as this one was).  He had no obvious skin infection so I decided that would be OK.Then rinsed him in fresh water and dried him with a towel. There were no risk for fungus or anything since there was no real under coat to hold the water.

That caused no problems.

Status Mid June

At the middle of June the flare/relaps was over. No more attacks from his own immune system. Even when he is well he has dry ears and a small minimal itchy feeling on his fore head (he does not scratch but want to be touched there).  We decided to decrease the Atopica dose.  We went to 200 mg every third day and that stayed for almost 2 months. His coat grew amazingly which is a sign of that the skin is as balanced as it could be.

I was hoping I could test to skip the Atopica totally during the “good period” but as I was a bit to unsure of my “theory” I therefore started to decrease too late, now we were heading towards the “autumn shedding”.

So far – Manuel has a very clear regular shedding-cycle, and has had for many years. So I knew we wouldn’t have the time to go down to “zero” before the shedding period – and then most likely the SA period would start.