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According to last week’s poll, almost 30% of your dogs are experiencing skin issues.

Did you know that food can trigger up to 25% of skin issues and up to 40% of itchiness?

Here’s the method vets use to identify food allergies and intolerances.

Weekly Bite

Missed Part 1/4 of my mini-series last week?

Don’t worry… 

👉️ TL;DR: Vets follow a 3-step process to diagnose allergies: (1) physical exam and bloodwork, (2) cytology tests and symptom treatment, and (3) anti-parasitic trials.

If skin and gastrointestinal disorders persist after those 3 steps, vets turn to elimination diet trials.

Why?

To rule out food allergies and intolerances.

Lemme break it down. 👇️

The Vet Allergy Playbook (Part 2/4)

Step 3: Elimination Diet Trials

In elimination diet trials, dogs are fed a strict new diet for 8 weeks. 

The goal?

Diagnose any adverse food reactions (AFRs).

AFRs are a group of skin, gastrointestinal, and respiratory disorders that happen when a dog reacts to something they’ve ingested.

Unlike us, dogs can experience delayed-type hypersensitivity…

Which means that their skin issues and itchiness can take days or weeks to develop after ingesting an AFR trigger. 

And just as long to clear up after removing it!

Food allergy vs. food intolerance

AFRs can be immunologic (food allergy) or non-immunologic (food intolerance).

Food allergies require previous exposure.

Food intolerances don't.

But here’s where it gets tricky…

Dog can be allergic to foods they've never eaten before due to cross-immunoreactivity.

Cross-immunoreactivity: When the immune system mistakes similar allergens for the allergen it already knows.

For example, if a dog is allergic to chicken, they might also react to turkey on first exposure because the proteins look similar.

To avoid this response, vets start with hydrolyzed diets.

Next week, I'll break down the exact elimination diet protocol vets use, including the 3 diet options, prep work, and what to do if symptoms persist.

TL;DR: Food triggers up to 40% of itchiness in dogs. Elimination diet trials help diagnose adverse food reactions by feeding a strict new diet for 8 weeks.

Tail End

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Until next Thursday, ✌️

Sam