Pemphigus erythematosus

[Bluedrake]

Hello.

My mother's dog Bobby was recently diagnosed with Pemphigus erythematosus. It's an auto-immune disease that causes sores and blisters to appear. He has pus in his nose and sores on his muzzle.

He was prescribed prednisone and cortizone, and the symptoms have receded, but the sores tend to appear again when he gets off the medication.

I was wondering if any of you know anything about this disease? Is there a way to cure it for good? I'm not too comfortable with the dog being on steroids for the rest of his life.

[cheribob]

This topic was just covered in this month's issue of "Catnip" the magazine published by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

I will get my copy & post again later. However, from what I can recall from the article the standard treatment is steroids. Then reducing the steroids until the lesions appear again. This determines the least amount of steroids that will controll the disease.

http://www.tufts.edu/vet/publications/catnip/index.html

[Toonces]

Hi there, first let me say how sorry I am about your moms dog Bobby. I fostered a dog with Pemphigus and the only way to control it was with steriods for the rest of his life, he did graduate down to the lowest dose possible to keep it under control. There is no cure just management to keep outbreaks from happening.