I realize this post is pretty late, at least for those not on the west coast. When you are a night person, with a hour siesta in the late afternoon, you end up wide awake at 10:33pm and wanting to write a blog post. Before I start my rambling I'll go straight to an update about Heidi's skin.
These photos were taken today after her lunch. I think you can see a change in the color of skin, it's not as red and irritated like it usually is on those rear hocks. The skin all over is soft and supple and it's starting to hang like normal basset hound skin, only a lot of it doesn't have hair. That hair may not grow back.
Last spring vet #3 he didn't think any hair would grow back on her rear legs, rear paws or rear shoulders. It has but not quite normal thickness. What is improving is the softness of that bare skin and the color.
She does not resist or flinch when I put on the ointment. She didn't when she was getting her bath yesterday and I was trying to lightly scrub off the dead skin in the folds of her skin. Her nails are cut back as close as possible without making them bleed. Looking at the end of the nails the quick blood vessel fills the nail.
The ointment directions doesn't give an exact number of doses to do per day but just says multiple times per day. I've only been doing two applications per day. I think you can see in this next photo, the skin on the rear hock is finally hanging down like normal skin would for her breed instead of stiff and inflamed like it was in the past. Same as the skin on her chest.
The friend that told me about the Wounded Warrior Ointment and shipped two tubes of it to me, said something interesting tonight that I did not know and none of the four vets over the last eighteen months mentioned. She said it takes bacteria seven days to kill, but a fungus can take nine months to a year to kill.
Why do I think it is a fungus? Her skin looks best first thing in the morning. Even now with the skin looking better, it will look it really red after the times she has been sleeping curled up ... all of of that skin is under her and not exposed to the air ... thus becomes moist, at times sweaty depending on the air temperature ... and the reddest of the day.
Fungus needs moisture. So the ointment will continue but I will be increasing the number of applications per day. The grain free food will continue and I will make sure no potatoes will be in the food just in case there is some yeast infection going on. From what I have read today and in the past it could take up to 16 weeks (4 mos) before the new food overtakes the old food in her system.
This is a photo I took of her Thursday afternoon after she was completely dry after her bath. I think if you look back though some posts here you will see there is a lot less redness. Today was only the 8th day of applying the ointment.
The other two partners in crime only had one walk today ... a little after their lunch. They were just as lazy as I was most of the day. They never came to me howling or staring me down wanting to walk. The times they went outside they stood there most of the time .. they never roamed the field like they usually do.
It's the same path every day. Similar stopping points. Stella is always trying to expand her boundary and will even look back to see if I am watching her but will come when I call her. Still they love their time on the walk, it's good exercise for them also ... and their noses.
Stella was pretty far off in that right hand corner of the field she likes. I was expecting to get some great shots of her running toward us ... my camera wouldn't work!!!! By the time I took the lens off and reattached it, then hearing it focus, she had sprinted and ran past Sadie and I.
There is never a day goes by where she doesn't glance over to the area where the deer was a week or so ago. She also might have been smelling her other favorite thing ... food. Sometimes bbq's fill the air in the middle of the day with retired neighbors.
Sadie led the way home and both were sound to sleep within minutes after going back inside the house.
I spent a lot of time reading today. I wanted to find out more about the pop up screen that told me my computer was messed up this morning. I went to a Mac forum called MacRumors and saw that other users had ran into the exact same error message but the pop up screens and phone numbers to call were all different but had the same results.
Some were saying I needed to completely wipe my hard drive and reinstall the operating system. I'm not sure I need to go that far ... I guess I'll find out. Just as a precaution I changed the master password to my Last Pass program I use to encrypt all the passwords I use online. I changed the login passwords to both my iMac and MacBook. I changed passwords to my bank accounts.
I believe that will be enough. Some said that when they reopened their browser the pop up error kept coming back but it has not for me. I tried Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome and at no time did that pop up show up. I also read that it is not specific to PC or Mac and not to a specific browser ... all are potential candidates in that game.
Contrary to popular belief, I did step away from the computer numerous times today and tonight. I like to cook on occasion. I also finished up the final touches of my house cleaning duties.
It was a good day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.