I have a 4yr old Bichon Frise who's been showing allergy like symptoms for what's been coming up to 3 years now. The areas affected are his ears, muzzle, paws & his groin area (this flares up from time to time, although the flare ups have increased in how frequent they are). He does sometimes get spots/sores around his bum area which we've been told is just his anal glands playing up on occasion (we use Fuciderm/Isaderm gel to treat this). The skin on his muzzle is always inflamed, bumpy & a little scabby depending on how bad he's managed to itch it. It's gotten to the point where he's been in a cone 24/7 for the past 2yrs as he'll be itching all the time without it. If we were to touch him ever so lightly in any of those areas he'll instantly want to itch, bite or lick it to the point where he'll destroy the skin on top & he'll bleed. It's reached the stage where I have to be extremely careful when I'm grooming him as his skin is so fragile in those areas & he's sore everywhere (which has unfortunately led to a bit of trouble with his fur getting a bit matted as he'll only tolerate me grooming him for 5mins at a time).

We have tried lots of different medications to treat this but they've been little to no help. There was one medicine (unfortunately I can't remember the name) which got rid of his symptoms completely but he ended up vomiting blood due to it creating a stomach ulcer so we stopped it straight away. He was also given steroid ear drops to clear an infection that he'd gotten in his ears which also helped clear his symptoms for 3 days but then it came back again. Our vets thought it may be a food allergy so they'd given us a prescribed diet for him which we've been using for 2 years now, but we haven't seen an improvement from this. I've noticed that he tends to get more itchy than usual when we used to give him chicken. We clean him with baby wipes when he goes outside for his business & also feed him from a plastic bowl (I've mentioned this in case it's useful).

We're currently treating his symptoms with the following right now which, keeping in mind only just about take off the edge of the itching for him (I have also added images for these):

• Hill's Prescription Diet d/d (duck & rice)- feed him 2x a day.
• Piriton Allergy Tablets (Chlorphenamine Maleate) - 2x a day, if I only give him one by accident his itching goes into extreme overdrive & I have to end up giving him 3 the next day to get it back under “control”.
• A generic ear cleanser that our vet has added a little steroid to after we told them how it helped him-once a week, if his ears are really bad then twice a week.

I'm always on top of his medication so I rarely forget to give him & he's up to date on his advocate, worming meds & vaccines. I really want him to get better & not be troubled by this anymore as this is restricting him from living life to the fullest & he deserves better. If anyone's able to help then I'd greatly appreciate it. TIA