Nicol & Hugo Sick French Bulldog

by Nicol Daunt
(Croydon England)

Am really hoping you could give me some advice, as we seem to be getting nowhere fast...

We have a beautiful blue Frenchie, a proper Frenchie btw, not the small one. He is four years old in August.

No problems for probably the first two years, but his feet suddenly started to flare up, then his ears, then his hair. He has been to the vets so many times I’ve lost count. He is suffering terribly.

The first year and a bit under the vet, he got no better at all on antibiotics and Apoquel for months.

We found a vet that has an interest in bulldogs. He said the antibiotics they had given him are the worst for bulldogs. So had another course of different ones.

He also has had to have steroid injections to bring the flare up down. He also has to have Cytopoint injections once a month.

He has just finished another course of antibiotics that he has been on now for six weeks!

He had his injection not even two weeks ago and he is still licking his feet and today his feet have the same hot spots on them which are filled with blood. He had lost most of his hair. He couldn’t walk properly on his pads for weeks previously.

We have changed his food. The vet said put him on a prescription diet. He ate it for a few days, wet and dry but now won’t touch it.

I have been reading up on it and I’m have to agree, like us being ill, it starts on the inside and we only notice on the outside when it starts to show (hair, paws, ears) shaking his head which is another sign with him.

In the article it mentions yeast in the gut and also then, it can go into the bloodstream.

They talk about a raw food diet and I don’t have a clue where to start. Please HELP!

Apart from the costs that we keep paying out, I don’t feel it’s good at all to continually be on tablets and having injections is not good.

Nicol