Well, Sierra visited the new vet (Dr. D.) today and $200.00 later, I came back with two completely different theories than what my usual vet (Dr. F.) thought. As you know, Dr. F. thought it was a flea allergy and sort of completely dismissed the idea of any other type of allergy. Well, Dr. D. believes it IS an allergy (other than to fleas) or possibly mites. I was actually pretty impressed with how she looked over Sierra. She seemed to take her time and felt her all over, took skin scrapings from different parts of her body instead of just one spot and just in general seemed more thorough than Dr. F. Anyway, she didn't see any mites on the skin scrapings and sent me home armed with 4 different prescriptions - an antibiotic, an antihistamine, a steroid and honestly I don't remember what the other is for. We talked about so much I forgot. Anyway, I need to give Sierra a total of 13 pills a day! Three of the scrips are 2 pills, 2x's daily. of course, with these pills my dog suddenly gets picky and doesn't want to take them. She walks around eating stinkbugs, ants and any animal poop she can find, but she won't eat these. It took three and a half hot dogs, 2 slices of cheese and me keeping her head tilted up so she couldn't spit them out.
Dr. D. said her skin is in really bad shape and the natural yeast and bacteria that's supposed to be there is all out of whack because of the scratching. It should go back to normal levels after she stops scratching so often. I mentioned how Sierra starts to smell again within 2 or 3 days after a bath and she said it's because of the yeast build up and that should go away also. Dr. F. never did or told me any of this. I'm not blaming her, as someone said, each doctor has different experiences that they learn from. I guess it's not a bad idea to keep both vet's numbers in case something like this happens again. Any way Dr. D. said I should see a dramatic improvement within 3-4 weeks so I guess now we wait and see how things go.
I really appreciate eveyone's advice and concern. I don't know what I'd do without you all!