Our Dog Kiwi and her Pemphigus Foliaceus Autoimmune Disease Journey

I’d just come out of hospital from having surgery when my husband commented a few times he was worried about Kiwi “she’s not right”. it was quickly clear she was not herself.

That weekend we’d noticed she’d licked her paw pads raw, she was very down in herself and she wasn’t drinking or eating, we took her to the vets and they admitted her in over night to do tests, including blood tests that eliminated any major organ concerns, and they immediately started treating her for possible allergies; they did mention the signs looked autoimmune, but it was rare and they felt it was probably allergies.

After 5 days on steroids and antibiotics Kiwi wasn’t getting any better, in fact she was getting worse. We noticed her skin on my tummy was very red, and as we were in lock down I couldn’t take her to the vets ‘as she was eating and drinking’ they didn’t consider it an emergency and so I had to email photos in. They changed her antibiotics, increased her daily dosage of steroids and advised to change her food to hyperallengic and grain free.

After 6 days she continued to get worse, her skin was now weeping, her ears were weeping and I emailed more photos to the vet and they reviewed them and advised they think she is having an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, to which we were instructed to stop giving them to her and I had to send in updated photos in a few days time.

She continued to get worse, her skin was welting and coming away, parts of it turning black and her lips, eyelids and nose started to blister. I promptly sent some more updated photos to which they booked her to go in.

This time we spoke to a new vet, and he was great, he confirmed it’s definitely looking more autoimmune and not allergy related; he also explained it’s going to be a long road to diagnoses before they could then give her the correct medication. They first wanted to calm her skin down with the steroid treatment before they could do the skin biopsy to identify if it is autoimmune - they also warned me that any Autoimmune medication is extremely expensive and she will be on it for the rest of her life. So they increased her steroids and put her back on antibiotics and sent her home...

She still wasn’t getting any better, and after a few days they took the decision to go ahead with the skin biopsy, even with the risk that her skin being in the state it was would probably counteract the biopsy and hide the diagnoses they needed.

A few days later the skin biopsy results came back - it didn’t work, her skin was too bad to get a clear diagnoses.

Our vet was consulting with a dermatologist vet specialist who was based in another part of the country, whom worked closely with my vet giving advice (who I would be ever so grateful for), and along with other vet specialist they all confirmed that it is likely to be Autoimmune and to start the treatment ASAP.

The treatment for pemphigus foliaceus autoimmune disease commenced and Kiwi for the first time in 2.5-months started to respond positively to it. Finally, there was hope…

The treatment causes other nasty side effects and we are handling those separately now, but, the main thing is her skin is almost back to normal and she is nearly pain free and much more happy within herself.