Many dogs, cats and horses have skin problems. Issues can appear with symptoms like itch, rashes, scaling, blemishes, pigment changes, hair loss, dull coat, or bad odor.  The claws or hooves also belong to the skin and may be affected (deformation of claws or hooves or loss of claws). In cases where skin problems are present the veterinarian will take an extensive patient history and make a thorough clinical investigation. This investigation usually includes special tests like hair combing, skin scraping, hair plucking, microscoping, bacterial culture, fungal culture, blood tests or skin biopsies.

It is important to determine the primary reason for the skin and coat problem. This process will typically take at least two or more visits. The list of possible primary causes for the skin problem can be long (parasites, allergies, infections, hormonal disorders, metabolic disease, nutrition/absorption problems, immune mediated disease, tumors, etc.).

Nextmune offers a wide range of well documented skin care products which can help relieve the symptoms.

One common cause for recurrent skin infection is allergy, such as flea allergy, food allergy and/or atopic dermatitis.

Nextmune is the global #1 in allergy diagnostics and treatment with a complete offer from the latest technology in allergy testing, PAX (Pet Allergy Xplorer and NextEQ, to the only licensed immunotherapy in Europe*, Artuvetrin® Therapy.

To help find the best elimination diet use the PAX Food Test. Once the clinical diagnosis of atopic dermatitis is made, a PAX test or an intradermal test, Artuvetrin® Skin Test, can be performed to identify the responsible allergens.

The PAX blood test will also show if there is an allergic response towards flea saliva and insects.

Identifying the responsible allergens is a fundamental step to implement environmental control measures and to pick the correct allergens for an allergen specific immunotherapy, Artuvetrin® Therapy.  Artuvetrin® Therapy is the only licensed immunotherapy in Europe* and the best option for long-term treatment of atopic dermatitis.

*Licensed in the Netherlands