DOES THE RAW DIET HELP WITH HEALING HOT SPOTS?

Dear Jubilee:

Our Airedale got several hot spots after being on some medications. I treated the hot spots minimally ... cut the hair away so that the air would get to them and gently cleaned them with water if they got dirty. They healed up in about a month.  Could that be attributable to the raw diet – Do you think that their powerful immune systems took care of the problem without intervention of antibiotics or anything else? 

Wondering in Wichita 

Dear Wondering,

We had a similar situation with MerryLee nearly three years ago -- in her case, the hot spots also popped up after she was taken off of a med, and I think they were caused by the poisons being leached out of her system. They took about a month, maybe longer to totally disappear, and we treated them only by washing them in strong black tea followed by hydrogen peroxide and spritzing them with calendula tincture mixed with water. And we did clip away the hair around them. I remember that the largest one, (it was on her throat), took the longest to heal, and about four days before it disappeared, she was at the vet's to have her OFA x-rays done, and the vet asked if I had her on steroids to clear it. I said no. He said it would not heal until I put her on steroids. I thanked him for his advice (even though I felt it was worth exactly what I paid for it -- nothing). Four days later, the hot spot was gone. She never had hot spots again.

We are convinced that treating hot spots with antibiotics or steroids only suppresses the problem and that when you finish the antibiotics or steroids, the hot spots recur. We had this happen with a dog about eight years ago. After two courses of antibiotics, one for an entire month, the hot spots recurred. So the vet said steroids, and that was when we started using an alternative vet for things like hot spots. The alternative vet is the one who suggested nutritional changes and who taught us about black tea, hydrogen peroxide, and calendula ointment.

Jubilee