Does anyone have a guess what kind of fungal infection this can be?

[MissClouseau]

If you saw my other thread Hima has had a lesion on her inner leg since 2019. It gets worse when she messes with it. Right now the hair grew back there although there is still some scab under. It was not found what it is but allergic dermatitis is one of the options.

well now, she has a brand new lesionon her back. This happened about a month after her food change from Acana to ProPlan Hepatic dry food. When the hair started to fall off in early May I accidentally spilled wet food around that area. I thought she just licked it off too much but she lost even more hair and orangey spots appeared. The vet saw the pictures and thinks it’s fungal infection and prescribed a ketoconazole based ointment. (Google says ketoconazole is challenging on liver and Hima has an abnormal liver enzyme already. Go figure!)

Anyway, does anyone have a guess what kind of fungal infection this might be?

 

[FeebysOwner]

I have no idea what type of fungus may be involved. I am surprised your vet didn't suggest doing a skin scraping in order to better identify the specific fungi involved, as I understand not all fungi will respond to the same treatment.

Can you call the vet back and ask them if they actually 'recognized' the type of fungus it is in order to determine the treatment they chose?

 

[MissClouseau]

I have no idea what type of fungus may be involved. I am surprised your vet didn't suggest doing a skin scraping in order to better identify the specific fungi involved, as I understand not all fungi will respond to the same treatment.

Can you call the vet back and ask them if they actually 'recognized' the type of fungus it is in order to determine the treatment they chose?

Thank you! That’s exactly what I thought as well but another vet at a different clinic saw the pictures and said that ointment is good to try right now too. “Bring her in if things don’t improve in a month or if there’s a new lesion” he said. So maybe it should help for what fungus(es) they guess this might be.

 

[fionasmom]

They definitely are guessing. Not to demonize them, maybe they went with the most common and thought that they were saving you some money, but it does need a skin scraping and more accurate dx.

 

[Kflowers]

If you think she got from spilling her food on her, I would consider changing her food again. Can you leave a can of her food open in a plastic container and see if it grows something? (don't throw away the can in case you want it later.)

 

[MissClouseau]

They definitely are guessing. Not to demonize them, maybe they went with the most common and thought that they were saving you some money, but it does need a skin scraping and more accurate dx.

I will insist to get one done 1,5 weeks later when we go. She was supposed to do it with the other lesion, came out saying “let’s try the ointment first.”

 

[MissClouseau]

If you think she got from spilling her food on her, I would consider changing her food again. Can you leave a can of her food open in a plastic container and see if it grows something? (don't throw away the can in case you want it later.)

If I’m not mistaken skin damage can give opportunity to fungus. I was actually thinking maybe she did some damage on there and that led to the fungus taking opportunity. Because it didn’t happen in a short while but over a course of like two weeks after the food spill.