Atopic dermatitis, a pruritic and inflammatory disease, has no cure. One estimate indicates that one in 10 dogs in the United States has atopic dermatitis, which makes it one of the most common chronic conditions that veterinarians encounter.¹ Although practitioners are growing more adept at diagnosing atopic dermatitis, the real challenge comes with providing immediate relief of patients' clinical signs while addressing their underlying allergic disease. This article illustrates how managing atopic dermatitis in dogs may be simplified and will help you provide comfort for these pruritic canine patients.

Treatment Simplified: Start early, address flares, and assess progress

Atopic dermatitis can start with acute, seasonal flare-ups and if the underlying disease process is not managed, it progresses, over several months to years, to a nonseasonal, chronic condition.² Thus, managing the disease earlier should be beneficial. Every dog that suffers from atopic dermatitis has its individual allergic threshold — the point at which the environmental allergen load triggers the dog's immune system to react. Once the allergic threshold is exceeded, the dog develops inflammation, pruritus, and pain, which usually results in skin damage. Therefore, treatment of the clinical signs and long-term management are always aimed at returning to a point below the dog's allergic threshold. This, in turn, reduces the number and severity of allergy flare-ups that the patient experiences.

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For more information about the Treatment Simplified protocol, visit us.atopica.com/treatmentsimplified.