[YEA]  09/18/2006: Jenny from UK: "Hello again, This is my 2nd exceptional example of how your advice Ted on the use of the 'wash and Borax / Hydrogen Peroxide soaks' have worked for our dogs:

2nd example - One of our young bitches (about 12 months old) began to get swollen toes and sores in between. We took her to the vet who diagnosed Dermodex mites as the cause. He gave her antibiotics and 'Advocate' an anti mite/flea/tick/worm treatment that comes in liquid form in small plastic vials and it is placed on the skin on the back of the neck.

We had known a friend have dermodex on her small dog's eyelids and her vet used 'Stronghold' same sort of treatment I believe, but a different manufacturer and this one had worked. Our vet convinced us that Advocate was better especially for giant breeds, which is what we have. So taking his advice we followed the course of treatment he recommended.

To cut a very long and painful story a little shorter, our dog's feet did not improve consistently. We would try different antibiotics, increasing the amount of Advocate used per month, different footbaths like washing her feet with 'Malaseb' (an anti fungal/antibacterial shampoo) from the vet and we tried stopping the Malaseb and doing Potassium Permanganate (Condy's crystals) footbaths from a previous and successful treatment of ours, tried on a different dog in the past. Yes, there were slight improvements in many cases but then the condition deteriorated and got progressively worse over time.

Eventually our girl could hardly put her feet to the ground obviously to us in great pain. Her feet were splayed with toes swollen like big sausages, red and with small weeping sores between them. It was as painful to watch her, as it must have been for her to live with. She would not play with our other dogs and although she remained as gentle, loving and well natured as she always has been, she was just not herself.

We tried different vets in the same practice to see if their ideas varied and even after asking specifically if there was an alternate treatment, we were told the same thing: it was a difficult condition to treat and could take months to get it sorted and what had been recommended was the best they could offer. How right they were in one respect, she started the condition this January and was still under their care by September.

We then found Ted's cure on earthclinic.com when we were desperately looking for something to help the Dermodecosis on our puppies. We thought we would try it so we explained to the vet what the wash and then soaks with Borax/Hydrogen Peroxide involved and his reply was to be careful with the Hydrogen Peroxide as it was very drying and to mind that it didn't't burn the skin. He neither acknowledged nor denied that he had heard of the treatment.

We washed our bitch with a little shampoo and rinsed her thoroughly; we then stood her in a big plastic bath (plaster's bath) in the garden and saturated her in the borax/hydrogen peroxide solution – not just her feet but all over. By standing in the plastic bath her feet got a good soaking at the same time.

We understand the dermodex mite is not contagious (other than in the respect of from dam to pup), but we decided to treat all our dogs so as not to take any chances with them. This was no mean feat I can tell you, when you have as dogs many dogs as we have!

Here again the 'miracle' in our eyes was seen in just 2 days, our girl's feet had lost all the redness/swelling/sores etc and for the first time in months she was charging up the garden with the others and playing on the patio – wonderful!

The vet that had most of the dealings with our girl was told of the cure and his reply was "oh good." We took photos of the pup we had with Dermodecosis to the other vet and showed and explained the dynamic effect the borax etc had had both on the pups and on our young bitch and asked him if he had heard of it. His reply was yes, but that it was an old fashioned remedy and that it didn't't work very well. We told him that as far as we were concerned the Advocate was not effective on the pups or our bitch and that in fact; the conditions had got worse over all. The Borax remedy had indeed been successful and dramatically so and we asked that he consider it as a form of treatment to others that find themselves in the situation we had been in. We explained that although the cost of the treatment was a consideration and at about £650 that is some consideration, what was more important to us, was the pain and suffering that our bitch had gone through as we believe for a period of some 9 months.

Interestingly enough, a bitch about 2 years ago got an infection with gross reddening, hair loss and some small sores, similar to our young bitch and this started about 6 weeks or so after giving birth. We had no association with dermodex mites at that time and her treatment lasted several months and the cost of that was about £800 give or take. We now wonder if this indeed was the self same Dermodecosis?

Ted, this is in my opinion a quite remarkable cure and at a cost of about £6 to treat one adult dog and a giant breed at that, involving 2 washes/borax soaks and having a cure in far less than a week, is I feel remarkable in more ways than one. Again I would like to state that the above is what I have found to be so in both my opinion and through personal experience. Thank you so much Ted. Regards,"