Kh (Las Vegas, NV) on 12/28/2014:

One of them has had chronic problems since puppyhood with ear infections, and had pyothorax at 16 months. She also has problems with recurring furuncles (boils) between the pads of her front feet and between her toes.

The other has never appeared to have any type of infection or illness until the pannus.

They are from bloodlines as far apart as you can get and still have two German Shepherds.

After much research and trial and error, we are successfully managing the pannus in both without steroids or cyclosporine (which I did not want to use). What I mean by this is that the redness in the whites of their eyes has completely to almost completely disappeared and that their corneas are now completely clear to almost completely clear after being completely covered over. Also, no more of the yellowish discharge you describe. But whenever we've tried to taper this regimen, the symptoms have returned. So we assume we're doing this for life.

So, what we're doing, same for both dogs, is:

2 raw egg yolks a day for dog with pannus plus infections, 1 raw egg yolk a day for dog with pannus only

Magnesium threonate, 144 mg 2x/day (in a.m. and at bedtime)

Turmeric capsule with bioperrine 1/day

CoQ10,50 mg every morning (using liquid drops in bite of food)

Melatonin, 2.5 mg at bedtime (the dogs had issues with being awake all night and sleeping all day--no longer a problem since the CoQ10 and melatonin)

Optizinc (30 mg capsule once a week)

I noticed that their eyes got worse every year in early November, so we give cod liver oil and grass fed butter (a couple of tsp/day of each) through the winter months.

Diet:

They get 3 oz of wild Alaska salmon every night

They get half raw food diet prescribed by their holistic vet and half grain-free bison or lamb dog food

A vet-designed combo of essential oils (tea tree oil, yucca oil, aloe vera, chamomile, clove oil, echinacea) applied to feet once a day and povidone iodine (applied to feet once a day later in the day), plus occasional epsom salt foot soaks (3-5 minutes in warm water once or twice a week) cured the furuncles and keeps them away.

I never thought my dogs could possibly be magnesium deficient, so we were doing everything but the magnesium for about a year and getting significant improvement, but never fully clear eyes.

Once we added the magnesium, the dogs' eyes finished clearing up quickly--I don't have a diary of this, but my memory of it is that a week after we started the magnesium, I checked their eyes and they were clear.

I am pretty much at the point now where the first thing I try for anything is magnesium threonate.