Wuff with the Smooth: Ah-choo!

So it turns out that Waffle’s pet insurance policy won’t cover a specific vaccine project which the vet suggested could alleviate his allergy issues.

I can’t say I am surprised. Insurers will use any misprint or excuse or oblique reference in the small print to avoid coughing up. Again I’m not surprised but that doesn’t mean I’m not cross.

QUICK RE-CAP

Waffle is allergic to everything and as such, periodically suffers from dry skin, ear infections and sometimes, an upset tummy.

The worst part is that we don’t exactly know what works as the instigator; it could be an environmental irritant like pollen or it could be something he’s ingesting like the morsel of chicken he pounced on last week after I’d dropped it.

However, as the vet has repeatedly said, it’s about managing the allergy rather than curing it.

Twice a year said vet will prescribe a course of medicines – creams, steroids, shampoos – which must be applied with Swiss clockwork regularity so as to lessen the impact of the allergies.

Although over four years of repeat prescriptions and plenty of Swiss clockwork, nothing has worked – at least not in any lasting and meaningful way.

So it turns out that the pet insurance shower won’t cover the specific plan of action because Waffle’s allergy was a thing before the policy was taken out.

How convenient. So the whole point of having pet insurance is?

The upside of the whole debacle is that Waffle isn’t overly affected by his allergy shtick, except when the flare-ups peak.

These peaks manifest roughly twice a year and that’s when the vet swings into action.

There was only really one time when Waffle was so badly affected by an ear infection that he appeared to be uncomfortable.

That was over a year ago and at the time, he looked as though he was drunk, stumbling around the house, shaking his head and scratching.

On that occasion (a Sunday night, as I recall), we did what parents everywhere have done when a medical emergency presented itself and smeared Sudocrem all over the inflamed inner-ear areas.

Worked a treat too, although we stopped short of giving him flat lemonade.

So it also turns out that a chance conversation with a member of the public during a recent trip to the vet’s might provide a potential solution.

“So what’s your dog in for?” the lady at the vet’s enquired as Waffle was waiting to be seen.

“How long have you got?” I replied.

The lady, who was also waiting to have her dog attended to and who listened intently to my shaggy-dog story of allergies, went on to say that she once had a dog who suffered from said allergies and who had also tried every treatment under the sun.

In the end, despite fleeting allergy-free spells, the drugs, as The Verve once sagely suggested, didn’t work.

“You know what we tried?” the lady asked. “Piriton. And it cleared everything up.”

So it turns out that the popular antihistamine that I can buy in any chemist anywhere could benefit Waffle when other, vastly more expensive drugs could not.

Surely that’s too good to be true. And even if it were true, why didn’t the vet suggest it years ago?

A quick dig online showed that, unbelievably, Piriton is safe for dogs to take, although as you might expect, it isn’t advisable to simply fire the tablets at your dog without previously consulting a veterinary surgeon – which takes us back to where we first began.

Still, I intend on raising the Piriton idea with the vet.

Perhaps they’ll shoot it down, perhaps they won’t.

However after spending hundreds and hundreds of my hard-earned pounds on fancy-Dan yet ultimately ineffectual treatments, it would be astonishing to think that such a chance encounter with a random stranger could hold the key to a lasting alleviation of allergy issues.

I’ll keep you posted.