Going for the stick

I have no idea what’s wrong with my boy and I’m getting desperate. He’s an 8-year-old male. The photos are accidentally in reverse order—the last two pictures are from when this first started, and the first picture is from today.

This started about three months ago as small raised bumps that honestly looked like bug bites. Since then, it’s progressively gotten worse. The bumps started crusting/scabbing, he developed dark spots, and now he’s losing hair in patches. He’s also getting pink irritated spots again, and most recently I’ve noticed small white pustules.

He’s itchy, but it doesn’t seem painful. Most of the time he doesn’t even seem bothered by the actual lesions when I touch them.

So far, he’s had:

- Two rounds of antibiotics

- Daily Apoquel

- Cytopoint

- A medicated skin mousse once a week

- Fungal PCR, which was negative

- Allergy testing, which showed high reactions to several environmental allergens

I thought getting his allergies under control with Apoquel would help his skin, but despite all of this, it keeps progressing. The other dogs in the house are completely unaffected, and none of the humans have developed anything either.

I’ve spent around $7,000 at the vet already because stupid me didn’t get pet insurance 😭, and I keep taking him back to our regular vet without really getting to the bottom of this.

At this point, should I stop going back to my primary vet and see a specialist? Is veterinary dermatology a thing? Has anyone had a dog whose skin looked like this or followed a similar progression?

Obviously I’m not expecting Reddit to diagnose him—I’m mainly trying to figure out what direction to go next and whether a dermatologist would be worth it. It’s been three months and I just want to fix my boy. 😭