Comments on Apoquel : Dog Drug With a Dark Side - Homeopath Vet

After being advised by my vet that it was time to switch my blue nose from prednisone to this new drug called apoquel because she is getting older and it was a wonder drug, i quickly jumped at the opopportunity. Within two days of the switch to apoquel, Lettys severe symptoms began. Watering eyes, tongue and mouth control, "post stroke" like balance, falling down stairs, no appetite or thirst, eye flickering, disorientation, vomiting, diarrhea, etc etc. I stopped all medications for 2 weeks and her progression back to normal motor function was slow. She is now back on prednisone and has made almost a full recovery despite being almost completely bald, some eye flickering, and impeded stair descent balance. Although the vet will not confirm nor deny apoquel causing the symptoms, I do not doubt that this "wonder" drug responsible.

I'm so glad I found this forum. Ever since we've moved down to the deep south from the upper mid-west, my dog has been plagued with itchy skin during the spring & summer months. I've battled through the hotspots using Listerine, Gold Bond powder, coconut oil over the past couple of years. This year I finally decided to take him to my local vet as the itchiness has slowly started to appear.
The vet prescribed us Apoquel and I was so excited and hopeful from the way she presented it, as being a "miracle drug". But after reading some of the sad and horrific stories in here, I've decided not to give this to my dog. I just booked an appointment with a holistic vet in the area for a second opinion. Hopefully there is a more natural and successful approach.

My dog Piglet is dying from bone cancer just a couple months after taking Apoquel. She was a healthy loving energetic 5 year old dog with allergies. She was on it for about 3 months before showing any signs. I brought this concern up to my vet and she said she never heard of Apoquel and cancer. Our house is hurt beyond words. Please done give this to your pet.

My dog & I have been dealing w/the seasonal allergy misery for 6 seasons now. Over these 6 seasons of struggling to find a degree of comfort for her we have tried a varied approach with a combination of elements that help dramatically if done consistently but nothing being a magic fix. She has taken transfer factor for a couple of years and during the worst of the pollens I make the effort to rinse her thoroughly w/cool water anytime she has been outside in the woods, vacuum daily, cover her beds w/clean towels that get washed, she eats raw foods, and when things really ramp up she gets 8mg of Apoquel. That is 1/4 the prescribed daily dose for a dog her size but it works to knock down the itching and she can go 2 days to a week between doses. Even then, I don't like giving it to her.
I recently found some info on a product called Respit. It is a regionally specific, premixed immunotherapy for seasonal allergies. My vet got me the oromucosal spray and we are currently giving it a go. I am hopeful that it will be another piece of the frustrating puzzle of treating the misery of seasonal allergies for her. My thinking being that an immunotherapy is preferable to an immunosuppressant. Pollen hasn't ramped up here yet so time will tell.

I started my 10 yr. old Shih Tzu on Apoquel when it first came out. After being on it for a while she began having seizures about once a month and then they slowly started to happen more often until she was having them daily. She developed swollen lymph nodes on her neck and other places also. About a year or ago she started breathing funny and you could literally see her heart beating in her chest and she was developing a cough. She was diagnosed with a heart stage 4 heart murmur after a trip to the vet. Fast forward to now, heart murmur is stage 6. The left chamber of her heart is enlarged severly to almost double its normal size. Yesterday she was started on vetmedin to help her heart and phenobarbital to control the seizures. Although the doc can't say for sure what will happen, the average life expectancy is about 9 months at this stage. I had a healthy happy baby girl that itched sometimes and now she is going to die which I honestly believe is from the long term use of Apoquel. The advice that I have for anyone who is considering giving your pup this drug? DON'T! It does stop the itching but but only in exchange for irreversible damage to your pup.

I am amazed at the number of ignorant comments about how vaccinations have prevented deaths from disease and protected people. There is NO excuse for not knowing the facts in this day and age. The information is widely available. To still be clueless and brainwashed is just irresponsible and foolish. Start learning and thinking! And additionally, if that is the way you think, why on earth are you reading any of Dr. Falconer's articles? This is a great place to start learning and there are many others, but it seems pretty clear that these posters are not here to learn at all but to continue the deceit and fraud concerning vaccinations. Start studying, people! And if you cannot open your mind to the possibility that you've been lied to then the system has worked it magic on you the way it was intended.

A study on Apoquel admistered to dogs with bartonella should be done. I have two dogs that got bartonella from fleas. One dog was on apoquel and died due to fever of unknown origin and vet listed bartonella as likely cause. $20k in vet bills trying to keep her with us and we have lots of testing and data. The other dog is showing zero symptoms but has had bartonella for 6 months now (four IFA titers done).

My German Shepherd is on Apoquel for 14 months with no side effects at all, and hasn't scratched either.

My Mini American Shepherd was on Apoquel about 4-5 months. Within a couple of weeks she began attacking our other dogs. Sometimes it was an argument over food, others there was no discernible reason. It happened at least once a week, but there were several times it happened multiple times in one day - and these were vicious attacks. She was not easily directed, and when I picked her up to remove her from the situation she was snapping and bit me. We were afraid for the other dogs' (and kid's) safety, and if the behaviors hadn't abated we would have had to rehome her or put her down. It was that bad.
I titrated her off of Apoquel and her behaviors decreased immediately; her last episode was a week after she was taken off the medication. She is back to her sweet self. The potential side effect of aggression was buried in the teeny, wordy insert. I would NEVER recommend this medication.

My dog has been in Apoquel for about a month now for excessive itching. The vet glamorized this med and recommended it. My dog was okay up until this passed week where he has developed excessive itching all over again, and now has diarrhea. Upon further research into the medication I learned this med was for dogs 12 months and older. My dog is a 6 and a half month old English bulldog who has a history of pneumonia. Now my research has revealed this med is known to lower white, and red blood cell counts, putting the dogs at risk for cancer as well as bacterial pneumonia. I have stopped the medication but now what can I do? How could the vet prescribe this medication for my dog knowing it’s for dogs that are at least 12 months old?
Please help me!

Just adding my voice to those whose dogs have been diagnosed with lymphoma after being on Apoquel.
My dog started taking Apoquel more than a year ago. The vet told me it was completely safe, that dogs could take it for their whole life with no issue. I was even told that if needed, I could increase the dosage. My dog did not experience any side effect and the ichiness really wend down. After a while, it stopped being as efficient so I increased the dosage.
My dog recently started losing weight. We did some testings, and it turns out it's lymphoma. I can't help wondering if the drug messed up his immune system and allowed cancer to develop.

I stupidly gave my mature Lab/German Shepherd/Malamute mix Apoquel for a few days in October, 2016. His appetite waned so I discontinued the drug and went on maintaining his recurrent ear problems with my veterinarian's help.
In September 2017, I noticed he was losing enthusiasm and crabbier than usual with a young foster dog. Then one weekend I noticed that he wasn't able to move his bowels. The vet came over right away. She discovered that he was retaining urine, and felt a mass somewhere in his abdomen. She took him for an ultrasound and brought him back with bad news. There was no point trying to treat the advanced prostate cancer and anything other than instant relief of symptoms wasn't going to cut it, so I asked the vet to end his life.
There was no biopsy so I don't know anything other than that it was cancer of the prostate gland. I wonder if Apoquel is associated with particular kinds of cancer or particular sites, like the prostate gland.
I did read the prescribing information. I missed the part about a study of 239 dogs administered Apoquel for up to a year. 12 of them developed cancer of various types, which is 5%. Apoquel offers a 5% chance of cancer in a year's time? The information should be easier to find. The word cancer is not used in the prescribing information leaflet, by the way. Malignant neoplasia, tumor, carcinoma, lymphoma and sarcoma, but not cancer. I missed it because I read the section called "animal safety." It contained no mention of malignant neoplasia, tumor, carcinoma, lymphoma or sarcoma. Those were reported in a section called Continuation Field Trial.
Pfizer, you say? The company that keeps up a pretense that Chantix a) works and b) does not cause psychosis? That got a hair more than half of the FDA committee to believe it was a good idea to remove the box warning about suicide last year, during the short run of the mercenary physician Obama installed. That Zoetis was once a branch of Pfizer that was spun off is oinly natural. Now it is an independent company, so successful and important that it's listed in the S&P 500.
I have no way of knowing if Apoquel was necessary for the success of a lethal tumor in my dog Bayou's body. Just this: A dog was given Apoquel. Eleven months later, he has prostate cancer so advanced when diagnosed that euthanasia was the only reasonable treatment. Who knows when the first abnormal cell became two abnormal cells, and they became four, and so on? At that time, Bayou's cellular mechanisms were not working well enough to annihilate the scourge.
https://www.apoqueldogs.com/apoquel_pi.pdf

Apoquel has been a lifesaver for my senior beagle. When we moved South his allergies went crazy. We did some allergy testing and he is allergic to grass. We can't just "not feed him that", so we looked at our options and Apoquel was what we chose. He has been on it for about 2 years and doing great!! Still works well, but we can not take him off since his allergies go crazy when we try. He is 15 now and I just want him to live out his life in peace. If he needs Apoquel to do that, fine with me!!

After trying everything possible we finally put one of our dogs on apoquel. We have been fighting her severe itching for years. I had a hard choice to make since she was so miserable and had chewed both hip areas to the point both her hips were a bloody mess. No hair, bleeding. We were at the vets office every week sometimes two or three times a week for 6 years. I went to multiple vets and contacted the breeder for advice as well. We ruled out fleas and food. But she was alergic to everything else in the environment at certain times of the year. We charted for years exactly when the itchy problem would occur. I was at the point of knowing I was going to have to put my girl down because she was miserable and had no quality of life. She is on apoquel now and has finally found some relief! If the drug does create other problems then as I told my vet..at least she had a chance to live a good life for a while. If her life is shortened them so be it! I rather she had a shorter life than a miserable one. I fought hard not to put her on this drug until I tried everything else first. I have 4 other dogs of the same breed and none of them have this problem.

I fear for my life. Zoetis and VCA Brentwood, VCA West Los Angeles is threatening me because I filed a small claims against them as they prescribed my dog Apoquel Oclacitinib and my dog died from a mass that this drug caused inside his body. If anything happens to me , Please report it to the Los Angeles police.

New to your site, felt compelled to comment about Apoquel, even though I'm a little late.
I've always favored more natural treatments. Couldn't find a holistic vet nearby, but found a vet who practices traditional medicine along with acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
My cocker spaniel was very itchy. My vet suggested Apoquel but I resisted. After doing a Nutriscan test I changed his diet which made a big difference. His itching slowed down tremendously, but come pollen season, he started itching again. I tried CYTOPOINT which helped.
My husband took his dog to the vet for a check up. Husband mentioned how his dog licked his paws a lot. Vet gave his dog Apoquel. My husband didn't question it. Well, after about 3-4 weeks, his dog developed a big red bump on his lip. I started doing research and was horrified. We took him back to the vet and they tested it - I think they called it a histiocytoma. When my husband questioned if it was caused by the Apoquel, the vet said "well, I've never heard that it could do that, but it does suppress the immune system...". What? Why don't they tell us these risks beforehand. Especially when he didn't have any major itching, just licked his paws. Should've just soaked them in vinegar.
We took him off the Apoquel and started giving him astaxanthin. Within a week, the bump started getting smaller and was less red. Within three weeks it was gone.
Scary stuff. My husband is now understanding why I question drugs. It's hard to make right choices when I'm relying on info from he internet. Takes a lot of research to try and get informed, but it's very overwhelming. Wish I had a great holistic vet nearby, but at least I've found your site. Hope to learn a lot.

Max my 11 1/2 yr old pug chow mix is allergic to himself. He scratched and bit at himself
constantly. He was bloody and bald and had a ruptured eye just from scratching. He was so bad I thought I would have to put him down a couple times untill I went to the Vet to get this Apoquel . I was hoping he could live to 13. He didnt. He is living now at 14 and is a totally new dog. He's happy and playful no health issues. It has been a wonder drug. He suffered for 11 yrs. And he has not had any bout of itching. Sure there are side effects in every drug but I havent seen any. Now I am shooting for 15.

My dog had the flu vaccine and apoquel and is now really lethargic, won't get up, googly eyes, shallow breathing should I be concerned is this normal. Any comments to reassure me would be great thanks.

My corgi just had his 6 month blood work(July) and his liver levels went from 67 to 589 compared to his January blood work. We took him of his Carprofen for his hips, but they wanted to leave him on the Apaquel. When I asked if the apoquel could have contributed to his liver problems, they said that it wasn't possible. Yet I noticed that all the drugs in this category of drugs for human use do list liver problems as a severe side effect. After careful consideration I took Doc off all medicine except Heartgaurd and Denamarin for his liver and also changed his diet away from kibble. He now eats diet with lean protein and fresh fruits and vegetables. As I write this I am waiting for the results of the blood. Doc's liver values have come down a 100 points in just under a month! Did the Apoquel cause his liver problems, I don't know. I will not be putting him back on it that's for sure.

Bruce, this drug is not to be given not even for a few days, my dog took it for 5 days and died because of this poison. Apoquel exacerbates any existing infection and causes new cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors, lipomas, bladder cancer, lymphoma, papilloma, kidney and liver damage, etc. So, No. This drug will be banned when people wake up and stand up for the right of their dog's life and the rip off that Zoetis is committing, if they are afraid to lose money and go bankrupt is their problem, but do not put dogs and cats lives in danger for your greed. If you need to make money, concentrate on healthy ways and healthy, honest products to offer to animals and humans , because you are hurting people's emotions and wallets and do not care about it.