Animal Dermatology Specialists Of Vancouver

Our dog was itchy for more than a year and a half while we worked through one elimination diet after another trying to figure out what he was allergic to. He had the chance to try the various meats of the world in this journey, which he definitely wasn't complaining about. Our local vet would prescribe Apoquel, which helped for a while, but then stopped working. We tried a saliva allergy test, but that came back saying our dog was allergic to everything except for lamb and a few vegetables. So we fed him lamb for several weeks and that didn't work. Eventually we decided he must have year round household and outdoor allergies, so we decided to try out a pet dermatologist. The first visit with this "doctor" went well, but as the visits went on and the bills kept increasing I was starting to question the effectiveness of the service. Looking back on our experience at this company here are the main reasons why I would rate them as zero stars: 1. Each visit the doctor seemed to forget the previous visit. He would prescribe doing an allergy prick test, then a blood test and then prescribe both of the same tests in a future visit. When we reminded him about the previous tests, he would say oh right, yes we don't have to do that again. Or in some cases, they would lose results and thus had to retake certain tests at our expense. 2. He would prescribe antibiotics to take care of our dog's staff infection, and in some cases there would be two kinds we had to give him at the same time. For one antibiotic he would give us a 20 day dose and the other would be a 30 day dose even though he wanted us back in 20 days. So why prescribe 10 extra days of drugs, when we could buy them on the 20 day return visit if we still needed them? 3. He kept changing his mind about what was causing the allergies. One visit he would say our dog wasn't showing certain symptoms, thus this isn't a food allergy, then the next visit he would get angry with us if we changed our dog's diet to something we knew he would love. After that he told us to put our dog on an extreme diet of just squash and beans, which our dog didn't like and he started to lose weight. 4. The costs just kept going up and up and up. There were a ton of tiny little tape tests and other tests, which increases the cost significantly. If any of this helped our dog, I would have paid whatever it takes, but the more I watched these little tests, the more frustrated I would get when many of them seemed unnecessary giving the exact same result. Obviously I'm not a doctor and thus I can't fully comment on the need for these tests, but anyone looking for a dermatologist, understand the costs that can be involved before getting into all of this. 5. There seemed to be a flippant nature to the prescription of certain drugs and even strong drugs with scary side effects without proper pre and post prescription testing to make sure there was no harm to our pet. Or in some cases, in the last two minutes of a visit he would start piling on more drugs to put into our dog. You have to put faith in their decisions, but sometimes I questioned whether they were the right ones. I was tempted a couple of times during the past two visits to just go somewhere else, but we already had an allergy serum we were administering to our dog to help reduce his environmental allergies, so we hoped it would help. Alas we won't be going back to this company and I would really caution anyone who chooses this company. I know this is just one person's opinion for one dog, and I'm sure this clinic has helped others, but for our experience it became a very negative one. Regardless of who you go to please question the decisions these "doctors" are making. They don't know your pet and ultimately can't ask an animal what's wrong. Be an advocate for your pet and do your own due diligence and question their decisions. Read Less

I don't have enough positive words to describe how thankful I am about Dr. Charach expertise and his team's kindness. My pug had rushes, infections and skin issues for 8 long years. I took her to many reputable vets who all put her on heavy steroids. She had terrible side effects and, yet, no results. Dr. Charach did a detailed diagnose and within 1 week from following his guidelines she was better. 3 weeks later, she looks like a new dog. Most importantly, she hasn't been so happy in a long time, due to her pain and inflammations. I wish I had found Dr. Charach before spending thousands of dollars with no results. I don't consider his fees unreasonable considering the amazing results I had. The clinic's staff was very organized, super nice and knowledgeable. Unlike in many other vets I didn't feel pushed to buy their products or to book unnecessary visits. 5 stars all the way to Dr. Charach and the clinic's team. Read Less