Boxer skin problems.

-I apologize in advance for the novel i wrote below-

We are officially at a loss. My wife and I have a 8 year old male and a 9 year old female boxer. The female is not the issue. She seems to have no problems besides she is deaf.

Our male on the other hand has had this skin issue going on 5 years now. Recently it has gotten much worse and he smells like death. Here is kind of the timeline and progression.

I have included pictures at the below link. Maybe they will help with ideas:









Just a note before we get into the details. He has been on the following medications/preventatives throwout the issue :

Flea & tick preventative
Heart worm preventative
Glucosamine supplements (for minor arthritis)
Fish Oil supplements (to help with skin)

2008-2009:
Lived in northwest Florida and he showed minor signs of allergies such as redness in feet with some biting and licking. Changed his diet to Premium Edge Adult Dog Skin & Coat Salmon, Potatoes & Vegetables. This seem to stay the problem but did not make it better. Seen by vet a couple times and they just told us it was diet or environment.

2009-2010:
We moved to Italy in 2009 and had to find a different food due to availability of the Premium Edge. We changed his diet again to Royal Canin Maxi Boxer. He seemed to take to this food very well. Within 3 months of the diet change he started to develop some blackening skin in the armpits and groin area.

Took him to the vet and they did skin scrapings and blood work. Scrapings came back clean but the said he had a minor infection...mostly in his ears. They gave us antibiotics and drops/wash for his ears. Ears cleared up after 10 days of treatment and are still good.

Blood work came back with thyroid dangerously low. He was not overweight(60 lbs). They put him on Thyroxine(0.7/day) and told us to come back in 12 weeks.

Present:
Thyroid meds were still a little bit low so they doubled his dose (0.7 twice/day). After another 6 weeks he had lost 7 pounds. They did blood again and this time it was within limits but they wanted to bring it down a little since he was losing weight. Dose now at 0.5 twice/day.

We thought a few months ago that it may be the Royal Canin causing the issue, so we changed back to the Premium Edge Adult Dog Skin & Coat Salmon, Potatoes & Vegetables because we found a company that would ship it to Italy.

Things we have tried and identify the problem:
-Changed food
-Changed bedding
-Taken off supplements
-Different shampoos and meds
-Many vet visits

We were recently prescribed Atoplus (italian version of Cyclosporin), BUT have not started this treatment yet. We really would like to find the root cause before frying his immune system with a non-specific drug.

I am very sorry for such a long post but I wanted to included as much info as possible.

Thank you in advance for any ideas/suggestions.

Thank you so much for your thorough reply. One other symptom he has that I did not list is that he shakes...like a chihuahua. He lays down and curls his feet up by his chest and twitches. Do you think this is from pain?

You seem to be leaning more toward his thyroid and infection than allergies. Do you think that it would be worth doing an allergies panel for approx $300 before we get the skin to clear up? Or, let the antibiotics/anti-fungal do its magic before tracking down the allergy?

Thanks again :)