Oh Jeebas!

So I just want to THANK the original poster for this thread...my poor poor Patches is so bad. It's terribly itchy and has been going on for about 2 weeks now. I am going to try the Benedryl. I KNOW it's not her food cause she's been on it for MONTHS!
I too have noticed it get slightly better when she is indoors, but when she comes back in from being outside in the backyard (even for a couple of minutes) she is all broke out! My yard is nothing but dirt and barkdust (could the barkdust be the issue?) I don't see how it can be tho cause we have lived here for 3 months now and when the barkdust was fresh she'd roll an run for days with no issues.
Her skin is all rashy and flakey and scaley...I got some medicated shampoo from a all natural pet store and have used it once. I want to take her to the vet but I too think I will get some bogus diagnosis and I don't have the money to try everything under the sun.
Patches also is stinky in her ears and has a very sour smell to her. My friends puppy was like this a couple weeks back and she just bought a product called "SPUNK" and said it works miracles. My friend claims these hives as well as some of the other issues is due to an overabundance of YEAST in the system. She also did some research and found that antibiotics cause the yeast to grow and infest even more which could be why some of you are experiencing constant re-infections once off the antibiotics.
Here is a link to "SPUNK" if anyone would like it.
http://www.equerrys.com/spunk.htm
Anyway, I'm going to give her some benedryl until I can get some "SPUNK" on thursday (they were out and will be getting some in then).