How much does a blood test cost for a dog?

loopa1 · 10 December 2010 at 8:40AM

Hi all
I was recently told that my dog would need a blood test to further diagnose what he has an allergy to.

I was charged almost £220 for a 'YTest' - we were told that this was the 'complete test' and would test for both indoor and outdoor allergies.

I paid for test but upon reflection, I can't help but feel this is expensive and I'd feel even more frustrated if I knew they were making a decent mark-up on this seen as though they send the blood away for testing anyway.

I'm just looking for some comparisons in prices for the same test if people have them - from what I gather, there are different levels of testing and hence different prices attached. But £220 seems a lot.

Waterfalls · 10 December 2010 at 10:01AM

I not sure how much they are exactly, but i do know that blood tests for allergies are expensive. sorry im not much help.

sarah*a · 10 December 2010 at 11:06AM

I think it depends on what they are testing for?

Our Terrier has 'send away' blood tests that cost us £80 a time - but they are testing for specific results. I would guess that if they are doing a 'cover-all' check it would be more??

Have you tried ringing other local surgeries and finding out what they charge? We have two near us and one is slightly more expensive but a lot more professional - so we would rather pay the extra

Good luck - hope your dog is OK - and hope you don't have to have repeated tests at that price :eek:

hethmar · 10 December 2010 at 11:38AM

For allergy testing they usually do skin scrapes aswell? I think our dogs totalled about £500 :eek:

What is his problems?

snowman2_2 · 10 December 2010 at 10:05PM

£220 is about par for the course. All the allergy tests are done by hand and takes a lot of time. They are not cheap but it does open up a lot of useful treatment options

loopa1 · 13 December 2010 at 8:27PM

Thanks for your replies, and also the reassurance that £200 seems about right.

He's had skin scrapes in the past as they were testing if it was some kind of parasite. All we know is that he's allergic to something, we're hoping the bloody test tells us what!

His allergy affects his skin - he gets a handful of spots which turn crusty and develop in to reddish thumbnail sized flakey circles. It obviously itches him as he'll nibble his skin in these areas and sometimes pull out small pockets of his coat.

We found a dog food the other day which claims to reduce the symptoms for dogs with Dermotosis (Eukanuba Veterinary Diet Dermatosis FP) - does anyone have any experience of it?

There_Goes_Trouble · 14 December 2010 at 1:09AM

Euk FP is good stuff, I've worked with dogs for years and have known lots of dogs do very well on it.

Have you done food trials with your dog? Food trials is where we usually start with allergies because it's the cheapest place to start and one of the most common allergies. The other common one is fleas and there's often no visual evidence of them, so make sure your flea control is up to date.

I've had my itchy dog on a fish based food all her life and it really does help.

Sid_Wolf · 14 December 2010 at 4:05PM

I wouldnt bother with the test tbh.....

My rehome husky, Grey, had been for blood tests before we got him, as he scratched constantly and they thought he might be allergic to something. The blood tests couldnt find out what it is....

Can I ask what food you feed your dog?? Grey was allergic to an ingredient in his food, this is really common, 99% of allergies in dogs are food related, so there is probably no need for the blood tests.

I've done a lot of research into dog nutrition, so I can give you a hand if it does turn out to be the food.

puppy999 · 14 December 2010 at 6:19PM

I have a horse and 10yrs ago he started with spots some size of a pea others size of a plum they were itchy and some would bleed they were all over him it cost a fortune for blood test with no results..... the vet give him a stirod injection but he comes out with them twice a year and I dont want him to keep havin striods so I give him antihistomine tablets as soon as he starts and it stops them ............. I know someone who tried them on a staffie who had itchy skin and it worked................

sivyour · 14 December 2010 at 6:32PM

My Rott X Lab had something that sounds the same. The vet we had said they were called heat spots/condensation spots and were most likely due to gluten allergies.
We changed his food and this sorted it for a while but you couldnt really stop the kids letting him snack so we didnt really pin point it to the gluten.

loopa1 · 15 December 2010 at 11:21PM

Again - thanks for your offers of further help and continued ideas on what to try.

For the majority of his life (3 1/2 years) he's been on Wainwrights - usually a mixture of their wet and dry food.

But we've occasionally tried him on other foods, wet, dry and mixtures of both and we've never noticed that his allergy has stopped as a result of changing his food - but that's not to say his allergies didn't go BECAUSE we changed his food, because he's has steroids and antibiotics in the past which is what we've put down to controlling his allergy - so definitely something we need to consider.

If we were to buy alternative brands of food, is there a period we should keep him on it to fully gauge if the new food has contributed to controlling his allergy?

How much does a blood test cost for a dog?

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