Strategies for diagnosing, treating, and preventing mites

When a patient potentially affected by mites comes into the clinic, is the veterinary team prepared to handle the case effectively? Earlier this fall, Richard Gerhold, DVM, MS, PhD, DACVM (Parasitology), associate professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, sat down with dvm360 at the Fetch dvm360 Conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey to talk about his lecture on ectoparasites. During the interview, Gerhold shared the best methods for treating, diagnosing, and preventing mites, while also cautioning against the use of non EPA tested chemicals, such as essential oils, as treatment.

Below is a partial transcript

Richard Gerhold, DVM, MS, PhD, DACVM (Parasitology): So, the best way for treating mites or diagnosing mites is doing a really good physical exam: a thorough physical exam that includes looking from, as I say, the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, and making sure not to leave out looking in areas of the inguinal area, axial area.

…If you're looking for something like sarcoptic mange, you want to make sure you're doing a deep skin scrape so you're seeing a little bit of blood in your scrape using mineral oil and doing a good exam on a microscope... In some cases, people may try biopsies as well, but that's something that you try to keep to a last resort.

As far as treatment, there are a lot of approved treatments out there. I don't want to specifically state one chemical versus another, but having your veterinarian give approved treatments [because] there are the increased interest of people using potentially non EPA tested chemicals, whether they're essential oils or something, just recognize the efficacy of those has not been determined, and it's best to use appropriate [treatments] and also it's good to be on yearlong preventatives for that.