What are skin scapings?
Skin scraping is a technique where we literaly scrape the skin with a scalpel blade to remove debris so we can then examine it under the microscope. We mainly utilise the technique to identify certain parasities such as sarcoptes and demodex mites. It can also be used to help identify types of inflammation by hopefully identifying a particular type of inflammatory cell.
How are skin scrapings done?
Skin scrapings generally require we shave a small are which has some sign of disease process. A small amount of mineral or paraffin oil is applied to the area which will hold the scraped material. We then use a scalpel blade and scrape the skin until we start getting blood. The scraped material is then transfered to a glass lside and examined. Often the whole procedure can ber done while you wait.
Why do skin scrapings?
Skin scrapings can allow us to identify specific parasitic diseases to allow proper treatment. They also allow us to eliminate certain diseases from the list of possibilties in skin cases. The skin has only a few ways of reacting to disease and once a disease process has been present for a bit many different diseases will look the same. So it is very useful to eliminate some possibilties from the equation to allow the best treatment to be initaiated. It is very important to be sure that demodex mites are not causing a problem before starting corticosteroid treatment as that would worsen any demodex problem.
Do skin scrapings hurt?
Generally most animals tolerate skin scrapings very well. This is probably because their skin is already very veryu irritated and they find it pleasurable liek a scratch. Sometimes we need to sedate animals to allow us to get a diagnostic sample. This can be particularly true when we are looking for sarcoptes mite as we may need to do multiple skin scrapings.