At my wits end with possible allergies

[SJS1]

Hi everyone, I joined the forum today in hope of anyone being able to help me... I have 3 horses, 1 of which developed a pollen allergy about 4 years ago. Needless to say everything we’ve tried has been ineffective, he’s had vets out numerous times, he’s been scoped, had pollenex, nose nets, ventipulmin, steroids, even a herbalist came to see him. You name it, we tried it. He’s sort of been resigned to a field ornament now. Hes 17 this year so it’s good he didn’t have his whole life ahead of him. Now my other horse has begun coughing badly. He’s a high level dressage horse, only 11, and never in his life had a problem with any allergy before. About a week and a half ago, he started coughing. This cough coincides with horse number 1, which of course made me think pollen. I went to ride today and I was honestly in tears I didn’t even get as far as tacking up. He coughed. And coughed, and coughed. It was very distressing.
Neither horse shows any head shaking, just coughing and a runny nose. The third horse, a small companion pony, has also got a cough, and last night as I was doing night checks it was like a symphony of coughs from all three. All similar sounding dry coughs.
I am getting the vet tomorrow as I don’t understand how all three horses could have developed a pollen allergy, that seems like terrible luck if it is the case.
There are no crops around here, only livestock farming, no flowers have bloomed yet, and no trees have gotten leaves yet either. I’m very confused and distressed, particularly about the dressage horse... an allergy present largely during the summer would of course totally bring his competition career to a halt, not to mention his discomfort.
They are all wormed regularly, and I will also mention that the dressage horse does seem to cough less when working, though I didn’t ride today as he was too bad. He did a few small coughs out in the field and when I brought him into the stable he had a full coughing fit, very bad. Yesterday we went on a hack, lots of hedgerows and different things, so you would imagine he would cough a lot. Not a single cough the whole way. Is it possibly a dust allergy instead? It’s all very confusing and nothin quite seems to add up
Sorry if this is very long, I was trying to get as much detail in as I cough. Any suggestions or similar stories greatly appreciated!

 

[View]

The fact that two others started couching at pretty much the same time may - or may not- point to it being viral/bacterial. Do they live out, has the bedding changed?

Good luck - I suspect this is going to be a tricky one to manage.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

It does sound as if something in the stable set your horse's cough off today. Can you keep him living out 24/7? What kind of bedding do you use? Could you change the bedding to something completely different?

Having had several horses with allergies and one with a pollen allergy, I do sympathise, we found that ours had Cushings but unfortunately the Prascend didn't make much difference to the cough.

I hope you get to the bottom of it.

 

[SJS1]

They all live out during the day and in at night. Just heard a further coughing fit from the dressage horse out in the field, I had hoped it was connected to him going into the stable, apparently not! That would have been a much easier fix.
possibly viral or bacterial as you suggested, all three are very well in themselves however, lots of running around the paddocks and very alert as usual. I hope it’s something like a bacterial infection that’s a lot easier to deal with than allergies anyway.

 

[SJS1]

It does sound as if something in the stable set your horse's cough off today. Can you keep him living out 24/7? What kind of bedding do you use? Could you change the bedding to something completely different?

Having had several horses with allergies and one with a pollen allergy, I do sympathise, we found that ours had Cushings but unfortunately the Prascend didn't make much difference to the cough.

I hope you get to the bottom of it.

thank you, they live on shavings, and no change of bedding recently. Horse number 1 is on haylage to try and manage his allergies, the others are on good quality hay.
with pollen allergies has anyone found their horse to cough in “fits” rather than all the time. That’s what I’m finding with these, bouts of very loud dry coughs then nothing for a while.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

I had my guy tested and he is highly allergic to dust and a few other things. So testing is an option, but you can do a lot of other things that you'd have to do anyway, but without testing.

Wet/soak your hay. Or feed haylage.
Use dust free bedding. I use flax straw/flax straw pellets.
Outside in the open air as much as possible.

Try feeding some MSM for anti inflammatory.

Human allergy medication such as Zyrtec (sp?) Or a generic form as worked well for some. You have to feed a good amount of pills though.

I use a Flexineb for all medications (steroid and brochodilator) or to inhale NaCl. This is quick, convenient, and effective for my horse. I've also given him Balsamic Air orally (would not inhale this) and that's worked too.

I'd have the vet take a look too. Especially now that it is all of them. My horses lungs are clear, but it is his larynx where he gets the inflammation.

 

[SJS1]

thank you very much for your suggestions, these are helpful. Soaking hay as we speak, as I can’t really put the little pony on haylage, a typical fat Shetland likely to get laminitis within minutes of being fed anything rich!
the thing puzzling me is, I wouldn’t have thought pollen would be high yet... we still have frost on the ground in the mornings and very cold nights. Combined with a lack of crops in the area, this puzzles me. I understand the first horse beginning to cough now as he has been allergic to pollen for some time, therefore it wouldn’t take much to trigger him. However I would have thought a pollen allergy would not develop for the first time, until there were high levels, for example in may. This seems very early, there’s still very much a wintery feel to the air here in Ireland and I saw there was still some snow in parts of the uk as well. Am I silly for questioning that? The dressage horse does seem to show a predisposition to coughing more on warmer, sunny days, as opposed to when it’s raining and overcast. Then again it’s only been a week and a half since he developed this so that Is premature thinking.

 

[Meredith]

Is it tree pollen?

 

[cowgirl16]

Have any fields in the area been sprayed with weed killer or fertilised? This kind of thing used to turn my old boy into a wheezing mess.

 

[SJS1]

Have any fields in the area been sprayed with weed killer or fertilised? This kind of thing used to turn my old boy into a wheezing mess.

I thought this too, however the cattle were turned out about a week ago into all the surrounding fields, which would I’d assume mean they hadn’t been sprayed, I can’t imagine it would be very good for cattle health to go out on sprayed fields!! Tree pollen is also possible Meredith, but I can’t begin to think of what tree pollen, I’m looking at all the hedgerows surrounding my fields and everything is rather dead looking still, with the exception of some fir trees and ivy. We have a good amount of elderflower trees/bushes surrounding the paddocks which are showing signs of life in terms of foliage but they won’t flower until much later

 

[View]

I’m allergic to various pollens, and was sneezing my head off with itchy eyes today. And we had some snow - in Hertfordshire! So heaven only knows what is going on.

 

[Meredith]

I googled tree pollen and some trees start in January! There are quite a few that release pollen in March and April apparently. Willow, birch, ash and alder are some that are listed.

 

[SJS1]

Goodness that's early... and unfortunate. Thanks for the list, that's a job for tomorrow, to go around and locate any of those trees in my hedgerows or nearby.
Bought a nose net today, one that is sort of bag-like, and comes up over the full mouth and nose... The standard nose nets don't seem overly effective, but this one was only cheap, and worth a try. The mesh looks very fine and I'm hoping its at least somewhat effective. Not dressage legal but I can cross that bridge when I come to it. While I wait on that, the vet has prescribed a course of trimediazine for 7 days. Praying it clears up the cough in the dressage horse and the pony.
Its one of those days where you wonder why you bother with the silly creatures!

 

[Pearlsasinger]

There is certainly plenty of tree pollen around here and it is snowing outside my window

 

[winnie]

There is a lot of tree pollen around - especially Ash and Birch. Mine are snorting a lot and I've got itchy eyes. It was also particularly bad back in February.

 

[Birker2020]

The fact that two others started couching at pretty much the same time may - or may not- point to it being viral/bacterial. Do they live out, has the bedding changed?

Good luck - I suspect this is going to be a tricky one to manage.

Yes that's what I was thinking.

 

[SJS1]

Small update for anyone interested...
began the 10 day (vet accidentally gave us an extra sachet, so 11 day) course of trimediezine on the dressage horse. There was a marked improvement and he returned to full work with maybe only 3-4 isolated coughs per ride. However on day 7 of the course (yesterday), he was worse with quite a good few isolated coughs during our ride, but didn’t seem to be bothering him, no breathlessness and he seemed active and happy to work. Took him out again today thinking yesterday was just a fluke. I had to finish the ride after just 10 minutes as he was coughing too much. He still has 3 more sachets of trimediezine to take. I can’t tell if he should have totally stopped coughing by now if it was a bacterial infection, or if this is the natural course of things and he may fully stop coughing when he finishes the course.
obviously the other possibility is pollen was low for the last week, coinciding with the start of his course, thus making me think the antibiotics were working when really there just wasn’t much pollen.
as for the other two; the first horse, who does have the pollen allergy for definite- he has actually been fairly ok recently, he has a new nose net which fully covers his muzzle, and seems to have shown some improvement, and I don’t hear much coughing from him in the field. The small companion pony I haven’t heard cough at all over the past maybe 9 days, regardless of where he is or if he’s resting, galloping around the field etc. Realistically the cough I heard from his when I began this thread was possibly dust and with the stress of dealing with the other two, I just decided he had a persistent cough as well when really he probably didn’t.
that’s about all for my small update, it’s a confusing situation and it’s a real shame the antibiotics don’t seem to have worked but he will finish the course anyway

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Antibiotics are a typical place to start, so finish the course and if that doesn't work, just a box to check on your list and on to the next thing. For my horse that was a scope and Bronchoalveolar lavage. Then an allergy test.

We did 2 rounds of antibiotics initially since the vet really suspected an infection.

It's really something you've got to take seriously and stay on top of (as you are doing) because there can be long term effects on the lungs and airway.

Maybe I missed it, but are the coughs dry or with mucus?

Also, is it dry where you are? If it is allergies you may notice relief when it rains, but it depends.

 

[criso]

In terms of vet treatment. Have you have intradermal skin tests done. They can do that and based on findings carry out immunotherapy for certain allergies. I had tests done for one of mine years ago. He used to come out in lumps rather than cough. However they found 15 different triggers so too many for immunotherapy. It did help avoid things. What was interesting was when he went to horsepital, his lumps disappeared so we knew that a different area could make things better or worse.

I eventually found his main trigger was shavings and once I avoided those he didn't react to the other things.

 

[SJS1]

Antibiotics are a typical place to start, so finish the course and if that doesn't work, just a box to check on your list and on to the next thing. For my horse that was a scope and Bronchoalveolar lavage. Then an allergy test.

We did 2 rounds of antibiotics initially since the vet really suspected an infection.

It's really something you've got to take seriously and stay on top of (as you are doing) because there can be long term effects on the lungs and airway.

Maybe I missed it, but are the coughs dry or with mucus?

Also, is it dry where you are? If it is allergies you may notice relief when it rains, but it depends.

thanks for your reply! I would have said the coughs are dry, nothing comes up anyway, and a dry nose. Currently it’s damp drizzly and overcast here, and was about the same yesterday morning.

criso; no allergen tests have been done yet on this horse, just ruling out the easiest and most common treatments first. Once he’s finished the course if he’s no better then I suppose it’s time to go again! From today he’ll be out in the field 24/7, he won’t be brought in at night. I have a gut feeling it won’t make a difference but I’ll leave him out all the time for the summer anyway, regardless.

 

[SJS1]

Further observation I’ve noticed: in the past 2 days his cough has been exercise induced to an extent, as he only coughed a very small amount out in the field compared to quite a bit when he’s in work. Previously the cough happened when it happened, regardless of exercise and I had actually found exercise improved it.
I also noticed when he rolled today and yesterday it induced a couple of coughs also.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Sort of sounds like mine when he has a flare up. Dry cough, can or cannot happen when not exercising, but for the most part induced by exercise. With mine his lungs are clear.

Usually if it rains there is less pollen, dust, and whatnot floating around in the air. So could help and may be why you are noticing less coughing? Could also be that the antibiotics are helping? Hm.

Curious to follow along.

 

[SJS1]

I thought perhaps rain would help but it doesn’t appear to have as he had maybe 3 coughs one day last week on a hot dry day, when the horse with the confirmed pollen allergy was coughing a lot.
none of it really correlates if im honest, he never really coughs on a hack on the road, despite a lot of pollen in the hedgerows/ trees on either side of him. I’m holding out hope that it’s bacterial and he’ll stop after his course of antibiotics is finished

 

[Goldenstar]

What a PITA .
What I would do is put the dressage horse of Wynergy Ventilpulman supplement I have seen improvement in respiratory health every time I have used it .

 

[SJS1]

I agree, what a PITA... it’s hard enough having one horse with a persistent cough let alone two!
Next thing probably will be ventipulmin, yes! The other horse has gone on it previously but it didn't have much of an effect unfortunately, however I'll be trying everything once.
Forgot to add the other thing I picked up about 10 days ago was leovet branchial elixir, which is a sort of liquid herbal supplement and has 'echinacea, anise, fennel, ribwort, chestnut, primrose and thyme as fluid extracts' according to the bottle. It wasn't too expensive and worth a try, but as suspected it probably did nothing for him! Wasn't expecting it to really but it does him no harm having it in his feed twice a day. After he has finished his antibiotics I will also try riding in the full coverage nose net as well... Slowly working down a list of things and I have a record kept of everything with notes on whether it had any effect or not. Thanks to all for the contributions by the way, I appreciate that you took the time to reply!

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Syringing Balsamic Air (liquid supplement) directly into my horses mouth before exercise for a few days usually helps him get over a minor flare up.

I've not used Leovet, but have used Equistro Sekrosan with good results too.

 

[SJS1]

Thanks cantering carrots!
I'm sort of looking to get a big bottle of generic cetirizine hydrochloride antihistamines online somewhere to try out. Only problem is finding somewhere that either stocks them in Ireland or delivers them. Ever since Brexit it's been a struggle to buy anything online let alone generic tablets like that. Plus pharmacies in Ireland are ridiculous, you are only allowed buy a tiny pack of anything at a time :-/ I keep finding these cheap bottles of 500 tablets and thinking that's great I'll get those, and then I see they don't deliver to Ireland!

 

[PurBee]

Natural vitamin E is worth trying for equine coughing. Just having come out of winter, grass being poor anyway so low vit e from that forage source, means this time of year they can be very low in it (if not supplemented throughout winter) and springtime coughing, normally attributed with allergies, coincide with end of winter lowest vit E status.

https://www.google.com/search?q=equ...hUKEwjxxvq6rJPwAhVdVRUIHVKEC94Q4dUDCA0&uact=5

 

[PurBee]

https://ker.com/equinews/understanding-vitamin-e-equine-diets/


”A deficiency of vitamin E may cause a variety of different symptoms and pathological changes, which may include nutritional muscular dystrophy (weak and poorly oxygenated muscles) and poor immunity to diseases (e.g. recurrent cold and cough). Both vitamin E and selenium may help leukocytes and macrophages survive the negative effects of toxic products that are produced when invading bacteria are destroyed.

Vitamin E is found in fresh green forage, and horses consuming an adequate quantity of green forage have not been found to have vitamin E deficiency. However, vitamin E rapidly disappears during harvesting of hay, with 30 to 85% being lost initially and further loss occurring during storage. The amount of vitamin E in hay is quite variable, depending on the type of forage and the harvesting procedures. Because of the large number of horses that have access only to hay as a forage, manufacturers routinely add vitamin E to commercial feed mixes.”