Breathing... waiting to hear back from the vet, any ideas?!

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LegOn

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Breathing issues - any ideas?

Horse is living out during the day & in at night & this only started since he was out more on summer pasture. He started with a slight dust/type cough - no mucus at all. Rang the vet & said there is alot of dust type coughs around because its so dry out. Try him on wet hay & give him some Exputex (human cough syrup) & some honey. But cough got slightly worse & then developed into some wheezing in his breathing & an effort in breath while exercising. Stopped exercising & vet came out to scope him. Scope showed no signs of COPD or obstruction in the airways - only a small bit of fluid, very watery & not infection led at all.

Vet suspected it was a reaction to pollen or something in the air didnt agree with him, so gave him an anti-histamine injection & put him on Venitpulim for 10 days. Immediate improvement - horse back ridden & jumping with no issues. Day 12... slight wheezing returns & effort in breathing while exercising. So we put him back on Venitpulim but this time, no improvement, so vet suggests trying him on Piriton anti-histamines, but again, no improvement.

His resting breathing seems quite short & a little laboured but not majorly so & there is no mucus- never has been.

He came back out today & re-scoped him - again nothing sinister but some watery fluid. The first injection obviously worked & he said he would inject him again but is concerned its a very short term solution, if it came back so quickly.

He suggested two options - a Nebuilzer which he is seeing if I can rent one from them or Prednisolone?? In fairness, he is very good with working out costs & might be weighting up which is more feasible. Anyone have any similar experiences that they can suggest a route they went that works??
 
I've no ideas but I'd be very interested to hear other peoples because it sounds very similar to my welsh cob. In his case steroids aren't an option as he's a chronic laminitic, & we haven't gone down the scoping route yet as he's not in work at the moment.
 
Just incase if anyone is interested - vet decided to give him another anti-histamine shot & well within hours his breathing had returned to normal & no more coughing. Gonna sit up on him & see how he feels tonight. But its definitely allergy related - there is alot of people saying the prevalence of Rape Seed as a crop is playing havoc with air quality for some animal especially cows & horses :(
 
It may well be tree pollen it sometimes causes more trouble than crop but around here the rape seed is seed and ready to swathe now without a flower in sight so perhaps if you still have flowers it could be that Rape usually only affects them if they are in the field with it or very close as it tends unless very windy to just hang over its own space
 
Your horse sounds like one we have,the Ventipulmin does help but when you stop it the horse is the same as it was before,what I found worked best is to soak the hay for at least a couple of hours I drain the net and rinse with clean water ,I do this in morning for evening ,and in the afternoon ready for morning .
We also added FEED MARK CLARITY in her feeds this a herbal supplement and it really does help,,if you call Feedmark they will send you a sample.
Our horse has not coughed since,we have done this.
 
Have you checked your field for weeds? I had a pony that was allergic to hogweed and she displayed the same symptoms as yours. Piriton worked for her and we also got a baby asthma spacer and put her on human ventolin and the brown steroid inhaler which worked until we could eventually wean her off all the meds.
 
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