Chronic skin condition - Please Help!

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Doris68

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I have a 22 yo ID X TB mare, I have had her for 18 years and she is kept at home.

In the spring she developed some small, dry scaly scabs around her fetlock on her off hind (in particular around the ergot). I treated these with hibiscrub and various shampoos but nothing seemed to shift them. I also used Camrosa but that didn't work either. As I was making no progress I contacted the vet who recommended various 'lotions and potions' but they didn't work either. Skin scrapes were taken but they came up with nothing. She was then put on a 2 weeks course of antibiotic powders and prednisolone (steroid tablets). These appeared to help the condition but it still didn't cure it! Skin biopsies were taken and sent for analysis to the Animal Health Trust. The result was 'ideopathic granulomar dermatitis' - cause unknown! They recommended that I use a topical steroid (Bettamousse - for human application) twice daily for a month, eventually reducing to once a day and then every other day. As soon as I reduced the application to every other day, the condition began to return and I am now back to twice a day (at £57 per tube!!).

The scabs cause slight swelling around her fetlock - she is otherwise in very good health and has a shiny coat. She has a light coat and little or no feather.

I am concerned that I might have to continue with this cream which, eventually, will thin her skin. Even the 'experts' do not seem able to give me any further information. Is there anyone out there who has experienced a skin problem on their horse. Is is ever likely to go??

Sorry, this has turned into a ramble but any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
I recall Madhossy on here having a very difficult skin problem (on her Mare not her
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) so she may be able to give you some advice. Suggest you PM her and point her to this post, even if she does not know, she will be very helpful
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Hi there - Can't be of much help, other than to say I know of a horse who had very similar problems last year, the owners were advised to keep a diary, noting weather conditions, exercise etc and see if anything in the diary coresponded to flare ups of the skin condition. The horse was also treated for mites (Ivermectin Injections), even though tests also showed negative for mites on skinscrape and biopsy. He is 100% better now. Hope this helps you.
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Absolutely nothing had/has changed - she has been with me for many years and her diet has been the same. That is, of course, that it has been adjusted according to her work and the time of the year etc.

I am of the old school that if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it! That is why this is all so puzzling. What caused it is 'unknown' and 'unknown' to me too!!

Thanks Mrs. M!
 
Thanks Genesis - that's interesting as mites were suspected in the first instance.

Will speak to the vet and ask about the Ivermectin injections.

This is proving very interesting so far and thanks to other for their replies.....I will keep you informed!
 
Maybe due to her age, her body is changing and cannot cope with something in the feed. Any cereal in there? I'm not a feed expert, but if you've tried everything else, call the feed helplines and see if they have any suggestions?

Hope you find a fix.
 
It may be related more to the fact that she is a veteran and - as in humans - skin structure changes over time and gets less elastic and less able to repair itself and deal with the daily onslaughts that skin has to withstand. Has she got white socks? Just wondered as white socks can also be more strongly affected by mud fever and you may just be seeing the effects of long term, low grade damage to the skin structure from mud fever, mites, sunburn, you name it. I'd go easy on what you apply as - to my mind - the more heavyweight stuff you apply, the more assault it is on the skin. A good test I always ask myself is: If I had a chronic skin problem, popped up seemingly out of the blue and it isn't responding to bog standard treatments, what would I be happy slapping on my own arm/leg/etc? If you wouldn't happily slap it long term on your own body, you have to ask yourself why it should be any better to slap it on the horse!!! I would especially be wary of steroids long term coz, as you say, they can cause almost as many problems as they treat!

I'd try gently washing in stuff that you would happily bathe a newborn baby in, ditto with creams etc. Less is more.
 
I have looked up your horses diagnosis on google and have found reference to to granular dermatitis but not ideopathic granulomar dermatitis. Ideopathic means 'cause unknown', modular is to do with skin and dermatis is from what I understand abrasions/distrubance of the skin. Apparently in the human form some kinds of flowers and herbs will give someone dermatitis as does sunburn - if your horses legs/fetlocks are white this would be a more obvious cause. Other causes are perfume (which I think we can rule out in your mares case) and soaps/detergents - do you use these to clean brushing boots, over reach boots, etc? Dermatis can (so the link I found says) also be a sign of diabetes mellutis but before you run off panicking the only reference I can find to this condition is about humans so it may not be the case in horses!!

Herbs that will/could hep control the condition are burdock root, calendula, cleavers, evening primrose oil, nettles and chamomile.

Sorry I can't be of more help. I recognise how frustrating and upsetting it is when you can't find out more information about a subject (it happened to me when my beloved horse got Wobblers and I couldn't get info) which is why I have tried to help you although I don't think I have been of much help I'm afraid.

Incidentaly my friends horse has just had the vet out to lots of burn like scabs on his neck which the vet believes in off a sap from a hedge or tree. He has been prescribed prednisolone. Maybe this is something your horse has rubbed against like a contact allergy. Skin scrapings I presume would only show up the most obvious things they would look for, ie there is no way they could test for every kind of allergy present, so if it is sap off a plant/tree/shrub they may not have looked for this.

Betnovate is a human steroid application which I was prescribed for dermatitis on my finger, which I finally found out was caused by speedy beet of all things. It does thin the skin and is not recommended for the face. Again this relates to humans, but ask the vet if maybe you could be prescribed this for your horse - it could work out a lot cheaper.
 
i would wash with hibi scrub then apply either calendula oil witch hazel tea tree or neem oil these are all good for skin probs! and they are naturall so will not be damageing the skin by drugs all the time!
 
As Applecart14 has said, ideopathic means 'cause unknown' so effectively your diagnosis is 'allergy, cause unknown'. This is not as uncommon as it sounds as allergies are very complex reactions and often the final answer is that no one can figure out what is causing them!

Google offers a couple of studies, but of course there is little reason to think that the cause in your horse's case may be the same:
http://www.vetpathology.org/cgi/reprint/43/4/548.pdf

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-3anm...t=result#PPA301,M1
Caused by a plant called 'hairy vetch, vicia villosa'
 
Yes! I am 99% sure that this is what my friends horse had, and then subsequently what my horse got. My friend tried everything that you described and nothing worked at all. She subsequently sold the horse (not related!) so dont know what happened.

Then one of mine got exactly the same. Anyway what cured mine (and very very quickly too) was Dermobion. Its no longer available, but try to find anyone who has a smidgen left as it will clear it in about a week and it wont come back. Its not been withdrawn for that long, so ask around friends and you are likely to find someone who has it.
 
I can't say how strongly I agree with this thinking from B of Frogs! -

"It may be related more to the fact that she is a veteran and - as in humans - skin structure changes over time and gets less elastic and less able to repair itself and deal with the daily onslaughts that skin has to withstand. Has she got white socks? Just wondered as white socks can also be more strongly affected by mud fever and you may just be seeing the effects of long term, low grade damage to the skin structure from mud fever, mites, sunburn, you name it. I'd go easy on what you apply as - to my mind - the more heavyweight stuff you apply, the more assault it is on the skin."


It makes a lot of sense.

Have you tried feeding either Brewers Yeast or Sulphur as they are both excellent for the skin although a lot think they're too old fashioned and cheap to be worthwhile but they still seem to out-do the 'new' remedies!
If you want to splash money at it, then there was a product from Hilton Herbs which was excellent (the name escapes me) which was around £90 a big sack about five years ago. We had good response from that for a mare with photo sensitivity whose skin was very similar after a diet of nearly 100 prednisolone a day!

As Box of Frogs says, it could be an age thing that you will just have to accept, but Brewers Yeast would be my first port of call, forget the washing and creams, that's just weakening the skin even more; you need to repair this from the inside out, not the other way. I'd also be adding a large lump of Rock Sulphur into the water bucket too.
 
Hi

My experience with skin conditions in horses is similar to the above.

Rosie developed what I thought was mud fever one summer, and no amount of Hibiscrub, udder cream, Sudocrem etc would shift it. It was around her fetlock on one front leg, crusty, oozing and flaking.

The vet prescribed Dermobian - which as someone says has been discontinued. Such a shame as it was excellent and cleared the condition up in a matter of days.

Betnovate, another steroidal cream is what cleared up my Shetland ponies reaction to fly spray when I sprayed his nether regions one summer!

And the other amazing result was with Homeopathic pillules. I kick myself for not making note of what these 2 bottles were called as they were amazing.

Rosie had a severe allergic reaction to god knows what and ended up with 'bubblewrap' skin. It started off by me having to give her steroid injections twice a day for a week and then 48 steroid tablets a day for weeks on end.

Everytime the vet reduced the number of tablets, the urticaria developed again.

Eventually it was a suggestion from the farm owner who's field I was temporarily renting, to go down to the Homeopathic shop and get these 2 bottles.

With the supervision of the vet, the steroids were reduced and the pillules introduced. After a number of days we weaned her off the steroids, carried on with the Homeopathic pills for a bit and then weaned her off them too - and at last, her skin had calmed.

I'd definately go down this route again if the same thing happened again.
 
Thanks so much to all who have replied. I really have a lot of information to trawl through.

Just a bit more info : my mare is dark liver chestnut with NO wihite legs. She does not wear back boots. The vet ruled out mud fever and the dreaded steroid mousse was on the recommendation of the Dermatologist at AHT.

B of F - a lot of useful stuff, thanks and Madhossey I was going to PM you.....can you remember the name of the wonderful pillules or even where you got them? I must keep an open mind on this!!

Genesis - I am also in Suffolk - can you PM me and let me know who is your vet?

Once again, thanks to everyone and I hope that you all have a happy Christmas and a great 2009.

Doris (not my reall name honest!!)
 
Sorry MFH not to have responded directly (and by the way, have an old friend who hunted with the Wynnstay many light years ago), anyway, liked your suggestion of the sulphur in her water - where do I get this?

The mare is on Equivit which smells of yeast (really must put on my specs and read the label...!!). I am not all that keen to spend bucketsful of cash on herbs, however, if they work, then a huge sack of Hilton Herbs 'stuff' will be better than putting all those chemicals on her legs.

I really do want to do the right thing by her, but it seems that all 'alternative things' (currently) do not do the trick and just leaving it alone, just makes it worse.....! B***ER!! Hey Ho!

She's a dear girl and has been my lovely (chestnut mare...!) friend and I love her dearly, so will always do whatever I can to help.
 
LOL! No worries! I've been here since '70 so might even know your friend!

That's why I suggested BY first as it's still cheap (about £9 for 1.5kg. Westgate do it I know) and it lasts a while, you only feed about 30g a day. I'd use that first. Another good oldie supplement for skin is Kossolian.

Have to admit to not knowing where to get enough rock sulphur for a horse from, only used to getting it from the pet shop for the dogs!
 
She was hunting with them in the early 70's - name Chris and had an ex chaser/pointer (?) called Easton Rip. She then lived in Bangor on Dee.

Wonder if you knew her?

Merry Christmas and a happy 2009!
 
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