Factors that affect sweet itch

[Rosie_Stanford]

Hi everyone! I am a college student investigating the factors that affect sweet itch in horses as part of my assignment. If your horse suffers from sweet itch please spare a few minutes to complete my survey so I can analyse your results. I am aware that this is a very basic survey, however I am only a college student so I haven't got the time to create a professionally designed survey to then explain and analyse my results! I have had some nasty comments in the past about how badly written my survey is but I am not a degree student looking for a cure, I only have a set few weeks to create the survey, collect responses and analyse and explain my results There has also been some confusion regarding substrate... it means bedding in the horse world but as I work with all species substrate is the correct terminology for the floor material Thank you to anyone who fills out my survey!

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/C9FZ5PV

 

[sychnant]

Question 6 - what is substrate?

 

[YasandCrystal]

I don't own a horse with sweet itch, however I have a shiatsu therapist student practicing on my horses and she told me that one of the interesting factors found with every sweet itch horse given shiatsu was that in 100% of cases they were dehydrated. This was not investigated further so whether this was a cause or a symptom is not known, but that may be of interest to you.

 

[ycbm]

I had a fat insulin resistant horse who came to me with very severe sweet itch. I slimmed him down, got rid of the insulin resistance, and the sweet itch disappeared, along with several other allergies.

 

[Leo Walker]

I had a fat insulin resistant horse who came to me with very severe sweet itch. I slimmed him down, got rid of the insulin resistance, and the sweet itch disappeared, along with several other allergies.

This ties in with my experience. 100kgs + lost, sensible grazing, stomach issues sorted and a much better diet and its gone. And yes he did have sweetitch. He was blood tested, had suffered from being a yearling and had had all sorts of treatment. When I got him he teenaged, massive, covered in bleeding sores and was dangerous to handle as he was so very itchy and sore.

 

[Rosie_Stanford]

Question 6 - what is substrate?

"There has also been some confusion regarding substrate... it means bedding in the horse world but as I work with all species substrate is the correct terminology for the floor material "

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

I am another numpty who doesn't know what the heck a "substrate" is. If it means "bedding" then (sorry OP) then why not FFS say so??? You'd get a far better degree of accuracy from the survey then! - coz there's at least two of us on here who don't know what the word means, whereas if we'd known what it meant, we'd have been able to describe what sort of bedding the horse has in the stable and it might well be that bedding is an issue in the management of sweet itch.

 

[Leo Walker]

She does say in her original post