Hornet sting allergic reaction. Skin now sloughing off

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Rose Folly

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One of my livery horses, a big ex-chaser with paper thin skin, recently suffered a very bad allergic reaction to what is thought to have been a hornet sting. Serum seeped through his coat in numerous places leaving sore patches which literally developed as we watched, and he was in shock. His vet came, administered intravenous drugs etc. and horse seemingly recovered.

That was about a week ago. Now, however, his coat is falling out where the worst serum leaks occurred, and the skin, now seemingly decaying, is sloughing off. Yesterday morning, for example, he had a nasty raw place on the point of his hip where he had rolled and the skin had come off.

I hope his owner is going to call the vet out again today, but in the meantime, I wondered if any of you have had this experience with a horse, and until/if he is given prescriptive treatment, what I can do to make him more comfortable.

He's kept out 24/7, with other horses, and they do spend the 'fly' part of the day, by their own choice, in the depths of an open barn where it is dark and cool. I've put Alamycin? (purple spray) on the hip wound to deter the flies, and have started feeding him linseed and cold tea to help internally (we used to use cold tea for our Labradors and it gave them wonderful coats and skins).

My own horse once had a similar allergic reaction and sweated serum, but in her case she didn't lose her coat. Any advice would be most welcome.
 
Further to my thread this morning, to which there were no answers, the dead patches of skin are know flaking off in snowstorms. The new skin underneath appears in most cases reasonably healthy, but with the amount of damaged patches we are still anxious about him re-growing his coat before winter. So still looking for any advice on how to accelerate this. We are feeding him plenty of linseed and oil, and are putting neem oil on the patches. anything else we could be doing?
 
Weird but I know of a similar thing recently. A horse (not mine) had what was thought to be a bite and within days it was a horrible bloody raw patch. It's now healed and dry but hairless. Very odd, personally I too would have called a vet but like I say not my decision (or the op here's in this case)
Poor horses
 
My lad had an extreme reaction to a sting, possibly also a hornet, under his chin. His head swelled up like a pumpkin and it affected his airway, and he got urticaria spots all over him...he was a sight! He had a vet as an emergency, adrenaline injection and steroids. It took about a week for everything to go down...he only had serum leaking from around the actual sting site though.
 
A friend's horse was bitten on the face by an adder and she had a similar reaction with skin sloughing off. For a while it looked a horrible mess but it recovered well in the end and I think to look at her now you wouldn't know she had ever been bitten.
 
One of mine had a similar reaction to a bite - didn't know what it was at the time, but most likely a hornet. He developed a huge swelling on the side of his neck and his coat was wet with serum at the site of the bite

He recovered amazingly quickly. The swelling was much recovered the following day. The hair under the serum did fall out but grew back within 2-3 weeks with no ill effects.
 
Thanks so much for replies. Reassuring. Yes the vet was called (the same one who came out the day of the sting) but he advised, as you did, that the hair loss is commonplace and should restore naturally within weeks.

We think the recent open sores problem (as opposed to the ones on the day of the incident) was caused by him rolling. He always really works himself about when he does and has a good old scrub - not advisable in this case. We've also heard today from his former trainer that he has had a bad reaction to a 'flu jab in the past, so obviously he has been an accident waiting to happen.

The horse with the swollen head and the compromised airways sounds awful; ditto the horse bitten by the adder. Thank goodness they made full recoveries. And thank you all again for your reassurances.
 
I use gold label wonder gel on most skin problems and I have a very sensitive Arab that seems to be eaten alive by insects and has reactions, I also use it on my other horses sweet itch, its all natural and only about £8 brilliant stuff, it also promotes hair growth so it might help the hair come back quicker.
 
Thanks so much Pinkvboots. Hadn't heard of Gold Label Wonder Gel. Is it a horse or a human product? Not that that worries me. My horses have more Johnsons Baby Oil put on them than my child ever did!!
 
Rose Folly said:
Thanks so much Pinkvboots. Hadn't heard of Gold Label Wonder Gel. Is it a horse or a human product? Not that that worries me. My horses have more Johnsons Baby Oil put on them than my child ever did!!
Click to expand...

It's a horse product, google it and it should come up :) second this being good, use it on my very skin sensitive sweet itch mare and it heals everything!
 
This has happened to my mare, too, only I wasn't there to see what she reacted to. I arrived at the field the next morning to find that her skin was stretched and wrinkly. Bizarre looking. The reaction was clearly over with, but I gave her some piriton as a precaution and then just let her get on with it. The skin and fur fell off all over her body, but new (winter coat) fur was starting to come through, so she wasn't bald. I massaged her twice a day with a rubber curry comb and we had our own, rather disgusting, snow storm.

It's never happened since, but I do use neem oil (or neem leaf powder mixed with benzyl benzoate) throughout the summer. I *think* her reaction was the first year I had her, so I wouldn't have been using neem, then. You could also use aloe gel, but I would think that the reaction is long since over with and she's just shedding the dead skin.
 
Rose Folly said:
One of my livery horses, a big ex-chaser with paper thin skin, recently suffered a very bad allergic reaction to what is thought to have been a hornet sting. Serum seeped through his coat in numerous places leaving sore patches which literally developed as we watched, and he was in shock. His vet came, administered intravenous drugs etc. and horse seemingly recovered.

That was about a week ago. Now, however, his coat is falling out where the worst serum leaks occurred, and the skin, now seemingly decaying, is sloughing off. Yesterday morning, for example, he had a nasty raw place on the point of his hip where he had rolled and the skin had come off.

I hope his owner is going to call the vet out again today, but in the meantime, I wondered if any of you have had this experience with a horse, and until/if he is given prescriptive treatment, what I can do to make him more comfortable.

He's kept out 24/7, with other horses, and they do spend the 'fly' part of the day, by their own choice, in the depths of an open barn where it is dark and cool. I've put Alamycin? (purple spray) on the hip wound to deter the flies, and have started feeding him linseed and cold tea to help internally (we used to use cold tea for our Labradors and it gave them wonderful coats and skins).

My own horse once had a similar allergic reaction and sweated serum, but in her case she didn't lose her coat. Any advice would be most welcome.
Click to expand...

Just searched for allergic reaction after one of ours had a huge and growing swollen face this morning, vet administered drugs and he is now looking semi normal, can't see a bit anywhere but expect it is some thing akin t your above. How is yours now?

On a different note, intrigued by your user name, one of ours is rose the other folly, weird coincidence?.
 
My lad had a bad casting accident when he was a four year old and the vet was convinced that the mix of a kind of pressure sore, stress and a severe tying up (from we think the struggle) caused him to sweat serum and then like yours his skin bubbled up and came off.

We used Green Clay (lots of it!) on all his wounds, for that read we smothered him in it! Skin underneath was like yours clean and healthy, vet said she had never seen so much necrotic tissue in her life.

Anyhow he is now 8 and apart from being well and truly scarred in some places where the damage was just too deep and killed all the hair folicles he is fine, fit healthy and sound. I still use Aloe Gel to keep his scars supple and lots of 50 factor sun cream in the summer.

Below is an update I did a while ago with pics of his injuries and updated shots of him looking healthy again.



http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/foru...s!!-**sign-up-here!**&p=11927308#post11927308
 
Put cornucresine cream on promotes healing and hair growth or better still manuka honey that will remove any toxins still in the skin as well, poor boy
 
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