Horse head shaking - allergies?

[spotty_pony2]

To cut a very long story short, one of my horses began head shaking and sneezing completely out of the blue at the end of October last year - mostly in the stable, mildly in the field and within 6 weeks of it beginning when ridden too. Initially, it appeared to be triggered by eating and he was so shocked by it he refused to eat bless him, we discovered quite quickly that putting a nose net on him helped him and reduced symptoms quite remarkably and most importantly made it so he was able to eat.

He has been to Rossdales twice now for extensive tests although not much has been discovered. He has been scoped twice, had a CT Scan, had a bute trial and had a nerve block in the maxillary nerve in the jaw which was negative so ruled out a teeth issue and also had the trigeminal nerve blocked which was also negative.

In between the two visits, he had a complete day of head shaking constantly with the nose net on, we were at a loss as to what to do so we got the Vet out the next day who prescribed him with corti-costeroids (Prednisolone) 100 tablets per day for 10 days then down to 50 for 5 days then a few days of nothing before second trip to Newmarket. The steroids seemed to make a big difference and although he was still wearing his nose net, symptoms more or less completely disappeared.

He was supposed to be going back to Rossdales too have Pens Therapy treatment for Trigeminal Neuralgia but with eps steroids making such a big difference they were reluctant to do this and now are suspecting allergies. He has been prescribed a course of steroids over a 4 week period. 5 days in, he had a really bad time this morning, but as quite often has the case symptoms lessened once he was turned out. It is like he is agitated by something, he goes all twitchy and itchy on his body too.

So I am thinking of getting my Vet out to do full allergy tests including skin scrapes to see if we can find anything which he could be allergic to. I am surprised this hasn't been suggested but the Vets seem more intent on it being Trigeminal Neuralgia but haven't really done allergy tests which to me seems silly. One day he came in from the field in December with enlarged grass glands and also he has had an enlarged lymph node since the summer which is a sign of the body trying to fight something (possibly the allergen?)

Nothing has been changed this winter so I have no idea what it could be but apparently horses can become allergic to things over time. The head shaking started roughly when he started staying in over night for the winter so I still think it could be straw or something causing it even though we have used same straw supplier we used for the whole of last winter.

Sorry for long post, anyone had anything similar?

 

[rachk89]

Even though its the same straw supplier, is it the same quality of straw? Same for the hay?

I know when the quality of the hay and straw became worse at my last yard, my horse started coughing a lot and I actually came out in a rash on my arms for a few months then developed a bad cough myself. We were both allergic to the hay/straw and when we left the yard, both of us were fine again straight away pretty much. I havent had that bad cough since and nor has he.

I do think they changed supplier however, although they never admitted to that. But it definitely wasnt the same. I've never had a skin reaction like that before, both of my arms were covered in itchy spots whenever they came into contact with the hay.