Horse with 20+ sarcoids - treatment experience

[TSS]

Hi there, thought I'd post my experience to see if it helps anyone

I noticed 3 or 4 lemon pip sized nodules on my mare when she was 4 and decided to keep an eye on them. This summer (she's now 7) I noticed a slightly larger new one on her neck and became worried as it was in the way of the rein and knew that if it was a sarcoid and it got knocked off we could be in trouble! I asked the vet for her opinion and she eventually confirmed sarcoids but by this time I had gone over her with a fine tooth comb and found she had about 16 in total, albeit all tiny. Pictures were sent to Liverpool and for the hell of it I included pictures of a couple of very small hairless areas and quite a large rough area at the top of her front leg which the vet had treated with an antiobiotic cream when she was a filly but that had never resolved. In for a penny, in for a pound...

Sadly they ALL came back as sarcoids (20+ overall) although the one under her front heel was a question mark, and Prof K suggested Liverpool cream at 100% and 75% and a silver nitrate stick for the query one. Others are between her back legs, shoulder, armpit, neck, inside canon bone, pastern, fetlock, trunk, and the one that has stopped me riding is on her back :/

She was treated mid August every other day for 5 days and for 3 treatments coped well. On the fourth treatment she was neck twitched and on the 5th had to be fully sedated but bearing in mind the number of sarcoids being treated I think she was a little star! During treatment we'd found some more had appeared and started treating them too but because she was so sore by the original fifth treatment the vet wanted to stop and so some of these newer ones haven't had a full course.

My numpty vet didn't read the instructions from Prof K correctly and instead of using the nitrate stick he put cream on the one under her heel on the first day. This reacted violently within a day and immediately turned the whole underside black and crusty despite only one treatment, though she wasn't lame. The nodular ones have all swollen and raised away and the verrucous ones have all swollen and raised into like a button shape. The area at the top of her leg is raised, black and crumbly.

Results - After about 4 weeks the nodular ones started dropping off nicely and leaving perfect pink skin underneath. The crumbly area at the top of her leg is dropping off bit by bit, again with clear skin underneath, and one of the flat hairless ones has dropped off but this has left a visible root in the middle (this was one of the ones we stopped treating part way through). The other verrucous (flat hairless) ones are being very stubborn and typically the one that I need to fall off so I can get back on board is reacting the absolute least!

My vet is delighted with the response so far and said not to worry too much about the ones not treated fully and the one showing a root, as in her experience she's found that when a horse starts being treated other sarcoids sometimes just disappear as though the horse has built up some sort of resistance. Prof K says this cannot scientfically be the case but lots of people say that he only deals with the worst case scenarios and doesn't have the same 'in the field' experience as the local vet...

I asked Prof K about using a supplement like sarc-ex and again he said that medically it could not stop a horse getting sarcoids, or help resolve them, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to say supplements work.

My only annoyance (apart from my vets practice sending a different vet out each time with different ideas about how much to put on/rub in etc) is that I would have liked to have waited until nearer winter to start treatment so that time off could have been when there were less flies around and the competition season had finished. My vet initially suggested waiting to see what happened to them but I've a couple of friends who've fallen foul of this with their insurance company because as we know, the day the vet puts that ailment in their notes is the day your insurance starts running out!

It's a scary time because I've seen the horrible pictures on Prof K's site and the sad situations that some people experience, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the treatment will be successful and we can get stuck back into our training.

I'll post updates as I've found people's comments about their experiences on here really helpful and hope my experience might help someone else

 

[hairycob]

Good luck. Pickle had a lot of sarcoids and for her the outcome was not good BUT she was a lot older (19 when we started treatment)and that makes a big difference. Only Liverpool cream did any good for her & that was not a total success. Sarcex & thuja did nothing.

 

[Destiny95]

Hi

Thanks for your post - it is interesting as we had a very different approach to treating them! We have a grey gelding who had enormous bloody sarcoids everywhere - sheath, girth, inside his ear, nose etc etc. Our vet said to have him put under anesthetic and literally cut them off. See what happened and then treat with cream what grew back . That was April 08, and touch wood we haven't had any come back (fingers crossed!). I think his sarcoids were too big and would have been too painful to treat wholly with cream.

I hope yours don't come back too : )

 

[CAH7]

Thanks for your post TSS. My boy has just had 3 verrucous and 1 nodular sarcoid treated with the Liverpool cream. He felt quite sore and down during the treatment, and wasn't his usual self - understandably, as it is horribly potent stuff!! I agree, I read some really positive and supportive posts on here, and felt better prepared because of them. I can understand it must have been frustrating having different vets applying the cream each time, and realise we were lucky to have been able to have Ted's usual vet for each appointment. I wish you and your mare the best of luck, and do keep us posted.

 

[TSS]

Thanks for the positive vibes guys

Forgot to put in that she started to feel discomfort about 20 minutes after treatment with the Liverpool cream and after the first session I learned that its better to give the bute a little before the cream is put on so that it works on the pain straight away. I worked on the basis that she was better off out in the field and occupied as much as possible but I also learned that it's better to have the treatment in the morning rather than at night so that if possible you can check on them every couple of hours to make sure there's no major reaction, rather than leaving them for 12 hours overnight, especially the first time.

After the very first treatment she ran around the field quite a bit and snorted, bucked and bronced and was clearly in quite a bit of discomfort, but I found that after the next treatments she just stamped a bit (the largest area is one on her leg) and was a little dull that day but the next day was completely fine and didn't need any bute at all

She also tried to bite the cream off the ones she could reach and that hadn't occured to me(!) so she ended up with 'burnt' blister around her muzzle and under her chin. The answer was to smear lots of vaseline around her face to protect it and thankfully the blisters cleared up very quickly (although I also learned she loathes the smell of vaseline) lol.

I know that fly control is really important with sarcoids but because she had so many I was worried about the fly rug irritating the sarcoids and being more uncomfortable so I just sprayed loads of fly spray which seemed to do the trick. However, after treatment stopped and they have started dropping off I've been putting a rain rug on to cover the fresh skin, really in an attempt to stop them getting really muddy too.

When she did get really muddy with our lovely unstable weather! the vet said it was fine to bath her as long as I used baby shampoo and nothing too astringent.

She's got one on her neck that is really ready to drop off and I'm really nervous about it being clear underneath because it's where the rein lies so will affect riding, but I'm keeping everything crossed.

Hope I'm being helpful and not just boring everyone to death! lol

I'll keep you posted