melanomas please help!

[annabelandmay]

hi,

i have a ten year old grey mare and she has melanomas. one on her neck and several on her dock and bottom. ive known that i need to keep an eye on these and recently the one on her neck has started to ooze a black liquid and one of the ones on her bottom has completly burst and gone just leaving a sore patch where it was.
how should i treat these? and should i call the vet as ive heard that melanomas can turn nasty.
i have been rinsing it with diluted hibi scrub is this right? please help as i love my mare to bits!

thanks,

 

[Happy Horse]

If you are concerned then get the vet to check them.

 

[teddyt]

I would get your vet to come and have a look. Once they start going how you describe you have to be careful with infections in the sores. If you use hibiscrub it must be diluted to a 1% solution so 1ml in 100ml water. Any stronger and it can kill off the tisue and delay healing.
Im sure your mare will be fine but best get the vet to make sure

 

[kerilli]

are you sure they are melanomas not sarcoids? i've only ever seen melanomas that were pretty dormant, tbh. i would definitely get the vet out, you don't want to risk putting something on which might make them more aggressive.

 

[Gemsie]

Hi annabelandmay, I would definately say to get the vet out to see your girlie. I sadly lost my mare a couple of years ago due to melanomas - she was riddled with them all around her vulva, dock and tail. I dont want to scare you by saying that - but it is possible to maintain the melanomas and keep your mare going for a long while. i noticed the first on my girl when she was 7 years old -she had a tiny one on her eyelid (not even pea sized) and a pea sized on in her gullet - these were both removed under anaesthetic. Over the following years many many more appeared under her tail, and actually on her tail. These grew very slowly over a period of time, and my vet checked them all reguarly for me. I was advised to keep them very very clean - washing with hibiscrub solution twice a day - and ensure that plenty of fly repellant applied during the warmer months - as the melanomas will grow slowly - and can crack and split with that nasty black goo oozing from them from time to time. My vet was fab and explained to me that they deal with loads of greys with melanomas - the majority never really cause any problem for the horse at all. There is some trial reasearch at the moment regarding a drug called Cimetidine - which my vet prescribed for my mare (its used to treat stomach ulcers in humans) this drug has been found to halt melanoma growth and even shrink them in some cases - this worked for a time for my mare - but sadly in her case they started to grow rapidly and at the age of 12 I had to have her put down - as I didnt want them to become so large that she was having difficulty passing - a couple had got very large around her dock (golf ball size) and they seemed to mass and grow around her dock therefore in time it would have made going to the toilet extremely uncomfortable for her and I didnt want to let them get that far. My vet advised me that they know loads of grey horses well into their 20's that have had melanomas for years and years and never caused a major problem - I suppose my advice to you would be yes get the vet, keep a close eye on them - but enjoy your mare and dont fret too much - as the vast majority of horses with melanomas will not have a major problem with them. If you want to PM me I can send you some more info - after keeping my girlie going for over 5 years with her very aggressive melanomas (not all are that aggressive) I had a lot of time to do a ton of research!