Open melanoma

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Stroppy Mare

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My mare is overrun with melanomas, mostly around her bum and on her face, but she's recently acquired a melanoma to the top left of her dock and she's obviously itched it and made it sore and bleed. I've treated it with hibiscrub and blue spray (from the vets in a yellow can that I got for a cut she gained a few years back!) before dousing it and surrounding areas in fly spray.

What can I do to stop this from occurring in the future?
 
Second amymay.Firstly - veterinary products have a shelf life, so a can of spray you've had for a few years is highly unlikely to be still effective. More importantly though - you can't treat melanomas like a normal wound. Strongly suggest you discuss with your vet.
Management wise - I have a livery who is riddled with melanomas on his dock and round his bum. We keep them clean and slathered with vaseline, and he is always rugged (fly rug or lightweight turnout with decent tail flap) Apparently they do open up occasionally, but so far, that hasn't happened.
 
Stroppy Mare said:
What can I do to stop this from occurring in the future?
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Unfortunately melanomas have a life of their own and there's nothing you can do stop future ones occurring, and you can't stop the present ones erupting (if/when they do).

I had a mare who lived here for many years who had a lot of melanomas and I was forever cleaning them and trying this and that on them. The most success I had with the external ones was using manuka honey. Seems strange perhaps but it stopped her itching them and any that erupted seemed to calm with the honey. She was an old broodmare so I had her internal melonomas tracked for years. This year an internal one appeared very quickly; it was situated incredibly close to a major artery, and so I consulted her owner and we both decided it was too risky for her and the decision was made to have her PTS with her broodmare friends around her. It's never the external ones that pose the greatest risk.
 
Spring Feather said:
Unfortunately melanomas have a life of their own and there's nothing you can do stop future ones occurring, and you can't stop the present ones erupting (if/when they do).

I had a mare who lived here for many years who had a lot of melanomas and I was forever cleaning them and trying this and that on them. The most success I had with the external ones was using manuka honey. Seems strange perhaps but it stopped her itching them and any that erupted seemed to calm with the honey. She was an old broodmare so I had her internal melonomas tracked for years. This year an internal one appeared very quickly; it was situated incredibly close to a major artery, and so I consulted her owner and we both decided it was too risky for her and the decision was made to have her PTS with her broodmare friends around her. It's never the external ones that pose the greatest risk.
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Was it shop bought manuka honey or medical grade? I'm honestly willing to try anything - on a usual basis they don't bleed, but she's quite itchy round her bum and I suspect she's itched her tail once too many times and made it bleed.

The vets have been quite proactive in the past with various 'treatment' ideas (she's been on green tea extract, melanix and cimetidine at varying times). Maybe it's worth retrying the cimetidine again. I'm with a different vet practice now, however if I ask and explain how she was dealt with before it could be an option.

Tonight I'm going to spray it with hibiscrub again and put the spray on, and then stick her snuggy rug on as it's got a full tail wrap for her dock so hopefully if her tail stays clean, and fly free, that should hopefully help her.

This is the first time one has opened up, most are under hair (or around her anus/dock) and as a general rule do not affect her. She holds her weight well (she's 16) and is happily eating and drinking and personality wise is the same sweet mare. Still able to go to the toilet too. I've always said that the moment she gets recurring colic, or shows signs of internal melanomas affecting her then that'll be the day I say goodbye. I hope that's not for a very long time though.
 
Just regular supermarket Manuka. The mare here never ever had colic and functioned absolutely normally until the end. She was riddled with internals and externals for many years. The decision was purely based on the new melanoma which grew very rapidly right next to the artery. We could not risk it erupting.

A friend of mine used honey on her horse with a very bad leg wound and she was not able to find Manuka so she used unpasteurized local honey and it worked beautifully.
 
How did you monitor the internal melanomas?

I spoke to the vet this morning who's advised me to get some antiseptic fly gel for the wound. But I think I'll pick up some manuka honey when I nip to tesco tomorrow.
 
Stroppy Mare said:
Tonight I'm going to spray it with hibiscrub again and put the spray on
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I'm not sure whether its even worth replying, as my last reply was completely ignored - but...
Hibiscrub may make the situation worse as it is extremely drying, and as per my previous post - if you are still using a spray that is several years old, it is more than likely completely useless. Id also be a bit sceptical about a vet who just suggests getting some antiseptic fly gel over the counter to treat erupting melanomas!

Manuka is non-sterile in a wound environment - unless you get the medical grade stuff. You'll get a load of people saying that the (admittedly low) risk of botulism from food grade manuka doesn't matter - personally, I wouldn't risk it, and certainly not on tumours. Manuka is most commonly used on infected wounds, as it's primary purpose is to kill off bugs in a warm moist wound environment. I wouldn't immediately think to use it in a non infected wound, especially as it stings like hell. and I would have thought it would encourage more rubbing - but as Spring Feather has had success using it, it goes to show that you never can tell what will work and what won't.
 
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Cimetidine has never been shown to do much-no one has ever managed to repeat the results from the first somewhat dubious paper which reported a 50% success rate. I did have some success using cisplatin on a large melanoma and it's not that expensive. It is nasty stuff though and not sure I would use it again-but just FYI. I subsequently had the horse pts due to internals.
 
Auslander said:
I'm not sure whether its even worth replying, as my last reply was completely ignored - but...
Hibiscrub may make the situation worse as it is extremely drying, and as per my previous post - if you are still using a spray that is several years old, it is more than likely completely useless. Id also be a bit sceptical about a vet who just suggests getting some antiseptic fly gel over the counter to treat erupting melanomas!

Manuka is non-sterile in a wound environment - unless you get the medical grade stuff. You'll get a load of people saying that the (admittedly low) risk of botulism from food grade manuka doesn't matter - personally, I wouldn't risk it, and certainly not on tumours. Manuka is most commonly used on infected wounds, as it's primary purpose is to kill off bugs in a warm moist wound environment. I wouldn't immediately think to use it in a non infected wound, especially as it stings like hell. and I would have thought it would encourage more rubbing - but as Spring Feather has had success using it, it goes to show that you never can tell what will work and what won't.
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The melanoma hasn't erupted as such - she's rubbed it on the gate and made it bleed from what I can tell I think. But that's by the by, I didn't ignore your post, the blue spray has an expiry date of 2015 on and I mix up hibiscrub and water to flush out wounds. The reason behind using the gel was to keep flies away and it's antiseptic too. It's of a consistency of vaseline. But since they didn't give me any other treatment advice with it, I'm afraid it's all I can go off - short of using what Apache warlord was told to do above by their vet.

Motherofchickens - I know cimetidine isn't a proven treatment however I decided that it was worth a try if nothing else, and stopped it due to finances and the fact that I wasn't convinced it was doing anything. I will have a look into cisplatin though, if I can do anything to make her more comfy etc then I'd give anything a go.
 
Auslander said:
Manuka is non-sterile in a wound environment - unless you get the medical grade stuff. You'll get a load of people saying that the (admittedly low) risk of botulism from food grade manuka doesn't matter - personally, I wouldn't risk it, and certainly not on tumours. Manuka is most commonly used on infected wounds, as it's primary purpose is to kill off bugs in a warm moist wound environment. I wouldn't immediately think to use it in a non infected wound, especially as it stings like hell. and I would have thought it would encourage more rubbing - but as Spring Feather has had success using it, it goes to show that you never can tell what will work and what won't.
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I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but the only botulism risks I have ever found evidence of when I was researching manuka honey was 'infant botulism' where babies under a year old when ingesting honey. 'Wound botulism' is non-existent according to my findings. I'd be interested to see any links however. Stinging, as far as my research found, only happens when using highly concentrated manuka honey; I don't use that type, I use supermarket manuka and the mare absolutely loved having the honey put on her which, to me anyway, dispels any thought that it was stinging her.

OP you do what makes sense to you. I merely posted giving you my experience of a mare with multiple (often erupting) melanomas and what *I* did which relieved her itching and took the swellings down.
 
Stroppy Mare said:
The melanoma hasn't erupted as such - she's rubbed it on the gate and made it bleed from what I can tell I think. But that's by the by, I didn't ignore your post, the blue spray has an expiry date of 2015 on and I mix up hibiscrub and water to flush out wounds. The reason behind using the gel was to keep flies away and it's antiseptic too. It's of a consistency of vaseline. But since they didn't give me any other treatment advice with it, I'm afraid it's all I can go off - short of using what Apache warlord was told to do above by their vet.

Motherofchickens - I know cimetidine isn't a proven treatment however I decided that it was worth a try if nothing else, and stopped it due to finances and the fact that I wasn't convinced it was doing anything. I will have a look into cisplatin though, if I can do anything to make her more comfy etc then I'd give anything a go.
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The problem with chemotherapy such as cisplatin is that the treatment can be use that the condition in the shrt-term. High risk of infection and high discomfort. Cimetidine is so expensive here- at least elsewhere it's more worth a punt. Good luck.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
The problem with chemotherapy such as cisplatin is that the treatment can be use that the condition in the shrt-term. High risk of infection and high discomfort. Cimetidine is so expensive here- at least elsewhere it's more worth a punt. Good luck.
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I meant to say that the treatment can be worse in the short term-apologies, fat fingers, iPad ..
 
Spring Feather said:
I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but the only botulism risks I have ever found evidence of when I was researching manuka honey was 'infant botulism' where babies under a year old when ingesting honey. 'Wound botulism' is non-existent according to my findings.
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I worked with the secretary of the Veterinary Wound Healing Association/CEO of Intelligent Woundcare. She has a special interest in Manuka honey, and has lectured/written extensively on the topic. As I said, the risk is minimal, but according to her, and the vets and other experts she collaborates with - there is a risk, and not one that they would be willing to take when dealing with significant wounds.
 
Auslander said:
I worked with the secretary of the Veterinary Wound Healing Association/CEO of Intelligent Woundcare. She has a special interest in Manuka honey, and has lectured/written extensively on the topic. As I said, the risk is minimal, but according to her, and the vets and other experts she collaborates with - there is a risk, and not one that they would be willing to take when dealing with significant wounds.
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Would you mind posting or PMing me links to her written work or peer reviewed papers please. I am genuinely interested as the vets over here are very open to advising using it. Thanks.
 
I've had so much stick on here for advocating correct use of clinical-grade manuka, that Ive pretty much given up commenting on posts about it, and I'm sick to death of having to defend myself. I'm afraid that it has pretty much relieved me of any interest in spending time and trouble providing information on a topic that I'm actually very passionate about, so if you don't mind, I'll provide you with a link to the Veterinary Wound Library, and I'm sure Georgie would be delighted to help. http://www.vetwoundlibrary.com/about

I'm sorry if that sounds churlish - and I'm sure your interest is genuine. My grumpiness on the topic is nothing personal!
 
It would be safest for her if you treated her like a sweet itch sufferer and electric taped off anything she can rub on so she can't damage herself again.
 
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