Recommend a supplement for pollen sensitivity

Most of the supplements around (if you read the small print) simply attempt to boost the horse's overall diet and well-being. COPD/RAO due to pollen allergy is a bugger to handle because from now until Spetember every breath of air we breathe is laden with pollens. With a dust or hay allergy, management is relatively easy but you can't remove a horse from pollen. There's a product out now called Cavalesse. It's been around a couple of years but there's a big PR push going on at the moment. It was designed for sweet itch sufferers but my specialist equine vets went to a talk from the manufacturers and mfrs claim it works just as well for pollen allergy horses. It works by stopping the mast cells that produce histamine that then kicks the cells lining the airways into producing thick mucus in a misguided attempt to rid the lungs of what the body sees as a harmful attacker (the pollen) but in reality is harmless. My veteran horse Sunny has started a trial of this product. His lungs are trashed from a severe pollen allergy and it had reached the point where I thought this winter just gone would be his last due to quality of life issues this spring/summer. He's tried everything else: oral ventipulmin, oral sputolosin, inhaled drugs and steroids - none of it has helped. It was so bad by the end of last summer that he had to be endoscoped but the vets didn't dare sedate him as they thought he'd go blue and stop breathing altogether. It was very distressing for Sunny and I won't put him through that again. His breaths per minute rate at rest was 45, when it should have been 8 - 12. It rose to over 60 when he got hot or mildly stressed and god only knows what it was while he was being endoscoped. Cavalesse is pretty much his last hope. It isn't cheap (£90 for approx 3 months) and it demands rigorous attention to detail (given daily at approx the same time, dripped onto a sugar cube or half slice of bread) but if it works that's all I care about. It tastes quite bitter but Sunny happily takes his 3mls daily on a piece of bread. I started by smearing marmalade on the bread but he's happy enough to take it just on the bread. I did find that even 3 sugar lumps doesn't truly hold 3 mls - starts to disintegrate in your hand. I've promised to post my findings on here to help other horses and owners so watch this space.
 
My horse henry used to headshake - not sure if it was due to pollen, or the tiny little flies you get around hawthorne hedges.

I have tried lots of things with him. In the end, I ended up using a nose net on him, which worked wonders (they are best used with a flash nose band - if its windy they just tend to flap around).

Other than that he was on a concoction of different things that seemed to help:

gold label's anti shake suppliment and antihistamines seemed to help a little.

I was going to try homeopathic remedy last year to see if that helped, but due to him being on box rest, never really tried it.
 
Lazybee, Ventipulmin is not a supplement for pollen allergy. It is a drug that relaxes the airways so can sometimes (sometimes) HELP in the management of a pollen allergy. It does not address the underlying cause at all. I gave as much information as I could in my reply to OP. It was lengthy so perhaps you didn't have time to read it.
 
i had a mare allergic to pollens and natural sugars, managed to control the natural sugars with diet but pollens were a pain. I asked my vet if antihistamines worked and they said not on horses. I tried them anyway and hey presto they worked!! I just got superdrugs own make and gave her 10 a day, they were on buy one get one free and although ended up a little expensive, i wasnt bothered as they worked and it was a lot cheaper than all the vet visits we had!! :D
 
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