Sarcoids - annoyed alternative health woman today!

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hairycob

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Was chatting to lady on a stall selling aloe vera products & she recommended topical application of aloe vera gel for sarcoids.
I said "Really? Prof Knottenbelt advises against aloe vera or tea tree".
She said " I expect he is using out of date info. Our company vet recommends it"
I said "But he's the country's leading expert on sarcoids"
She said "Well, in that case he has a vested interest in you not using alternative therapies"
I said "Does your company vet have an independent view?"
I think she got narked with me!
 
The trouble is I think she really does beleive that aloe vera can cure all known diseases & bring about world peace. Don't get me wrong - there is a place for aloe vera & I have used it on myself in the past, but for some people it appears to have become more like a religion. It was a bit mean of me as when she asked if my horse had any problems I deliberately picked sarcoids as a test. But I do get really annoyed about companies that take advantage of people's fears.
 
aloe vera is a good healing therapy as it increases cell renewal and production, exactly what you dont want with sarcoid cells and tissue. Dr D Knottenbelt is certainly not using out of date info or treatment proceedures. the lady on the aloe vera stall is only a pyramid seller!
 
the lady on the Aloe Vera company stand at HOYS last year recommended that i use it on sarcoids.

she said as it is 100% natural it can't do any harm...

my boy is sarcoid free now after Liverpool Cream
 
I think aloe vera is great, but it really annoys me when people claim it cures virtually everything inder the sun!
mad.gif
 
Box_of_Frogs - I suspect she might well have been happy to.
I was talking to another person who had been at the same event & she was told that she shouldn't give her arthritic horse bute as they lose all feeling are therefore more prone to other injuries such as a pierced sole. She asked her if she goes completely numb after a paracetamol.
 
I used Liverpool cream on Meg's sarcoid which was an expensive waste of time, used 2 tubes of aloe vera gel & it disappeared completely, it had never regrown & it was quite a large one, so perhaps the aloe vera lady was right!!
 
No Kizzywiz. True sarcoids are skin cancers. Cancer is where the cells multiply out of control. So if you rub anything on a TRUE sarcoid that says things like "encourages new skin growth", you will be encouraging aggressive growth of the sarcoid. The reason it all gets so confusing is that many, many lumps, bumps, scrapes and dodgy patches are NOT true sarcoids. So slapping pretty much anything on them can't do any harm - some of these "false" patches would have healed entirely on their own anyway! The difficulty for vets and horse owners alike is in deciding whether a dodgy patch/lump IS or ISN'T a true sarcoid. The only way to be certain is to take a biopsy and if it IS a true sarcoid, any surgical intervention can prompt an aggressive growth spurt. Catch 22.

Never, ever use anything on a true sarcoid that encourages skin growth.
 
hi everyone im now in a position were i have 2 horses with sarcoids, one has now been treated 2 yrs on the trot with liverpool uni cream, yep it got rid but the same one from last year came back this year again he was treated, im now trying teatree oil, from what i can tell, it dries the sarcoid and slowly reduses it as the growth is suficated it cant grow just withdraw, my geld that was treated 2 yrs on the trot now has a growth, in total he had 7 sarcoids from the size of a pea to the size of a 50p, i will try and put a pic on here of my other horses sarcoid. question to everyl is are your horses out in the day and mid afternoon, or are they stabled, ive found sitronela a excellent fly deterant put on with a sponge. tks for reading and any help is much apreciated.
 
Amandasteel. You are taking a big risk using tea tree as it is another substance that promotes cell growth and as Box_of_Frogs explained sarcoids are cancer which are haywire cell growth. And perhaps you could expain how putting oil on a sarcoid can "suffocate" a tumour that doesn't breath & get it's nutrition from the blood supply.
You really should talk to your Vet about other treatment. Just because you were one of the unlucky ones for whom Liverpool Cream didn't work doesn't mean that your Vet can't help anymore - just make sure you speak toa specialist horse vet. I made the mistake of using a general Vet at first & I wish I had taken photos to show why Vets don't normally biopsy sarcoids - from the size of a small hazelnut to a large walnut in less than 3 weeks.
As my mare has over 30 sarcoids (nodular, verrucous & fibroblastic) I do understand why people look for alternative treatments for sarcoids - they are worrying, can (but don't always) cause problems, can be expensive to treat & no one treatment is guaranteed to get rid of them. But as B_o_F pointed out the whole issue is muddied by the fact that you can only prove a sarcoid is a true sarcoid by a method which can make them worse & many lesions that people think are sarcoids aren't. This confusion allows charlatons to take advantage & peddle utter tosh. In fact the more I think about the fact that this woman was giving advice that could actually lead to a horse being pts, the more mad I get about it. I got even madder when I heard about the "advice" she had given to the owner of an elderly arthritic horse that I mentioned in my last post.
Anyone who want to know more about sarcoids should read Prof Knottenbelt's website about sarcoids.
 
Agree with HairyCob and BoF.
I recently purchased (august) a young cob who had suspect patches/ nodules on his chest & armpit. i had them checked out by Prof K and a full vetting. It was decided to ignore them unless they changed shape so i started a sarcoid diary with photos to monitor them. I used Sarc-Ex supplement and Thuja cream on the basis it wasnt going to do any harm and the cream would keep the flies off if nothing else. Within a week everything started to dry up and then i noticed the nodules disappearing.
This weekend the last nodule fell off. I could claim a miracle cure based on using the above products but i believe that he was leaning over the barbed wire fence and had nicked his chest( especially now his coat is coming through and you can see the lines where something has dug in) then flies got into the wound and the infected/partially healed cuts were labelled as potential sarcoids.
*fingers crossed* i am correct....
 
My Vet suggested either Liverpool Cream or Bloodroot. I think the creams were similar prices but with the Liverpool Cream you have several Vet visists to pay for as well. She reckoned the Blood root was effective about 65% of the time & LC about 75 to 80%. It was hard balancing the higher cost v increased effectiveness as she's not insured (old with lots of exclusions). In the end I decided on LC as she has loads of sarcoids (we only treat the ones that cause problems) & as we were treating 3 in the saddle & girth areas I wanted to go for the highest cure rate. If we had only been treating the 2 between her back legs that were rubbing together I may well have chosen the bloodroot. THE LC has cleared 4 of the 5 & we are still (sigh, it's been along time) waiting for the scab on her back to fall off.
I have tried Sarcex for several months but it had no shrinking effect whatsoever on the existing sarcoids. Obviously I don't know whether it reduced the number of new ones or stopped then getting bigger
 
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