Sarcoids - Young gelding

Zebe

Zebe

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I'm sorry i know there are many sarcoid threads, i have read most of them.. but I'm now so worried I decided to post.

I have a beautiful 3 year old bay gelding that i breed. No sign of sarcoids on either side of breeding. He is only just 3! And noticed end of summer 2014 a couple of small nodules. I was advised to leave them and they would go away! He now has about 6-8 all vary in size from pea size to 2 pence size round and shiny and on underside/belly to groin area. He also has about 20 flatish small warts on his groin and a couple on inside back legs, some look like they could turn into small nodules. Also a couple of long warts resembling skin tags on his groin. No sign they are going away! Im feeling quite desperate especially after reading all the horror stories.

My plan is to band the bigger ones, tie some of the smaller ones and use castor oil on them all at the same time once they fall off. An old skool method used by some local old horsemen.

This week i started giving him 3x zinc tablets crushed in his feed, for his immune system.

If all this fails I am not excited at all about trying Liverpool cream. I may try xxterra before LP but undecided. Please can anyone give me their experience/thoughts? Anyone have lots of types like this on their young horse?

Thanks
 
I have a five year old who has had them since four, very similar in size and place by the sound of it. I remove them with copper sulphate crystals, which leaves a very nasty looking raw hole, which I then treat with aloe vera, a known skin cancer cure in experiments with mice. He is still popping up new ones on new areas, which I remove as they appear. PM me if you want more details.
 
Zebe said:
I'm sorry i know there are many sarcoid threads, i have read most of them.. but I'm now so worried I decided to post.

I have a beautiful 3 year old bay gelding that i breed. No sign of sarcoids on either side of breeding. He is only just 3! And noticed end of summer 2014 a couple of small nodules. I was advised to leave them and they would go away! He now has about 6-8 all vary in size from pea size to 2 pence size round and shiny and on underside/belly to groin area. He also has about 20 flatish small warts on his groin and a couple on inside back legs, some look like they could turn into small nodules. Also a couple of long warts resembling skin tags on his groin. No sign they are going away! Im feeling quite desperate especially after reading all the horror stories.

My plan is to band the bigger ones, tie some of the smaller ones and use castor oil on them all at the same time once they fall off. An old skool method used by some local old horsemen.

This week i started giving him 3x zinc tablets crushed in his feed, for his immune system.

If all this fails I am not excited at all about trying Liverpool cream. I may try xxterra before LP but undecided. Please can anyone give me their experience/thoughts? Anyone have lots of types like this on their young horse?

Thanks
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There's no way I would be mucking on with them myself ,I would be getting an opinion from a vet who is specialist in this area ASAP .
Multiple sarcoids are not to be trifled with .
 
I've had three vets now tell me that they can't get any better result with Liverpool cream than I do with copper sulphate :)
 
Thanks for your comments. The LP cream is only used by one vet that i know of and he sells it to administer yourself! Its possibly different in the UK. Living rurally in Ireland we have learned to mend our horses, i know it sound bizarre but for a lot of people we have to. And I have found for a lot of ailments that old skool methods do work. I don't fancy handling the LP cream myself it sounds pretty nasty stuff, I might be wrong be believe it contains arsenic, mercury and is radio active?! So Im just hoping that there is someone out there in my shoes who has success with a treatment for a young horse. I wondered if him being so young it could be a case of building up his immune system and treating whats there?!

Copper sulphate sounds interesting did it also work on the small flatish warts?
 
The major issue here is that there are several types of sarcoid. Some should be treated and some should be left well alone as messing with them causes them to worsen exponentially. This is why home remedies and messing about with sarcoids without any Veterinary input is never recommended.
 
It's difficult and everyone tells you different things, possibly because everyones has completely different experiences.

I brought a gelding a year ago with three, one fairly large near his girth, one on his shoulder and one suspect tiny lump near his eye. I was not prepared to start chucking money around so after talking to friends and my vet we used bands. For us this worked extremely well, we left the eye one alone and it has since disappeared.

It's also difficult as some treatments are considered cruel, I would not say that the lamb bands were comfortable for him and they were a mission to get on! Although in the long run his future is alot more secure without sarcoids.

good luck :)
 
I'd get a vet out straight away, sarcoids are cancer and should not be messed about with - you'd be cross if you had skin cancer and a friend just told you to rub aloe vera on it! Also, the longer you leave them without veterinary intervention, the more sarcoids will pop up - and once he has had them now he is likely to have recurring problems. If you can try to catch them earlier then he will have fewer in future.

As for Liverpool cream - the person who came up with the formula for it has always said it does not work on all sarcoids, but it is effective on some. Again, bands will only work on certain types, as some will have deep roots and so will grow back regardless of banding them. A vet will be able to tell you what the appropriate action to take is, but I can't stress enough how seriously you need to take this, and how imperative it is that you get a vet out.
 
hi, my horse had sarcoids. one on his back under saddle area near to his spine, and others on inside of his foreleg. I used homeopathic cream and tablets. was very sceptical. religiously used twice daily as recommended. there were three pea sized ones on his leg which I banded. they have disappeared and not returned nearly two years later. other horse also had them on his leg previously and we used LP cream on him at great expence . his have not returned either in over two yrs. the homeopathic stuff is called thulla?? was worth the try and worked.
 
IMAG0140.jpg


Before sarcoids were officially recognised as skin cancer, we old timers used to deal with them ourselves all the time, just like it sounds like the Irish still do. Anything with enough skin behind it had lamb castrator rings put on them. Wart remover works on ones that actually look like warts. To answer your question, Zebe, yes, copper sulphate has worked on flat ones, button ones, occult ones (where the only sign is a coloured circle in the hair), and the root that can still be left of ones that fall off after being tied off.

Copper sulphate treatment is not for you unless you are prepared to attack it hard, cause an open hole where it dies, attack it again if it does any sign of coming back to life, and taking all the responsibility for how it may turn out on your own shoulders. But if you are that person, the treatment costs pence, leaves no more scar (possibly less) than Liverpool Cream, is much less toxic (you don't have to worry about going over the edges into good tissue like you do with LC). I've held b ack from recommending it for twenty years, but I've now done so many, and had three vets confirm my results, that I'm prepared to go public about it.


Here is one after five days treatment. There are two sarcoids there, you can see the two circles. It is now completely healed with a small hairless smooth scar.
 
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hi, thanks for all the comments.

ycbm - thank for uploading a photo, it must be a relief that you have found something that works. I can see the CS blue tone on the sore, are you putting anything on to aid healing?

It does generally seem that what works for one doesn't always work for another.

Tina, what did you use? thuja?

I do understand others points at being multiples that i should call the vet asap. I will call and pay 70 euro call out because im feeling like a bad owner if i don't but i do already know what he will say and suggest. He's treated other cases I know using the LP cream. Im not saying its wrong but im just not ready for that cream.

I almost feel if i can successfully remove the bigger ones with banding the smaller ones would get under control and disappear with an application of something..still deciding what that something is! (a gut instinct) Because he is young the and with the bigger ones gone maybe his immune system could fight the small ones?!

If someone has had a similar experience and had success with a treatment can you please share with me.

Thanks again all

Zebe
 
Be aware that banding will not necessarily kill it. I have banded two which had deep star shaped roots behind the band. If you are not prepared to treat the root, you could end up with one heck of an angry sarcoid.

You have mistaken my photo. That was after five days of applying copper sulphate. Both sarcoids have now gone and there is a small flat hairless scar.

This is what happens when the sarcoid dies, and you treat that hole with aloe vera as it heals, to suppress any rogue cells that are left.

I will get a picture of the finished result tomorrow, I am very pleased with it.


IMAG0142.jpg
 
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It does look sore but nice and clean! Looks like it would heal well! Look forward to seeing final result.

When you say to be prepared to treat the root when banding, what do you mean? Did you pull and twist before banding to get the root? Some of his nodules will be too small to band so will try and use cat gut.

Your pictures are very helpful, i'll take some of my fella through whatever treatment we decide on, hopefully it can help others. It would be great to be a success story!!

Did your small warts go with one application?

Thanks again
 
Some have such a deep root that pulling and twisting them will do nothing, the root still lives.

They can take days or more than a week to die and drop out. The cracking you see around the rim of the bigger one in the first photo is typical of the round ones. The flat ones tend to disintegrate in pieces.

Small ones drop out looking like this. This was a pimple 2mm across, hiding this 6mm sarcoid.


IMAG0159.jpg
 
Wow! thats quite amazing! I've seen so many photos but not one like this. You were lucky to get it/find it! its like half a pea!

Would you say the longer its there or the larger it is the deeper the root? Maybe where is grows?! Praying for easy roots!!

Do you think hair will grow back on the patches?
 
That was a pimple one, they don't have roots. The ball ones have roots, more often than not in my experience. Regrowth of hair depends on how big they were on the surface, the bigger ones leave a hairless patch, though I have had some that closed over with hair completely.
 
Just be aware that when you mess around with sarcoids they can come back nastier than ever. They send off tendrils of cells into the surrounding tissue, and if all these cells are not destroyed the sarcoid can re-grow, and usually in a more severe form. They are not something to be taken lightly. I would recommend at least having a conversation with your vet about it.
 
Rivendell said:
Just be aware that when you mess around with sarcoids they can come back nastier than ever. They send off tendrils of cells into the surrounding tissue, and if all these cells are not destroyed the sarcoid can re-grow, and usually in a more severe form. They are not something to be taken lightly. I would recommend at least having a conversation with your vet about it.
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This, this and three times this. DO NOT attempt to follow my method unless you are prepared to stuff poison into an open wound to be 100% certain that you have killed every rogue cell.

Having said that,, here is the almost finished result of the removal of the double sarcoid which was perilously close to this horse's eye. It is normal looking skin, just hairless, which is continuing to regain its black pigmentation. The little white patch is just like the rest only it hasn't yet turned black, but looks like it is going to as it gets smaller every day. The scar is smaller by a good margin than the two sarcoids were. It took three attempts to kill it completely, twice a 'skin' rather than a proper scab grew over the wound, which is sarcoid regrowth. It was my own fault, it was so close to his eye that I was not as aggressive with it as I normally am. The third time, I was, and it has healed beautifully.

IMG_20150413_082923.jpg



PS yes he really does have a blue ring inside a brown iris, it's lovely!
 
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hi, yes thuja cream and tablets. as everyone says its a matter of personal choice. My insurance wouldn't pay out on them as my horse has had other tumors, so had to find an alternative treatment.luckely they worked.T
 
Unless you have a good experienced sarcoid vet locally that you trust I would take photographs of each and every one and email them to Knottenbelt along with a grovelling email! :) He is very generous with his time and there is noone I would trust more than him.

As an aside....I used the Liverpool ointment on a 4 year old back in 1994; it had one sarcoid on the inside of its forearm. At that time you were allowed to apply the ointment yourself, which I did, and although a crater four times the size of the sarcoid developed, it healed well and there was no re-ocurrence. The horse lived until 24; it never had another sarcoid and was euthanised for a totally different reason.
 
I just spoke to my vet and he said to take pictures and send them to Knottenbelt! He must be a very rich man, I think im in the wrong business :-)
 
Our vet took photos of a patch on the face of a mare we have ,and sent them to Knottenbelt, who diagnosed a sarcoid and recommended liverpool cream,I did my own research many vet books ect and was convinced that it was fungal,two tubes of caniston
cream cured it and the hair grew back ,that was about ten years ago.
There was another post on here a while back the horse had sarcoids removed turned out to also be fungal.
Have a look at THE TURMERIC USER GROUP on face book some good results feeding it to horses the sarcoids are falling off,and that site is run by a vet Doug English.
 
That might be my grey horse that you are referring to. Her lumps weren't diagnosed before removal, but the options/possibilities (melanoma, sarcoid or something else) were discussed and removal without biopsy was decided on as the best way forwards. She's just had two more lumps removed today, so we'll see what the histology report says this time. Sadly the fungus she has is deep in the skin, so wouldn't respond to a topical treatment.
 
Shergar, Thats funny I was only reading about Turmeric! There's no harm in putting some in he's feed so think i'll give that a go. Also going to get 200c of thuja tomorrow. Gonna try this and banding. What did the fungus look like? were they nodules? warts?

My vet also told me yesterday that they can come back with the Liverpool cream and can take 2 years to reappear. So nothing is reliable. So therefore no harm in trying other options. Faracat, how is her diet? you need to eliminate sugar for fungus to die off, you most likely know that already. I know you can get drops to put in their water (homopathy) aim is treating inside out. I spoke to someone today at Ainsworth of london (homopathy) very knowledgeable on horses, just an option, if you want their number pm me.
 
Well the poor beast is a real good doer and has spent most of the winter having just small amounts of straw chaff, micronised linseed and a handful of oats as a carrier for her supplement, plus adlib meadow hay. The fungus she has is very rare apparently. While I find unusual medical cases interesting, I don't really want to be the owner of one, especially as she's such a nice girl and unfortunately seems to be a walking accident, illness and medical oddity magnet.
 
Hayleighm175 said:
My mare developed a sarcoid at 3.. they flies were always making it bleed.. i left it.. and now no sarcoid! She's now 7. :D
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How do you know it was a sarcoid though? Was it sent for histology after it dropped off? As I sadly know, there are other causes for lumps and they can look alike until they are analised by the lab.
 
I think if my fella had only 1 i would see if it was age related and leave it hoping he'd grow out of whatever caused it, but there are a good few nodules and lots of warts I really do have to do something now. Also like faracat said it may not have been a sarcoid, i think thats why no one treatment works, too many different issues. Faracat when do you get the results back? Always happens to the nice ones doesn't it! Not that i'd want it to happen to any off them!
 
Hopefully the results will come on Tuesday. Of course I'm really hoping that it is a fungus again, as she's grey the possibility of melanoma is always lurking. :( Yes, it does seem that the nice horses have terrible bad luck. Have you read Michen's threads about her TB? A lovely horse with a super caring owner and he's back at the Vet's for yet more tests - poor chap.
 
No haven't read it, i'll have a look for it.

I'll keep finger crossed for you that you have good news on tuesday!
Regarding lumps, I was with a friend today who works in the hospitals, she said that turmeric is being used to treat cancer patients, i know it sounds mad that something from our kitchen shelves can help but it was being used in India for years. Has to be high quality though, it has powerful medicinal compound in it called Curcumin, so make sure its not the cheapo stuff that the curcumin has been taken out. They take it out to make capsules and sell in the healthfood shops.
I've been using it in all my cooking because it helps my joints but never thought to give it to the horse!
 
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