Skin/allergy problems

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lizzie87

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my mare has currently got what the vet suspects to be allergy problems, been going on for about 4 months now, on and off to start with but is not itchy all of the time, has to stay rugged or she will scratch herself and make it bleed! not nice! has had 2 courses of steroids and anti-histimines (2 of each) which the last time round id not really help.

has anyone had experience with the allergy testing and how sucessful it was? or any other ideas?

thanks
 
My friends horse is going through this at the moment and so she has to cut out various things in his surroundings/diet to see if it makes any difference to his skin allergy. Each time she cuts something out she has to wait 5 days before trying the next thing as that's how long it takes to see a noticeable difference. Her horse has just had his second steroid and the lumps dissapear within hours. At the moment she has cut out Alfa A as it has molasses in it and she has read molasses can cause skin allergy and she has cut out her biotin supplement as she had just swapped over from the old make to the new make when her horse broke out in the skin allergy but she thinks it may have been a coincidence. Latest possibility may be hawthorn/blackthorn as indications point to the fact that her horse may have been eating it at some point in the field. Her horse is fine in himself, bright and eating but just covered in raised nodules all over his body and the ones on his throat and neck were weeping sores, (she thinks he has rubbed them on the fence) possibly trying to reach the hawthorn/blackthorn. I'd ask your vet about starting to rule things out and see if it makes a difference and also check if you have hawthorn or blackthorn growing in your field in case there is a connection.
 
I am going through something similar at the moment which the vet seems sure is food related.
My horse is on box rest so it is fairly easy to limit what he eats.

We took him down to branded haylage only for a month and still he was lumpy.
I am now going to try Timothy haylage in case he is reacting to Ryegrass,
If that doesn't work I will go down the skin testing route so interested to see if anyone replies to thread who has experience of that.
 
my friend has got a horse with similar problems, vets did various tests and put it down to allergy to dust in feed bags! told her to feed him just sugar beet and bran and keep it all seperate from other feeds etc, done all that and it's still itching and scratching itself terrible, think she's now going to ask the vet for some form of injection
 
between us the vet and i have ruled out everything we can think of....he is no longer on any feed, and have swapped all hay and bedding twice from the original lot. She also has a new under rug, which is the only one that touches her skin, incase the others had been washed in anything funny! swapped fields twice to, and she has been to a different yard for a few weeks to see if that helped, which it didnt!
thanks for ideas though
 
blood tests show anything?

Get vet to ring local dermatology specialist or one of Uni's - sometimes the dose of steroids can be put up to try to stop itching and then weaned off once itching stopped.

Good luck, I know it's b awful being in this situaion - it's so horrible when they are hurting themselves and nothing works.

Just a thought, while I'm warbling on - water supply?? environmental factors - I knew a horse who lived next door to a chicken farm and had RAO - chicken poo related - they moved him, he got better!!
 
Hi Lizzie

That all sounds so familiar
Have been down the new rugs, rewashing existing rugs and making sure he wasn't overrugged route.
Even washed my entire grooming kit in case something had got on the brushes and I was reapplying each time I groomed.

Vet thinks food related and as we went down to Ryegrass haylage ( as hay could have a mixture of grasses) he thinks possibly Ryegrass.
He suggested taking him off hay/haylage althogether and trying a lo cal chop such as HI FI lite as a total replacement for feed and forage.
However as he is on box rest and gets stressed if he doesn't have enough to munch, I found out that Horsehage do 2 other haylages - timothy and alfalfa.
I am going to try timothy so see if it helps.
Meantime whenever the lumps appear he has a shot of dex.

Good luck
 
Im going through all of this as well with my boy! it started around 3 months ago him getting lumps over his body and being really itchy! I have had the vet out who took a skin sample and we cut out his feed! the skin sample came back saying he was allergic to something but we dont know what!
He is clearly not allergic to his feed as he has been off it for weeks and if anything he has go worse.
I have changed is regime so that he isnt in the stable and eating hay but that hasnt changed anything!
he has been bathed all over with anti bacterial and everything else anti in the wash by the vet and had a brand new rug on! and that hasnt worked!

it is so horrible to see him so so itchy i was wondering if anyone could recommend anything which they have found to work for their horse such as a supplement or cream

I hope your horses are getting better :-)
 
Hello, I'm new here, I came on to search for suggestions for handling my mare's allergy problem;

to cut a long story short, she is allergic to something in her environment - probably the cereals in the other horse's feeds in the barns we are in, but possibly not.

Last year I treated her with steroids until I chanced upon a herbal anti-allergenic supplement which worked (!) until April of this year when the allergy burst through again. Now we're back on the steroids and I'm thinking I'd like to try another herbal supplement - if anyone can recommend one?

thanks for your suggestions
 
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