skin biopsy for allergies

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lucymay9701

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My horse has recently been having problems with allergies and itching. She has improved from what she was like (rubbing herself raw) but is still very itchy. The vet took blood samples for allergies which came back negative and did all the general blood tests which were normal aswell. I'm just about to try an elimination diet and see if I can find any cause for it. If she starts to go worse again the vet said the next stage would be a skin biopsy. Does anyone know what this would show? I have read various articles that suggest a skin biopsy could be necessary with this type of problem but I can't really find what it would be looking for. I know you can do the intradermal skin testing for the allergies which I assume would be the next stage but I don't think the vet was referring to this at the moment. I'm just not sure what the skin biopsy would be looking for and would be grateful if anyone knew? Thanks very much
 
The title should really say 'skin biopsy for itching' as not 100% sure if it is an allergy so I assume the skin biopsy may show other things. She's also had the dectomax injection in case lice (and I assume works for mites aswell). Thanks
 
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I had extensive tests done on one of mine due to itching. In my case (or his case!) he had skin tests done. We found several things that he is sensitive to, including dogs, horsechestnut trees, wheat and maize. I changed his feed to all straights with no additives. The key thing with him though is to keep his skin cool. Even fully clipped out he was only in a medium rug and I only added a neck cover if it got to be minus temperatures.
 
Thank you for your reply. Please could you tell me if the skin tests your horse had were the ones where they inject the allergens under the skin or was it a skin biopsy where they took some skin away? I'm just not sure what the skin biopsy is looking for and whether this looks for allergies as this is what my vet has suggested next if necessary.
 
My horse had the skin biopsy, he has four small apple core samples holes taken so could get a deep sample and they were from his most affected area (he had lumps) this was after all the normal tests first and was a last resort.

Mine showed he was allergic to dust mites, he had a drug made from his results especially for him. It took a long time to get him on it but is now on one inject a month which will be for life but he is happy and no lumps. I do still prevent any dust, under rug, clip, soaked hay, keep his stable of as much dust.
 
Would a similar thing work for a horse that suffered an allergy that lead to photo sensitivity and swelling of all her pink skinned areas - you could see the white areas standing out against her buckskin patches and her legs swelled quite considerably.

It was in just one field and went down pretty much soon as I moved her. There seemed no reaction to the other horses in the field and they all have white stockings.

Sorry Lucymay for hijacking your post!!
 
Biopsy of the skin can help diagnose autoimmune issues which can look like allergies and shows the type of cells and layers of the skin involved in the allergic reaction.
 
Thanks very much for the replies, it seems the vet may be looking for other things then like the auto-immune things but from what jo jo said it can also be used for finding allergies. I'm off to google auto immune and skin biopsies now! She is better than she was but she does have one area particularly that's more itchy than the rest so I guess if she had the biopsy that would be where at least one of the samples was taken from. Sorry 'BigYellowHorse' - I'm unsure whether a skin biopsy would work for your horses problem. Hopefully someone else will know!
 
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