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Discussion on Blood testing for allergies | |
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Member: vickiann |
Posted on Saturday, Aug 4, 2012 - 11:05 am: My 21-year old Arabian horse Lance recently had an outbreak of hives.I've read the article that says it is very difficult to determine the cause for this condition. About a week before they came on in earnest Lance had a tick bite, which quickly became apparent because whenever one attaches to him he immediately responds with a lot of swelling, which means one is never on him for very long. A few days later he had quite a few lumps on his belly ( wondered if he had gotten into some yellow jackets) and a few days after that one could stand and watch the hives erupting on him -- some of which were larger than my hand. Hives of varying sizes were were all over his body and he was itchy. I had the Vet out and he administered a shot of Pred and then had me put Lance on Dex, 7 ccs for 3 - 5 days, 5 ccs for the next 3 - 5 days, then alternating every other day for 3 - 5 more 5 cc doses. (I went with the 3 days in each case). Due to the nature of the hives appearing before our eyes, some of them clearing and then being replaced by new ones made the Vet feel the situation was due to some kind of allergy. He also had me give Tri-Hist, a full scoop twice daily and said that it is not very effective but cheap, so worth a try. After the first 2 doses of Tri-hist I noticed that Lance's respiration rate was very fast and he did not seem to feel well. Reading the label, I saw that half a scoop is the dose for a 1,000 pound horse, which is pretty close to what Lance weighs. I cut the dose back after that and then stopped it altogether as Lance did not want to eat it. Question # 1 is could the Tri-Hist at the double dose have been potentially harmful? His hives took about 3 days to stop entirely and for all of the swelling to go away although after the injection there was huge improvement. In the end he still has 2 hard lumps remaining -- one from the tick bite and one on his face from what seems like a black or horse fly bite. My second question question relates to the Vet having drawn blood and sending it to the Spectrum group for allergy testing. I had some personal doubts about the reliability of such a test but did not object to having it done although my inclination for having blood work done was more along the lines for other types of problems such as I told the Vet that Lance had been urinating more often than usual, and in large quantities. Anyway, the testing came back showing him positive for 25 things, including bahia grass which is what he has eaten in Florida for most of his life, although we are presently in the Virginia mountains where we spend the summers. There is a large variety of weeds and clover in my pastures here, which I am working to improve. The most reactive item on the allergy report (806) was Cephalothecium, a fungi. The test consisted of the various categories of grasses, weeds, trees, fungi, foods, indoor (shavings types, etc.), insects and grains (pollens). Lance also tested positive to corn and soybeans. Should I pay any attention to this allergy report? If there are things that have higher or extremely high values given, should that be given more concern? Thank you for your input. |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Monday, Aug 6, 2012 - 7:02 am: Hello VickiZ,1) Antihistimines have a wide margin of safety so harm is unlikely, but any drug can have unexpected consequences even at normal doses. 2) I do not use such tests because of the unreliability of the results as noted in the article. Now that you have paid for the test I see nothing wrong with removing substances that are known exposures to your horse and have high values. DrO |
Member: vickiann |
Posted on Monday, Aug 6, 2012 - 11:27 am: Thank you very much, Dr. O. |