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Discussion on Persistent infections - what is wrong with my horse's immune system? | |
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Member: Merrill |
Posted on Sunday, Apr 23, 2006 - 8:35 am: My 24-year-old thoroughbred's immune system has been becoming increasingly compromised over the years and I would like to know why and if I can help at all. Here are his problems (in chronological order):(1) He has an osteoma on the right side of his face that is large, but has not caused major problems yet. The tumor has been growing for years and was diagnosed in 1999. (2) About 4 years ago he developed an allergy to all bug sprays. If I use them, his skin swells, gets greasy and tender; and then once he gets a shot of steroids the skin and hair flakes off. To make matters worse, he also seems to be more irritated by insects. (3) About two years ago, he had an episode where he could not get up and once he did, he walked crooked. It seemed he had damaged the muscle in his shoulder. I couldn't ride him for months and then winter came. (4) The following spring, I started riding him again. Then, he threw a shoe when he stepped on a rock. I had the shoe replaced, but his bruised sole turned into an abscess, which did not heal for months (despite a course of antibiotics and obsessive treatment). At the same time, he developed scratches for the first time in his life (this has since been a recurring problem that goes away with a steroid cream). (5) Shortly thereafter he started cutting the front of his front forelocks each time he went down to roll or rest. Despite treatments, these cuts became infected. I treated them and started putting him out with "professional choice" boots. These boots irritated the top of his tendons so I had to stop using them. These wounds never healed properly (despite treatment) and turned into proud flesh. (6) Last fall, he developed a disgusting runny nose on the same side of his face as the osteoma. The vet swabbed him and scoped him. The swab came back normal and the vet did not see anything peculiar through the scope. His nose ran for six months until I put him on antibiotics to help treat another infected wound (see below). (7) I tried treating the proud flesh on the back of one of his leg and it turned into a disgusting infected wound. The vet put him on antibiotics and I have been using dermagel and wrapping it for two months. It is slowly healing and his nose stopped running until just last week when I've noticed a trickle. He is a very clumsy fellow who gets nicks and cuts all the time. Right now I am treating cuts on all four legs that I hope won't get infected. I am afraid that with all the antibiotics he's received he will develop a resistance to it. It seems obvious that his immune system is compromised, but wish I could figure out why and what I can do to help. He is currently on a zillion supplements (Joint Discovery EQ, 5000 units Vitamin E, an antioxidant concentrate, garlic, digest aid, and equitrol) and a daily dose of isoxoprine (he has a touch of navicular in one foot) and bute (for arthritis). Any ideas? |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Sunday, Apr 23, 2006 - 10:51 am: There is no clear indication that there is anything wrong with the horses immune system is weak from the above David. The allergic reactions suggest an over reactive immune system.Abscesses, cuts, and infections are all in the norm. The osteoma is a bit of bad luck however but not really due to some overall immune deficiency and sounds like it is worsening. Is there a plan for this? Otherwise my suggestion is to carefully review our horse management articles in the Care Topic and review our Equine Diseases » Skin Diseases » Wounds / Burns. As you justify or modify your current nutrition program you remove all of these unneeded supplements. Ditto with the minor wounds you describe and the antibiotics. Of course all should be done with the approval of your vet but if he is using antibiotics on nicks and scratches I would seek a second opinion. DrO |
Member: Jojo15 |
Posted on Sunday, Apr 23, 2006 - 11:32 am: my first question is have you had the blood drawn. Or pulled a cushings test? or any of the immune related diseases tests? insulin, glucose, ACTH, etc? It might be apparent on the blood test what is happening?If a person told me they had all sorts of these terrible ailments i would recommend some kind of detox. i do it. Your body gets out of whack, not enough for a doctor or hospitalization but just enough to create all these somewhat minor problems. And they seem minor if they were just one time incidences. But on the other hand i could probably run a list like that off about my horse over the last several years. I would detox the horse slowly and than look up herbal/ more holistic approaches to his problems. you might just be supplemeting him too much. and not let his body do the work? A couple thoughts on what you wrote. Regarding the nasal dishcarge my mare does that periodically. My vet came out and flushed the eye/sinus thru the nose and goopy discharge (almost like gelatin) came out. She is due 2 years later to do it again. Something in the sinuses that he flushed. But once flushed she was back to normal again. I took my horse off all supplements, and grains. She gets only nice looking T+A and some alfalfa pellets, black oil sunflower seeds and beet pulp. And minerals. No more vaccinating. and i worm regularily. I realized i was probably killing her with all the "stuff" i was forcing on her. I did that last year. I noticed her shine came back. Energy level is up. and weight came down a bit. Try Dawn Dishsoap as a repellant. Even wash her in it. Make sure she isn't allergic to that first though. But, i use Dawn/Vinegar/Water/Lavender oil and it works well. Have you tried any herbal remedies to alleviate the soring? From what your write your horses body is retaliating against something and you need to figure out what that something is. For me it was all the grain, senior feeds, less than stellar hays, and too much supplementing. Are you finishing the prescribed antibiiotic treatments the vet gives you? Like us, if you take it and then don't finish it, it comes back with a vengeance. what happens when you leave the wounds alone? I have various nicks and scrapes and only if there is serious cutting do i do nothing more than clean it out. Povidine it. Put some fly ointment around it and leave it alone. Is the proud flesh just ugly? or is it hampering the horses ability? I also might think alot of the problems might just have to do with age.The older you get the less the body has of healing itself quickly. Maybe with all these symptoms someone might say "hey it sounds like this..." In my case i started to follow the thought, to simplify, rather than intensify... and it seems to be working for me. I have a tendency to over-help my horse. Now that i have she is looking and feeling much better. Summer coat came in and i even think she might dapple this year... I hope this helps. I went thru something similar. did all the tests. Started making changes about a year ago, and she is doing great. |
Member: Merrill |
Posted on Sunday, Apr 23, 2006 - 10:12 pm: Thanks for all the advice. To answer some questions, we have been in about bi-monthly contact with the vet over this poor guy. My initial reaction to the cuts was to leave them alone, apart from keeping them clean. When I do that the abrasions just don't heal, they remain black and crusty - for months and months. The deeper ones get infected.We have not given antibiotics over every minor cut or abrasion, just the multiple abscesses that he got last spring/summer and this past infection on his tendon. The vet extended this course because it seemed to help his runny nose. I always make sure to run the whole course of antibiotics. We've run some blood tests, but I agree that more needs to be done. So far nothing has come up, but the vet agrees that it is quite odd that he is suddenly getting infection after infection for no apparent reason. He's always been clumsy and looked like what we refer to as a "cheap couch" all nicked up, but the cuts have always healed with minimal effort. I like the idea of cutting down on all the crap we are giving him. I will bring that up with my vet again. For a long time I just thought that we hit a bad patch, many unfortunate and unrelated events, but his inability to heal and the constant new infections ... infections that he has never had in his life make me question his overall health. Thanks again! |
Member: Merrill |
Posted on Sunday, Apr 23, 2006 - 10:18 pm: Also, to answer DrO's question about the osteoma, we do not have plans for this. I continue to research osteoma in horses for new information but when diagnosed the vet said that it was inoperable because the bone grows back more aggressively when messed with. Also, Bacch (the horse) almost died when he was biopsied. Despite his size, he is a lightweight for sedative and the vet needed to do a "head-tail lift," breaking his tail to wake him up. I am not keen on knocking him out again.Do you know of any new developments with osteoma? If so, I'd love to hear about them. I searched on the site and did not find any articles. David |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Monday, Apr 24, 2006 - 8:08 am: Abscesses may not be best treated with antibiotics either David: the capsuled off infection does not lend itself to being responsive to antibiotics and antibiotics just delay maturation, rupture, and healing. If abscesses are internal or there is a feeling the infection is disseminating are exceptions but special types of antibiotics are required like those described in the article on Rhodococcus. I would probably be using antibiotics for the secondary (to the cancer) sinus infections however.Superficial cuts remaining un-healed for months suggest a healing problem but is this a problem with the horses or with what you do to manage them. Most often I find folks getting in the way of healing. If this horse really has some sort of defect of healing or immune problems there are no specific cures. Whether these problems are inherent to the horse or your management the best fix we can engineer is to correct management practices and then be meticulous about it. This includes routine management and disease management. If your goals and resources allow for it the osteoma needs to be reviewed by a veterinary oncologist and surgeon. If the diagnosis pans out there will be no inexpensive or guaranteed treatments, but there have been surgical successes: Aust Vet J. 2002 Mar;80(3):140-2. Osteoma of paranasal sinuses in a horse with inspiratory dyspnoea. Steinman A, Sutton GA, Lichawski D, Johnston DE. Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel. We describe a case of osteoma in the frontal and maxillary sinuses of a 3-year-old Arabian mare, presented due to an inspiratory dyspnoea. The mare underwent two surgical procedures in order to excise the tumour. Twelve months after admission the mare was healthy with no signs of respiratory abnormalities. Sinus radiographs and endoscopy repeated at that time revealed some regrowth of the tumour in the maxillary sinus, however, twenty-two months following surgery the mare did not show clinical signs of upper airway disease. DrO |
Member: Merrill |
Posted on Friday, Apr 28, 2006 - 3:46 pm: Thanks again for your advice DrO, and don't worry we didn't start giving antibiotics until the abscesses burst. I had not heard of the special types of antibiotics though. I will ask my vet about them.Managing the cuts has become increasingly difficult, which is why I think it's something wrong with the horse. I am not new to horses or injuries. Been doing this for 20 years now and have gone through many many ailments with our horses. Until the past couple of years, I could get away with just keeping these nicks and cuts clean and perhaps spraying them with aluspray. Deeper cuts required short-term bandaging and some type of dressing. These days that is just not cutting it, though the vet did introduce me to dermagel, which seems to be healing some of the superficial cuts that never healed, but also never turned into abscesses. ... then again, he is still on antibiotics. I will take a peek at the osteoma article. Like I said before, I am hesitant to put him under again, but I don't want to take that off the table. Thanks again. |