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Discussion on Allergy in horse
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Member:
Migas
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Posted on Friday, Nov 15, 2002 - 9:56 am:
My horse has recently shown allergic symptoms. He is biting at his sides and feathering while also tossing his head. These symptoms are arrested when we give him an antihistamine. While he was originally from the Netherlands, he has been in the US for a little less than a year and until now showed no allergies. I just received the results of an equine elisa. It shows one clear positive for plantain (a weed) and several borderline figures for tomothy (152 score), oak (157), pine (170) and elm (152). Borderline is considered as a score between 151 and 199. He sleeps on pine shavings now so we can remove them. Any other ideas? How long can we keep giving the horse antihistamine?
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 17, 2002 - 10:19 am:
Hello John,
What does feathering mean? The blood tests are very poor at actually identifying true allergins and can have both false negatives and false positives. Which antihistimine are you using and what dosage?
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Member:
Migas
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 17, 2002 - 2:39 pm:
The feathering is the longer hair near his ankles. We are using Tri-hist powder. As I am not administering it, I am not 100% sure of the dosage. I can tell you that if we reduce it, the itching immediately returns.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Monday, Nov 18, 2002 - 6:32 am:
Oh I see..he is biting at his feathers. It sounded like a verb above: He was feathering and I could not figure out what that meant.
I wonder if the problem could be mites....they like the feathers. John, start with » Equine Diseases » Skin Diseases » Overview of Scratching & Rubbing just so you can see all the possibliities and the article will have a link to the articles on lice and mites. The difficult part about mites is that they cannot always be found even with a thorough exam and skin scrapping.
Tri-hist was pyrilamine last time I looked and though approved for horses there is little information on its long term use. It has been used by horses with COPD for long periods and I have never heard of ill effects and there are not any reports in the literature of problems that I can find. Of course the dose you are using is critical to this evaluation.
The signs of overdosage include CNS stimulation (nervousness,insomnia, convulsions, tremors, ataxia), palpitation, GI disturbances, CNS depression (sedation), muscular weakness, anorexia, lassitude, and incoordination.
DrO
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