Horseman's News 2007

Question: I live in Northwest Florida and have a 15-year-old Quarter horse mare that has been diagnosed with allergies during the summer months. This year, she is having constant labored breathing. She is currently on 20 tablets of aminophyline (200 grams each) twice a day and 5 cc's of dexamethasone once a day. We have placed a misting fan in her stall to keep the dust down and the air circulating. She is still having difficulty breathing without any exercise. The vet has not performed an endoscopy. We only have one equine vet within 40 miles. It hurts my heart to see her struggle so much to breath. Your advice would be much appreciated!

Answer: There are a couple of horse inhalers on the market that should help your horse as you could be using albuterol and other asthma-type medicines to help dilate the bronchioles. Unfortunately, they are not very easy to use and may be expensive. Minimizing mold is very important for these cases of Summer-Associated RAO and access to pasture should be eliminated and even hay should be soaked first in cold water to decrease dust and mold exposure. Moving the animal to a different type of pasture may be all you need. Some cases also respond well to acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Most of all, make sure your horse does not have a case of secondary pneumonitis.

Question: I have a 7-year-old gelding that coughs when you go to warm him up or after we make a run barrel racing. I took him to a local vet and had him scoped and he said he had flem in his throat and that it was allergies. He put him on a series of shots of dexamethasone. It seemed to help, but has not cleared the cough. Would you suggest anything else? He has lost his run and seems somewhat sluggish.

Answer: The dexamethasone can include depression as a side effect and it can be the reason why your horse seems sluggish. Unfortunately, if the origin of your horse's problem is allergies, there is very little more that works like the dexamethasone. I would recommend you have a broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) test done to make sure your horse's problem is of allergic origin. If so, it would be best to try to minimize allergens, such as the mold and dust, by soaking the hay, wetting down the bedding, keeping the arena dust-free and moving him out of the barn when mucking. I personally also like to use Propionibacterium acnes (EqStim) against lower airway inflammatory reactions and have seen mixed results, but it is quite safe. It cannot be given with the dex so you'd have to stop it and see how the other does first.

Question: When I first start warming my horse up at the trot, he has to have a couple of coughs. After he does this, he is fine. He does the same thing at pasture in the summer. He gallops up to the barn, then coughs. He is a 9-year-old grey and just developed melanomas under his tail. Could this be related?

Answer: Maybe not. So many horses cough, as you describe, due to many different factors, and most live well and perform satisfactory anyway. A melanoma could be a cause for coughing if it is localized within the airway or adjacent to it, but occluding part of it somehow. An endoscopic exam of the laryngeal area may be all you need to find out if you have melanomas in the upper airway, but they can be found elsewhere in the body also, including the lower airway. Melanomas can be very invasive and surgery is not always curative.

Question: My 8-year-old Quarter horse mare has been diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cicatrix. There is not much information on the Internet about this except in the latter stages, in which the horse has to have a trache tube to breathe. Is this very rare? There is a vaccine we are trying that is suppose to prevent the scarring from getting any worse. Have you heard of this?

Answer: This is a chronic condition secondary to a previous one or to surgery. It is not a disease per se, but a scar formation that interferes with the airway patency and can cause difficulty breathing. The most likely treatment to succeed is a permanent tracheostomy, which may even allow the animal to perform back to previous levels. It is a surgery where the airway gets permanently opened on the neck area where the horse breathes from without having the scar interfere. Such an animal cannot swim anymore and may need medical attention often, but the surgery saves lives and increases the comfort of the animal.