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  Discussion on Nasal strangles vaccine
Author Message
New Member:
jebe

Posted on Sunday, Aug 19, 2007 - 1:35 pm:

I would like to know your opinion on something. I have read your information on the strangles virus and the nasal vaccine. I also saw where you said that the strangles virus lives on wood 63 days. I had a boarder's horse given the vaccine on July 2nd and the booster on July 24th as my boarder was relocating and moving her horse to a new barn that required the strangles vaccine. The horse was given the vaccine in a wood stall and expelled a lot of the vaccine by snorting both times and the vaccine came out and sprayed out his nose. I asked the vet at the time if that wasn't spreading the virus and other horses could get it from the expelled vaccine. He replied "No" so I didn't think anything more of it. The horse left on July 29th and shortly thereafter- sometime after the first part of August- I moved one of my horses to that stall as it was in the shade and a cooler stall. Now about two weeks later (I didn't write the date down I put him in it) the horse I moved into that stall came up with an abscess that the vet thinks is strangles. We did a culture but the results have not come back yet. The horse has not been sick, is still not sick other than the abscess. Since your article said the virus lives 63 days on wood, is the mild live virus in a vaccine strong enough to give a horse a mild case of strangles with just an abscess? If your answer is yes,then why aren't vets instructed to give it outdoors where according to your article it doesn't live in the soil and can't be transmitted to another horse; or the vets at least advise clients to disinfect the area after a horse has a nasal vaccine. What risk do my other horses have now of contracting the strangles from this horse who has shared a water trough since it is very mild case if it is the strangles-no temp, no cough, no nasal drainage, no sickness...just the abscess? What if anything should I do to protect my other horses since this horse has already had a mature abscess? I know this is lengthy but as you can tell I have a lot of questions and frustrations. Thanks for answering.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, Aug 20, 2007 - 6:12 am:

Hello gaitedlady,
Fortunately your questions are easily answered. First let me point out that Strangles is a bacteria and not a virus. From the information provided and whether the culture is Strangles or not, I think the vaccine very unlikely to be responsible for your horses abscess. If it does turn out to be Strangles from culture, the article on Strangles describes the way to handle infected and exposed horses.
DrO
New Member:
jebe

Posted on Monday, Aug 20, 2007 - 7:48 am:

Thanks!
New Member:
jebe

Posted on Tuesday, Aug 21, 2007 - 4:53 pm:

Hello Dr. O,
My barn manager and I said from the beginning that the abscess was caused by a spider bite as there was a mark in the abscess that looked like what a spider causes on a human. My vet said absolutely not and thought because of the placement of the abscess under his jaw that it was strangles. WEll, the culture came back, and it was not strangles. He said probably a tick bite. The abscess is going down as we have been hot compressing it twice each day and keeping the abscess draining. We have also been putting a poultice on it and giving him bute.
Thanks for being available for info and a sounding board.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007 - 6:36 am:

Submandibular lymph node enlargement and abscessation is not a uncommon event in horses and often it occurs with no easily apparent cause or other symptomology. I am not sure what one would find characteristic about a spider bite over a abscessing lymph node (both might create focal areas of necrosis) but then again I do not have a better explanation.
DrO
Member:
jebe

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007 - 9:57 am:

Hi Dr. O,
The area of necrosis left a mark that looked like and had a pattern like that when a human is bitten by a spider. They did find bacteria in the culture-just not strangle bacteria which is why my vet said a tick bite. I didn't know that an abscessing lymph node would also cause an area of necrosis. I really learn a lot from your site. Fortunately, I do not have too many things come up to write about, but I do enjoy learning and reading the posts.
Thanks again.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Aug 23, 2007 - 7:35 am:

Thanks for the kudos gaitedlady.

How would you describe such a pattern? We live in the woods of NC and so I can go outside and find several black widow spiders in just minutes. Rarely we have one of our cats or dogs and frequently at the hospital we see swollen reddened tender areas that go on to abscess and develop necrotic areas that are not associated with a puncture wound. If we find the degree of necrosis out of proportion with a small abscess and particularly if the wound heals very slowly we suppose spider bite but there are no other characteristics that I can think of to diagnose it. I guess what I am saying is it is the lack of any discernable pattern that makes me think spider bite and am interested in what a spider bite pattern might look like.
DrO
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