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  Discussion on Hive tests
Author Message
Member:
dres

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 11, 2007 - 10:28 am:

Dr. O. I have a mare that has hives on and off for a few years.. .. We noticed they started in the spring time her first good sweaty work out.. then would go away.. now as a 6 year old the hives are coming and staying.. .. This winter is the first time I have noticed her to have them this time of year.. I plan on showing her this summer and need to get this under control and using some of the cures I can't show with in her system.. I was told by my barn vet to take her to a equine dermatologist for testing.. ! After the testing she will present to me shots to be given to my mare .. I have talked to others that have done this and their horses are doing fine now..
Exactly what does a dermatologist do ? And what do the shots do.. ? You don't write about this course of action in your above article..

** nothing has changed in her daily enviroment,feed etc..**

thanks as ALWAYS..

On the first day God created horses, on the second day he painted them with spots..
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 11, 2007 - 6:21 pm:

Hello Ann,
Though I have seen many dozens of horses with hives, I have never seen a horse whose hives did not self-resolve in time. So, I am not surprised that your friends horses got better. The question remains what did the desensitization procedure have to do with it?

One procedure is to expose the horse to a number of allergens and to the ones that the horse reacts they will expose him to very low levels over a long period of time. The idea is the horse's immune system will slowly get use to the allergen. Though this procedure is common in humans and moderately successful, in horse I have seen no work to support such a process and some work to suggest that, at least at the current technical level, that it is a pretty speculative process.

The problems found so far in controlled experiements on the identification process is that (1) the horse often reacts to non-allergens and (2) sometimes does not react to the already known allergen. On the desensitization side the quality and purity of the injected allergin has been questioned. In other words is what you are injecting the same exact thing the horse is allergic to?

If you see no other alternative to this you might give it a try as you have little to lose except the cost of the course. I would recommend you contact the dermatologist and query them on their particular procedure and costs.
DrO
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