Fibrosarcoma: aka the dreaded SARCOID

Sarcoids are a type of skin tumour.  We see them very commonly in Central Otago.

The areas most likely affected are the face and thin skinned areas; chest, groin, sheath.

Sarcoids can be locally aggressive and even if they look small on the surface, they can be widespread underneath: A bit like the tip of an iceburg.

There are 6 main presentations:

• Flat, scaley and hairless (Sparky)

• Round nodules (Luna)

• Wart like (Cabella)

• Granulation tissue like: Raised and ulcerated (Rachel McDougal)

• Mixed - two or more forms in one lesion. (cocoa)

• Very occasionally they can be deeply aggressive

Treatment options:

Treatment depends on the type and the location; each sarcoid needs a tailored treatment plan. It is important that this is understood.

The question of Marmite….does it work? In my experience I have healed 98% of my cases with a veterinary treatment plan. I have never used Marmite and have never been presented with a horse that has received marmite topically. I have seen no scientific reports of its efficacy.

What to do if you suspect one?

Do not put anything topical on a suspected sarcoid without advice from a vet. Get your diagnosis confirmed before starting treatment.

Why won't this Mud Fever go?

Have you been treating Mud Fever for months now and feel like it won’t go away? There is a possibility that the ‘Mud Fever’ you are treating is not Mud Fever at all and could be Vasculitis. 

What is the difference?

Mud fever (Dermatophilosis) is a bacterial or fungal infection of the skin. This infection often accumulates in areas of moisture and can commonly be seen around the lower limbs in periods of wet weather. Therefore we treat Mud Fever by keeping the areas clean and dry, and by using anti-bacterial/anti-fungal washes and topical creams. 

Vasculitis on the other hand is caused by an underlying immune-mediated condition whereby the immune system attacks the small blood vessels in the skin when the pink skin is exposed to sunlight causing large scabs on the skin. Although these two conditions may look similar, there are also clear differences. Treatment options are also very different for each condition: Mud Fever can be treated with antibacterial treatments and antibiotics whereas Vasculitis requires steroids. 

If you've been treating mud fever for months with little or no improvement, it is possible that vasculitis could be the underlying issue. Don’t hesitate to get in touch—we’re here to help.

A Bang to the Head

This lovely boy was purchased as an exciting new ride. Unfortunately, during the float ride home, he sustained an injury to the eye. The injury caused a rupture to the eyeball itself and can be seen around the edge of the eye near the junction of the brown colour (iris) and white colour (scleral-limbal border). When the eye ruptures in such a location, the brown iris is seen prolapsing through the hole. This luckily plugged the eyeball (globe) from losing too much internal fluid and therefore stopping the eye from becoming deflated.

A low-pressure eye (deflated eye) is at risk of retinal detachment and long-term blindness.

The client was able to treat the eye with pain relief and preventative antibiotics whilst the eye healed. However, the prolapsed iris was preventing the healing of the cornea.

So…. What was next…

Becci had to suture the eyeball closed.

With sedation and topical pain relief, the surgery was performed in our hospital crush. The prolapsed iris was trimmed, and special sutures were used in a tension relieving pattern to bring the edges of the cornea together.

An ocular treatment system was sutured into the eye to allow easy administration of antibiotics and anti-spasm drugs for the iris.

This horse is now 4 weeks post-surgery and the surgical site is free of infection and has fully healed. The sutures used will dissolve over the next 2-4 weeks.

Luckily due to the early detection by the owner, dedicated treatments by the owner, and a successful surgery, there are no long-term complications for this lovely horse.

Horse Side SAA Machine

A New addition to the Equipment Family..

A HORSE SIDE SAA MACHINE.

Our support to the local equine community shines through today as we can boast about another new vital piece of equipment, we have purchased to improve the ‘horse side’ quality of care we give. Read about it…

When a horse is off colour, has a swollen leg or unknown lump, often the big question is… ‘Is there infection’.

Our new machine gives us that answer in 10 minutes! We take the blood from the horse, prepare it in our horse side microlab, and then wait 10 minutes whilst our wonderful clients provide use with morning tea 😉

This is a very exciting tool which we have already utilized to make life saving decisions for horses.

Get in touch via Facebook Messenger if you want to know more.

Road Accidents

With the riding season in full swing, I wanted to let you all know about a piece of equipment I believe will improve horse safety when transporting them on the roads.

There is a piece of equipment called a ‘Trailer Aid’.

It assists with changing of horse float Tyres.

It allows you to change the horse float tyre without the need to take your horse off the float.

This will improve safety and confidence at the time of an incident, as many bystanders are not experienced in horse handling.

Maybe a present to ask Santa for?

Diastema - What is this?

It is the presence of a detectable ‘gap’ between the molars.

These can cause a lot of pain and discomfort for the horse.

More often than not, it is when this ‘gap’ is small, as food gets stuck, ferments, and causes gingival inflammation.

This inflammation causes pain and can progress to infection surrounding the ligaments of the teeth.

Diastemas often cannot be assessed fully and treated without the use of sedation.

Check out the photos of our new ‘Dental Packing Material’.

Following the use of our dental endoscope during routine dental assessments, we have found many of these painful gaps. So……..

We invested in this wonderful tool to hasten the recovery of your horses' mouths!

Importance of Radiographs

Radiography can be used for many different reasons:

• Fracture Assessment

• Assessment for dental health (resorptive lesions)

• Assessment for canine fractures

• Screening for cartilage lesions (OCD)

• Lamintis Assessment

• Podiatry and foot balance monitoring

• Radiographic guided medications

Any many more!

A Horses' Heart

Do you know, Horses have funny heart beats?

Horses commonly have rhythm disturbances in their hearts.

Compared to people, horses often function very well despite these abnormalities.

Horses have very large hearts with slow heart rate. This makes them more likely to form ‘Arrythmias’ or ‘Abnormal beats’.

A common and often normal rhythm disturbance: The heart skips a beat after every 3-4 pumps. This is heard with the stethoscope as a predictable moment of  ‘silence’. A great way to decide if this is normal or not is to trot up your horse. Increasing the heart rate abolishes this rhythm disturbance in a normal horse.

A second common finding which is abnormal: The heart no longer beats in a predictable way. This is caused by Atrial Fibrillation. The top half of the heart is the control centre to organise when the heart will beat. Because the horses heart is large and beats slowly, the main control centre for synchronising the contraction of the heart can lose this organised control. As a result, the heart doesn’t beat in an organised way, and for each heart beat, less blood is pumped around the body. This causes exercise intolerance, but at low level exercise, there would be no symptoms.

Next time we see your horse, ask to have a listen to the heart beating.

Its very slow, and very cool 😉

Pre-Spring Check List

Spring is around the corner, and we are all starting to bring our horses back into work.

DON’T MAKE A MISTAKE!

What do we need to check for?

Soft tissue injuries: Remember that muscular fitness is important. When bringing a horse back into work after winter turnout; warm up is vital to ensure a good blood supply to the muscles and prevent injury.

Saddle: Check the saddle fit as our horses have likely changed shape. We are surprised at how many horses have back soreness coming in this season. Horses have responded well to mesotherapy.

Seedy toe: Due to the wet conditions, many horses this year have developed seedy toe over the winter. If this is left untreated then abscessation is a high risk in the next few months.

Grass: The grass has started to grow and we have already seen some spasmodic colics. Start thinking about introducing Equishure to prevent that inflammation that happens with a sudden influx of highly digestible fibre arrives in the hind gut.

Shoes On or Off for the Winter?

Why do we shoe our sport horses?

Due to soft soles or to prevent over wearing of soles

To improve conformational abnormalities such as club feet, flat feet, soft tissue injuries

Improve traction for some disciplines

Rehabilitation/recovery from injury

What are the draw backs?

Cost

Excessive Nail holes-crumbly hoof walls

Loss of traction

Self-injury

Possible worsening of caudal hoof failure

Should I take them off for the Winter?

Yes if you have nice soil in your paddocks

Yes if you have a problem with caudal hoof failure

Yes if your horse isn’t being ridden

Yes if you have crumbly hoof walls

No if there is stoney soils and the horses soles are soft

No if there is stoney soils and the walls will chip

No if there would be detriment to the feet due to conformational abnormalities or injuries

Shoes on for Spring!

We are considering running a podiatry day at our facility in Spring this year.

This will help farriers set up your horses feet the best they can for the season.

There will be a special price for podiatry xrays

Pre-shoeing and post shoeing radiographs will be available.

Biscuits and coffee are a given 😉

Pentosan PolySulphate

Pentosan Poly Sulphate: Support those joints

Do you have a plan to keep your horses joints supple as they age? Have you noticed during the winter months that your horses is displaying signs of increased joint soreness?

Pentosan is our recommended first line joint health supplement to be used in all sport horses to help in the prevention of arthritis.

Why is pentosan the first pick as a starter for your joint health programme?

It is very affordable on a price per day basis, approx. $0.80 per day.

NOTE for comparison: Many non-scientifically proven oral products are $2 to $5 per day.

It is scientifically proven to reach therapeutic levels in the joint after intra-muscular injection.

It is shown to stimulation a healthier metabolism and reduce negative enzymes within the joint.

Once a joint is inflamed, we recommend the next step; a 3 way treatment approach.

With a combination of Pentosan (many trade names), 4 Cyte, and Arthramid, you are protecting the bone, cartilage and synovial lining of the joint, as each product works on a different aspect of the joint.

Please remember, do not wait until the start of the season to get a joint health assessment. Too many clients missed the start of last season due to subtle lameness conditions. Most pain associated with joints takes 2-4 weeks minimum to resolve.

Sputum

Yucky photo of the week!

SPUTUM: This is mucous made in the respiratory system.

This photo shows the sputum coughed up by a horse with a respiratory infection.

That VIRUS is circulating again!!

Many horses have only shown mild signs this season, however some horses have had prolonged disease; 2-4 weeks of nasal discharge and coughing.

How does the virus transfer:

Usually hands, nose contact, or feed and water buckets

How can we prevent severe disease:

We have veterinary products we can use to promote mucous movement!

Viral infections act on the mechanisms that affect mucous secretion hence the increased risk for bacterial invasion and secondary infection.

Veterinary medicines can help get that mucous moving which helps to prevent the need for antibiotics.

Antibiotics kill horses every day so we want to avoid them where possible.

Management changes that can help:

Soak hay

Graze grass where possible

No exercise during infection stage

Isolate your horse

If your horses has a snotty nose or is coughing for more than 5 days then please call us.

Tearing of the Laminae

‘Laminae’ are the structures that hold the hoof wall to the pedal bone a bit like Velcro.

‘Itis’ means inflammation in latin.

When the laminae become inflamed, they weaken and tear. This causes micro bleeds, inflammation and pain. The bleeding can be seen as fluid on the radiograph, or it can present like a foot abscess due to increased pressure in the hoof capsule.

It is NOT just a fat pony disease.

Since we purchased our in-house insulin test, we have discovered how many normal horses that have slightly increased BCS, are at high risk and living on a knife edge for laminitis.

Fat deposits around the body cause increased Insulin levels.

This high resting insulin can trigger laminitis.

We now use our test routinely in the Spring and Autumn to ensure horses are not at risk. This helps us design a horse focused nutrition and exercise regime for the current season we are in.

Impaction Colic/Constipation

The grass is starting to grow. Some of you may decide soon to bring your horses off the grass onto a hay diet to avoid the Autumn flush. You may decide this either to prevent weight gain, or to prevent any behavioral change.

Please always remember that changing from a grass to a hay-based diet results in a very different total water volume to the gastrointestinal tract.

Last week we saw a patient that had become impacted causing severe colic. The faeces had formed a dry mass in the large bowel and had caused it to obstruct. As the horse continues to eat, the impaction becomes longer towards the mouth end as no faeces is passed.

This is an emergency situation which needs intensive care with IV fluids and oral fluids to over hydrate the bowel. This will prevent the faeces from distending and rupturing the bowel which would be fatal.

Luckily, we saved our patient this week.

Tips:

Use molasses water or electrolytes when bringing horse from a grass to a hay diet.

Soak 50% of the hay for the first week.

Heavily wet the hard feed.

Monitor faecal output.

If there are any signs of abdominal comfort do not give pain relief without calling your vet first.

Windy Days are Dangerous

Today I visited a patient with a progressing tumour on his penis.

The changed surface of the penis meant that the penis skin secretions collected along with cells to make big clumps.

As I was peeling them off… a big gust of wind blew one in my mouth! Good heavens, the dangers of my job 😉

SHEATH CLEANS ARE NOT AS IMPORTANT AS A PENIS HEALTH CHECK!

It is very important to understand the difference.

A dirty sheath can be treated.

A tumour covered by smegma can be missed and this is far more dangerous for the horse.

Pictured is a penis covered in Melanoma.

Eye Eye...

We have seen multiple eye injuries recently so we would ask you all to check your horses daily for any signs of injury.

The horse’s eye is relatively large as they are prey species. This leaves them open to risk of trauma from either long grass, hay in round bales, or hedges.

The best way to spot a painful eye on a horse is to stand from the front and check their eyelashes are open evenly: In the horse there is a nervous connection between pain, and dropping of the upper eye lashes.

Do not forget to pay attention to any swelling or eye discharge.

If ulcers in eyes are not treated quickly with antibiotics, they can become infected. The horse’s immune system tries to treat the infection quickly and dramatically. As a result, the horse’s cornea becomes dissolved and starts to melt. This is very dangerous and can quickly lead to rupture of the eyeball.

Another reason ulcers are prone to infection is there is no good blood supply to the cornea so the only defense against invading bacteria is the tear film.

Blood vessels will grow into the cornea to fix an infection, but this is a very slow process hence the need for antibiotic treatment.

Eosinophilic Granulomas

Eosinophilic Granulomas .….. gotta love that word!

But what actually are they?

They are firm nodules that appear on your horse’s skin. They are the most common non-neoplastic nodule that we see. They are commonly not painful and should not be itchy.

EG’s have many causes, but at this time of year they are commonly related to a hypersensitivity reaction. The most common cause would be insect bites, however sometimes they can be caused by trauma or other allergens.

How can I prevent them?

Use light weight cotton sheets: This reduces allergens onto the skin and also prevents fly bites.

What is their significance?

The main issue with these nodules is they are unsightly, and occasionally they can enlarge with the development of calcium deposits within them. These ones can also become painful to touch.

What should you I do when I see skin nodules?

Record any nodules you see on your horse’s skin. If they do not resolve after 2 weeks or increase in size or number, then get in touch for some advice.

Squamous Cell Carcinoma

What is a Squamous Cell Carcinoma?

It is a tumour of cells called squamous cells. Squamous cells are found lining the surface of the skin and the inside of the mouth (plus other areas).

Squamous Cell Tumours can be triggered by sun exposure.

Common areas we see them in horses are the eyelid margins or third eyelid, and on pink skin over the face.

Sun damage to the eyelids or third eyelid is seen as mucosal irritation or irregularity. We can treat the damaged tissue at this stage before it progresses into tumour cells.

Once a tumour has developed, we need to treat it with one of the following:

Surgical resection

Cryotherapy

Chemotherapy

Below are photos of two different Squamous Cell Carcinomas

The third eyelid tumour was treated with removal of the eyelid.

The tumour on the lower chin has had multiple rounds of cryotherapy and chemotherapy.

TOP TIP:

Look at all pink skin on the face and eyes regularly.

If you see anything you are worried about, send us a picture.

Early intervention is key!

Hay

Tips for Buying Hay:

What is good hay?

Any hay that is mould free. Any dusty hay likely has mould spores which will affect horses’ respiratory system and performance. If hay is baled when it is of the correct moisture content, there will be no mould.

What types of hay exist?

Low vs high digestible energy

Low sugar

Clover or no clover

Lucerne or meadow

Which hay do I pick?

The best thing to do is look at your horse’s body condition score and look at the hay you purchased last season. If they put weight on, consider a lower energy hay. If they lost weight, consider higher energy or higher protein hay. If they are laminitic or at risk of laminitis, then pick a low sugar option.

How compact is the hay?

The more compact the hay, the smaller and heavier the bale, and the easier to handle without falling apart. 

Is the hay dry?

Moisture in hay causes spoilage and mould. Ensuring hay has a high dry matter content is key to making good quality hay.

Some balers have moisture content readers to ensure all the hay is consistent.

Some machines can add products to the hay to ensure when slightly higher moisture content hay is collected from an area of the paddock with less sun for example, the quality of the hay can be maintained.

What’s in the hay?

Having a nutritional analysis of the hay will help you to choose which hay suits you. Some hay companies send samples of their hay away for analysis. Ask them for this information to help you select.

Respiratory Illness

What’s with the wind?

The horse’s respiratory tract is a very effective and efficient organ and is often taken for granted.

When there is inflammation in the lungs it will dramatically affect a horse’s performance.

Often lung problems present as coughing, or with increased nasal discharge, but not always.

One of our patients this week presented to us for poor fitness only, with no other clinical signs.

We can examine the airways with our endoscope, a flexible camera that is introduced into the airways through the nostrils.

We can sample the secretions of the lungs with a long tube and the procedure is call a Bronchio-Alveolar Lavage.

The bubbles in the photo are surfactant, and the cloudiness shows a high cell content.

An increased cell content can be due to:

Allergies

Asthma

Infection

All horses should make a full recovery once treated.