I have a wonderful 8 year old Rocky Mountain who is very, very sick. He first got sick in October and we went through test after test trying to find out what was wrong. It was apparent that he had an internal abscess but could not find through the sonogram where it was located. All pigeon fever tests came back negative as well as ever other test under the sun. He recovered after three months and 11 courses of Excede. He was OK for a few months but three weeks ago the symptoms came back - in spades. We consulted with CSU and tested for strep and strangles which tested positive. They say that it most likely is bastard strangles. That is so strange since I raised him as a yearling and to my knowledge he has never been exposed (and none of my other horses have had strangles).
At this point it looks like he is going into peritonitis. This morning his back end was trembling. But get this… he has never stopped eating - regardless of the fever. We are treating him with the Excede and have added Rifampin. Has ANYONE else experienced something like this?
Not even close to the same type of history, but we had a mare in the clinic who ‘recovered’ from a “bastard strangles” diagnosis.
She was upper teens, came from the feed lot, had coliced many times, and would abscess anytime you dared poke a hole in her (vaccinations, blood stick, etc.). Upon abdominal ultrasound one or more abscesses were found.
I lost touch with the owners for about 2 years and, on a lark, they tested her for IR/ Cushing’s. She came up ever.so.slightly positive for cushion’s, and has been living on pergolide ever since, healthy.
When we brought my daughters horse home she exposed both my others to strangles. My vet said don’t give antibiotics if you can help it because then you run the risk of " bastard strangles" sometime down the road. He also said it can be more severe than the original strangles.
Hope your horse recovers.
[QUOTE=candyappy;8231102]
When we brought my daughters horse home she exposed both my others to strangles. My vet said don’t give antibiotics if you can help it because then you run the risk of " bastard strangles" sometime down the road. He also said it can be more severe than the original strangles.
Hope your horse recovers.[/QUOTE]
I agree with candyapple, every case of bastard strangles I have seen the horse received antibiotics when it had strangles.
I saw a TB mare at a clients house die with food in her mouth.
I wish a full and speedy recovery with you horse and I hope you do whatever the veterinarians feel is needed.
Bastard strangles is horrible to deal with. Most horses I have seen oer the years died from it. I sure hope you horse does better. How is he doing?
Here, “bastard strangles” is the same thing as pigeon fever. There’s a type of PF that goes internal–very serious. I lost a horse to it because we couldn’t find out what was wrong with her until it was too late.
Look up Pigeon Fever here. There was a thread about a vaccine for it. The vaccine was recalled, but things may have changed by now.
Good luck.
I have a filly that was on Excede and Rifampin for some time for an internal abscess of one sort or another. It was in her chest, and we found it after a fairly bad choke–the abscess was causing some narrowing in her esophagus.
That was two years ago, and she’s fine now. Since you’re in Colorado, you may want to chat with Amy Jergens at Jergens Equine–she handled Seven’s case. I would be concerned that after such long treatment with Excede, you’ve now got something resistant? I wonder if another antibiotic would be more effective, along with the rifampin.
Best of luck, and I hope he improves.
positive result
Our horse had it at age 16 and did survive after a long stay at Mid-Atlantic Equine Clinic. He lost a great deal of weight and was very weak, but he did regain pounds and strength over time. It was NOT easy, but he is now happily retired. Good luck.
This thread did not have a happy ending but there is a lot of good info in it. Many jingles for your guy.
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?276700-Sad-Update-post-39-Strangles-possible-Bastard-Strangles-and-possible-Purpura
I have a TB mare who is a Bastard Strangles survivor. She was 12 when she came down with Strangles, she was NOT treated with antibiotics. Abscesses broke and drained and I thought she was fine.
Not quite a year later she colicked, which she’d never done. We had moved from Idaho to Arizona at that point, different vet. He palpated her and asked if she was pregnant… no way. I had noticed beforehand that she was taking a longer time to urinate than normal, stretching out a long time before she would go. Took her to Arizona Equine in Phoenix where they found the watermelon sized abscess in her abdomen. It was interfering some with her bladder which is why it was difficult for her to urinate.
I don’t remember the exact dosage but she was on Penicillin and SMZ’s for a long time, something like 50cc of pen a day for a month? Maybe it just seemed like that, poor thing.
Anyway, she recovered. I had no idea at the time just how often they did not recover from this.
Also, she got Pigeon Fever a few years later, it is not the same as Bastard Strangles. I thought for sure it was the BS breaking out in her chest but it was cultured and is not the same.
She is now 28 years old and living in the grass of Kentucky. 
She still does have to get ‘just right’ to pee, I figure there’s got to be scar tissue or a remnant of that abscess or something in there, but she’s tough as nails and doing well.
Best, best of luck with your guy!
We lost a beautiful mare to this many years ago. Horses from a sale barn were dumped in with ours and they all had strangles. Several of ours got sick, but the mare who we lost never had any symptoms, except she started stretching out like a “parked” horse. The vet thought he felt a small growth on her intestines so we opted for exploratory surgery. What the Vet could feel rectally was the end of an abscess bigger than the largest watermelon you can imagine. It was inoperable so she was euthanized.
I wonder if the term “Bastard Strangles” is called (in my locale) a form of Pigeon Fever because of the similarity of symptoms? The horse I lost from internal PF was autopsied after she was euthanized, and was found to have multiple abscesses throughout her liver.
eta: Just thinking about how many things can go wrong with our horses. 
Heartbreaks on four legs.
Strangles and pigeon fever are two different type of bacteria: strangles is Strep equi and pigeon fever is Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis.
The are dealt with in a similar manner when they go internal, I believe, and we never knew which my filly had as we never poked it.
But definitely not the same thing I can see, perhaps, why someone might lump them together considering they both produce lots of puss and are nasty internally…
It’s been years ago, but a fellow boarder’s horse had this. He had been sent to a sales barn and apparently a horse with strangles came in and contaminated a number of horses. He started getting really sick with all extremities swelling up a lot, acting like he had mild colic. He did survive after several months at a vet clinic, tons of medications. He had been vaccinated for strangles in the past, but never had regular strangles.
