Hello all - I’m writing as I have two horses with a peculiar problem. I’ve searched and searched the internet and haven’t come across anything like this. I’ve now been to almost a dozen vets and still have zero answers…My horses sneeze - A LOT. They do NOT cough. The only way I can describe it is to imagine a headshaker, but instead of flipping their nose, they sneeze. They have both been scoped (including a dynamic scope) and nothing abnormal was found in the upper airway including gutteral pouches. Nothing appears to be abnormal in lower airway. They have a constant bilateral serous discharge that runs quite excessively when respiration increases. In my opinion, this is likely the cause of the sneezing (I’m thinking it tickles), but no one can tell me the cause of the constant discharge. The sneezing is the same whether it is hot, cold, sunny, rainy, light, dark, spring, fall, etc. We have tried steroids - both oral and nebulized, and a handful of antihistamines including prednisolone, dex, hydroxizine, Tri-Hist and cyproheptadine. I’ve tried Aleira, Cough Free, Platinum Skin & Allergy, soaking hay, steaming hay and dry lotting. I’m even trying the Equimax protocol for headshakers, because why not. My theory is that there was some sort of mycotoxin present at our old property that is the root cause…we had a pond that was only fed by rain run-off (otherwise stagnant) and the lateral lines from our home septic ran through the pasture)…None of the horses sneezed before coming onto the property. I just finished a round of gabapentin and no change there either. The next option suggested was to maybe block the trigeminal nerve and see if that does anything in case the sneezing is caused by some sort of nerve damage. Anyways, it is just bizarre. And I’m so desperate to help my horses. I’m hoping that maybe time away from the property will eventually help as well, but in the meantime, I just thought I would reach out and see what others have to suggest.
Thank you!
