@lenapesadie and @Zevida - look how much better - started wrapping during turnout for sun protection
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Oh wow! Major improvement! Yay!
I didn’t take anymore recent pictures of mine but they are coming along, slowly. I’m starting to wonder if his skin’s pigment will ever return or if these areas are going to be permanently scar white.
I feel like his skin was damaged from the scratches, and the sun was irritating the new skin as scratches healed. It has been a very slow process. I may try turning him out at night, but then have to deal with the wet grass.
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I’ve been on night turn out here for a bit now; for my guy the extra moisture from the grass doesn’t seem to be a factor but your guy’s case looks different than mine so 
I wonder if sunblock would help? Some of that spray sunblock for people? Would be easy to apply for turnout. I dunno if it’s ok to use that on horses though.
I could think about sunblock, also desitin which protects it from wet grasses
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Desitin does stay on good. So does Nu Stock, though maybe less staying power than Desitin. Desitin is probably cheaper though, especially if you get generic 40% zinc oxide.
My favorite Desitin story is when I was using Desitin on my old scratches boy, I’d sometimes find the Desitin on my other horse. Other horse came in with a big white smear on his face one day and I was like, “mhmm, the old man kicked you in your head finally”
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Looking much better! Great job!
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I remembered we used Ichthamol on leg crud and scratches when I was a kid. Out of desperation I tried it on my TB’s legs. He had developed thick, crusty dark growths on his fetlocks and pasterns from the mud.
1 wash with fungasol shampoo and a thick coating of ichthamol took 80% of them off overnight. The rest came off with 1 more ichthamol application.
Seriously wonderful stuff for leg gunk - and cheap!!
It rains about 65" a year where I live and one of my mares battled scratches every year until I started feeding CA Trace Plus. That helped a lot. I sometimes feed Uckele Equibase Grass, too. One of my horses won’t eat the CA Trace, but he will eat the Uckele. Neither supplement has iron added, which I don’t want because I live in has high levels of iron in the water and soil.
I am very happy to report that after stopping the steroid spray a few weeks ago and the oral medication 10 days ago the scratches have so far stayed away! I am very happy though also nervous they will come back because they have healed then come back before. Will just have to cross that bridge if we get there. I’m keeping fly boots on all 4 legs 24/7 now to keep the sun off. 
How’s everyone doing else’s horses doing?
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Glad your horse is doing better! So far so good with mine as well! Just maintaining with daily desitin and nightly turnout. It was hard for me to stop washing and drying, which I believe was causing the skin to become chapped! What a frustrating problem.
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Too early to tell as scratches season for us here is late July early Aug but he only goes out in his Shoofly boots as that was the magic bullet.
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The Equiderma Zinc cream works for this. Put it on over top of whatever other topical medication you are using.
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I recently ran into a bout of scratches on my new guy’s pastern and my usual concoction of triple antibiotic/athlete’s foot cream/vaginal yeast cream wasn’t touching it. A friends suggested MTG and voila in two applications of a tiny amount. GONE. I’d already posted on this thread about my old remedy but now will be doing MTG.
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My poor old guy isn’t getting worse but he isn’t getting any better either. I’m playing with some different topicals to see if anything makes a difference. He’s also got maybe an abscess brewing in another foot. Always something.
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I just ordered a gallon of chlorhexadine scrub to clean legs multiple times per week.
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The chlorhexadine just came in. 1 gallon for $44 from Farmvet. Will last 2-3 years. Scrub the leg and leave on 10 min.
Well I thought we were going to have a good year this year. Very few scabs, responded well to the 4% chlorhexidine scrub. He was fine on Thurs. Went to pull hime out of the pasture Fri night and his leg were blown up! Massive amount of scabs, legs covered in them! All 4 legs swollen, 2 were hot. OMG! I srubbed them well and gave him 20 tabs of SMZs and put him in a stall. This is God awful and came on literally overnight. Hopefully made some progress by morning. It couldn’t be worse!
Oh no! Hope you can get the swelling down ASAP! I’ve had good luck with Exceed for presumed scratches induced cellulitis.
My poor guy still has scratches. They are worse now a couple months since last update, but not like the worst they’ve ever been. His other health issues are taking precedence currently.
We had the vet out today. His legs were so swollen and leaking serous fluid. And was visible uncomfortable. He is now on 3 days of IV DMSO, all 4 leads are wrapped in a DMSO sweat, he is on IV bute, SMZ’s and Gastroguard. Today was the worst it ever been ever!!
