My horse was recently diagnosed with a very mild case of Nasopharyngeal Cicatrix and I am devastated. After some research, I feel at a loss about his care going forward once he is cleared to go back to work and the current lesions have healed. He is currently being treated with a DMSO/Gentamycin/Dex/Glycerin throat wash and will be scoped again in a few weeks to evaluate healing. He has also been taken out of his beautiful lush pasture and put in a small dry lot paddock to get him off the grass. I love my vet but they haven’t really said what we do as far as maintaining this horse. Does anyone else have experience dealing with this issue? If so what do you do after the acute phase? This horse thrives on lots of turnout and keeping him up in a stall for most of the day is not good for his mental health as well as makes him a nut job to ride.
As far as I’m aware, most cases occur in North Florida and Texas. Perhaps your vet could consult with Texas A&M or another large hospital in the region as far as treatment options go.
Hello,
We have two horses who were diagnosed with cicatrix a few years ago. For our more severe mare, we had to chose between tracheotomy and euthanasia. We chose a trach as she had a 2 month old foal at her side. Mare and foal did great and the mare went back to competing lower level dressage and western dressage with a trach. She earned top ten placings at the 2019 WDAA world show. Unfortunately USEF has banned horses with a permanent trach from rated competition, so we only attend schooling shows now.
Our Gelding was diagnosed at the same time, and his has not progressed significantly in the last 4 years. He gives 4-6 lessons a week, though I do give him Farnam Cough Ease supplement, which does seem to help.
Because Cicatrix seemes to be cumulative, becoming progressively more scarred over the years, we make sure all pastures are mowed short and turnout only when dry and the dew is up off of the ground. We participated in a study conducted by TAMU in 2016, who recommended those guidelines. TAMU did not know the source or cause of the disease, the only conditions that were 100% prevention were race horse stables with no turnout available. That is not sustainable for us, and quite frankly I find it cruel, so we chose to mitigate the risks while still providing an enriching environment. Cicatrix has no know cause or cure and is prevelant east of I-35 in Texas and South of I-20 all throughout the gulf coast. Most horses are tested positive after an unusually wet season and many go undetected until it is quite severe.
I hope this helps! Good luck!
Thank you for your response! It has been a bit frustrating to find out any info on how to move forward once we are out of the acute treatment phase. I 100% agree with you about keeping them in stalls. There is no way I could do that to this horse. I feel bad when they miss one day of turnout due to weather. Our current plan seems very similar to yours. Once they get scoped and have the vets nod of approval to return back to work we are going to make sure the grass is kept short and turn out after the dew is dried up. My horse in particular has only 1-2 very small lesions that were almost healed at his last exam and no visible scarring so we hopefully caught him very early.
