Strange bump saga? Edema? Shoe Boil?

[hillhavenmercedes]

Hi!

I have a lovely little haflinger mare who, last May developed a rather strange bump on the inside of her left front leg/chest area. Initially, I believed, as did others at my barn that it was a shoe boil, although she is barefoot and it is much more inside on her chest area then a typical shoe boil would be.

However, after treating it as such and it did not resolve, I asked our vet about it when he came to do fall shots in Oct. Vet said that it was an “edema” from summer allergies (which she has had long standing problems with allergic reactions to flies) and that it should re-absorb within a few weeks when the weather cooled off and the files were gone for the season.

Flash forward to now (February) the bump has not gone away but rather seems to have either increased in size and/or migrated farther forward on her chest. Even more interestingly, wherever this swelling/bump seems to spread to, all of the hair is gone.

I am leaning towards having the vet come back out but because it does not seem bothersome to her at all, I am worried I am making something out of nothing and am simply going to waste my money on another farm call to have him say “it just takes time for it to go away” or something similar.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I believe I have attached some photos that I have taken of the bump in question (it gave me some difficulty uploading them). The outside picture is from June and the others are from this past week.

Thank you in advance!

MercedesBumPics.pdf (134 KB)

[ladymcts]

If it’s changing in size and shape like that, then it should be seen by a vet. If you don’t get satisfaction from one vet, then try another. My horse had a growth that I let go for about a year that turned out to be cancerous, so now I always err on the side of caution. (He was treated and has been cancer free for 7 years now, so it wasn’t the end of the world for us, but it would have been if it had not been treated.)

Editing to add: in my defense, it was not “letting it go” as much as I had vets telling me it was safe to ignore, which is why I said to keep trying other vets if you need to.

[Second_Star_To_The_R]

Is it hard or squishy soft? It could be a simple cyst but my guess would be it’s a mass that needs removing and biopsy.

[OneTwoMany]

I would definitely get a second opinion. Maybe it is time to contact a vet that specializes in dermatology and share the pictures you posted here. A phone consult can probably be had for $50 or so.