Super itchy horse but not in normal sweet itch locations ( whole horse, rear lower legs)

[HoofHeartSoul]

my horse is super itchy, it is always in the warmer months and goes away in cooler months.

I have him treated for sweet itch (sprays, flysheet,etc)

He is still SUPER itchy all over his body and lower rear legs, he rubs his hind legs on eachother and feed tubs but his skin looks fine.

all I can think of are leg mites, but that says it gets worse in winter and this comes in summer.

what is going on!? he is so itchy that the farrier and I have trouble picking up a hind because he goes into a itch coma while touching his hind leg and tries to rub on us.

any idea other than sweet itch? some type of grass allergy? he is on allergy pills .

[Bluey]

What color is he, how old is he?

We had a bay quarter horse that about ten started being very itchy every spring.
He was so bad, his shoulders and face became bare and swollen from his frantic itching practically overnight.
He would lay down and scratch his belly on the ground.
Our vet would put him on Depo-Medrol, Depo means slow release and Medrol is a straight corticosteroid and each shot lasted him a month or two, before he would start uncontrollable itching again.
Generally two shots a summer kept his immune system dampened enough that he was not so frantic itching.
That medication can have serious side effects, founder one, but for him it worked great, until he was in his late teens and quit being so itchy any more.

Another horse we had, our 28 year old tobiano paint, out of the blue, started being super itchy, would stand over the hydrant to scratch between his hind legs, would stand on a dried up cactus stick so it stood up between his legs and scratch his belly and thighs on it.

A few months later we could see a growth on the end his penis and in a couple weeks it was tennis ball sized.
Vet did surgery, implanted cisplatin beads in the incision and it was confirmed squamous cell carcinoma.
A few months later it was back, vet repeated surgery and treatment and horse never again had a reoccurrence.

This story is a zebra kind of itching story, but who knows, it may help someone else in similar situation.

[Equibrit]

Article may be useful (the bit about “hydrocortisone leave-on conditioner”)

Field Guide to Equine Allergies

[Renn_aissance]

My horse can get like this- he is currently experiencing a terrible horrible no good very bad itch around his right hock that occasionally results in him nearly falling over as he “ooh-ooh-that’s-the-spot”s with his leg up in the air while I scratch it.

A combination of hydrocortisone and pramoxine has been most effective in helping him live through it. I use Equishield IR spray. We have so many horses in the barn with new allergic-type reactions developing this year that it’s hard to say what’s setting it off, but for him it’s usually a very big reaction to a bug bite.

[JB]

What, if any, diet difference is there between itchy season and non?

[Hayburner]

I went thru this with my mare. It would start in her hind legs and progress to her entire body.

Believe me, I tried everything to ease the symptoms and nothing except using Dex from end of Sept to End of Dec helped. The itching actually would start in mid to late July.

I did have a quick blood draw done for allergies, found out their were a few weeds in her pasture that was probably causing the problem. This year, her pasture was treated with a equine safe weed killer and so far, she is not itching.

The blood draw was well worth it as I spent way more on shampoos, supplements, prescription
meds, OTC meds and only killing these darn weeds with a cheap $30 weed killer worked!

[Hayburner]

The Field Guide to Allergies forgot to mention weeds!

[JB]

Food allergies: blood test reliability - Reverdy

Blood serum allergy testing is highly unreliable.

Unless you’re getting results in the 1000+ range, they aren’t true allergies. Nextmune has admitted that 99.8% of all test results show positive for flax and 97.7% of all show positive for cottonseed and admit it’s likely a testing error. Horses test positive for a particular grass, but not that grass hay. AND, they say that results aren’t actually indicative of allergies (but will happily supply you with allergy shots), and even state on their site that multiple hits are more likely to be about leaky gut than actual allergies.

Removing the “allergens” can result in improvement, but if it’s only because those proteins are no longer crossing the intestinal barrier (leaky gut) and therefore not triggering the auto-immune response, you haven’t fixed the problem, you’ve just removed a catalyst.

Fix the gut.

[StormyDay]

My mare is allergic to summer. She gets itchy front legs. I alternate between using veterinary formula hot spot and itch relief shampoo and veterinary formula antiparasitic shampoo. The hot spot shampoo works great on people bug bites too

I then apply Benadryl cream, diaper rash cream, and SWAT over her legs. I do that about 3x a week. It really helps her. I don’t know if it’s bugs, grass, pollen, etc that she is allergic to, but this routine seems to keep it at bay.

[Showbizz]

I have a gelding that gets so itchy on his fetlocks he will literally bite them bloody.

Bugs/pollen is likely the trigger for him. I start him on OTC allergy meds June 1. Intense itching, on meds, usually starts early July. By late July/early Aug, he’s very itchy and goes on Dex. By the time the weather cools in the fall, it’s gone. W/o meds, it’s all 4 fetlocks. With meds it’s usually just the front two.

[Jackie_Cochran]

My current lesson horse is a super itchy elderly gelding, chestnut, in his late 20s.

The only thing that I can use to get this horse ready for riding that seems to help with his ITCHINESS!!! is grooming him with the Haas Schimmel vegetable fiber brush. It is a harsh feeling brush to my hands, and when I first used it on him he DID NOT LIKE IT. I “seduced” him to enjoying this brush by first using it only on caked-on mud on his legs, then after a few weeks I could use it on caked on mud on his body, then his head.

Now, if I forget to use the Schimmel brush he goes “I’M ITCHY!!! Use the Schimmel, darn it you dumb human being!” I use the Schimmel after currying and he is much happier and does not throw himself around in the wash stall trying to scratch his super itchy spots.

My riding teacher also uses the Ivermectic Gold wormer. It is more expensive but seems to help with his ITCHINESS!!!

[JB]

@Jackie_Cochran

My riding teacher also uses the Ivermectic Gold wormer. It is more expensive but seems to help with his ITCHINESS!!!

If Zimecterin Gold helps, that may be a neck threadworm situation. I would also encourage him/her to use Equimax, as ZG has a decent chance of causing burns/ulcers in the mouth Same active ingredients (and more in Equimax) but different carrier ingredients which are the problem in ZG

[4horses]

Permethrin spray. You need to soak /drench the legs daily. If it’s mites, that will help. It could be chiggers.

[polkadotedpony]

Exact same issue, summer months only. Palomino Morgan. Started the second summer I owned him which was his second year in CA. Former owner in Minnesota reported same thing/bad allergies which is why she sold him out to CA. We see this in allergic people pretty often too where the first year in a new place they do great and second year they become sensitized and all their symptoms return. I do head and shoulders shampoo, lots of fly spray, flyboots w/ bell boots (I like the smartpack bubble ones after trying lots of brands).

I’ve given him dex before when it’s really really bad but try to avoid given his breed. I give him antihistamines on really itchy days. Platinum skin and allergy did nothing for him except make me poor, wasted 2 summers on it. Weirdly enough what seems to help him the most has been regular dosing of Eqstim. I was super against it at first since I didn’t think the mechanism for the issue made any sense but my barn owner uses it on her horse with a chronic thread worm issue and has used it with other horses for summer sores and really pressured me to give it a try. I did a few doses last summer which seemed to help but he was already at peak itch when I started. This summer I started with monthly doses before things really exploded and he’s the best he’s ever been. Definitely very off label though.

[ridernc]

Another Morgan-with-allergies owner

Mine had bug bites that turned into patches of hives covering her chest, neck, shoulders, and flanks all last summer. Fly sprays (pyrethrins and not), SWAT, fly sheets, modified turnout times, nothing seemed to mitigate the hives. I really did not want to go the dex route, so I had her allergy tested (blood test) with the intent of treating the obvious bug bite reactions she was having.

Lo and behold, the test came back positive for all the bugs. I started immunotherapy last December, and she’s been amazing all spring and summer of this year. She still has a few odd bug bites like a normal horse, but no hives. She’s using the same fly spray I eventually switched to the end of last year (ecovet) and no fly sheet.

I can’t speak to the overall accuracy of the allergy test, but I can say I experienced a night-and-day difference with my horse’s reaction to bugs as a result of immunotherapy shots. I did keep her on UltraCruz® Equine Skin and Allergy Supplement for Horses this year, but I don’t attribute it fully to her turnaround because she was also on it last year. (We switched from Platinum Skin & Allergy last spring.) I plan to transition off of this supplement when I run out of my last bag.