My vet says he’s seen enough relative success stories that when he’s got a bad case (like my horse), it’s worth a try. The company says a “success” might mean less or no steroid use, things like that, not necessarily total resolution of symptoms.
My neice’s horse had hives so bad that his throat swelled up. They did the skin allergy testing and immunotherapy. He was allergic to alfalfa, timothy, several trees, cows, and lots of other things. The immunotherapy totally cleared it up. My sister gave him subcutanous shots in his chest for like a year. With Nextmune, they say you never can stop the therapy. This I don’t understand. My brother had successful immunotherapy and eventually he did not need the shots anymore. I thought the whole point was to desenstitize them to the allergen, not to give it the rest of their life?
I think allergies and immunotherapy, while sometimes better than nothing, leave a lot for pharmaceutical R&D! It sounds like it works fantastically for some, and range from modest efficacy to none for others (count me in the “none” category).
Specific to your question, you can desensitize to something, then re-sensitize to it later. The body makes no promises to desensitize forever! Obviously, in theory, you desensitize to it then you’re desensitized forever, but in practice, that is not always the case 
I think allergies and immunotherapy, while sometimes better than nothing, leave a lot for pharmaceutical R&D! It sounds like it works fantastically for some, and range from modest efficacy to none for others (count me in the “none” category).
Specific to your question, you can desensitize to something, then re-sensitize to it later. The body makes no promises to desensitize forever! Obviously, in theory, you desensitize to it then you’re desensitized forever, but in practice, that is not always the case
Like @IPEsq said, sounds like there are enough successes that it’s worth trying, particularly for bad cases, but there is no guarantee it will work.
They do recommend ongoing maintenance shots after the initial series.
This has been a super interesting thread.
I’m waving the white flag with my boy. We’re considering allergy testing before next spring but right now, there’s not really a way to take him off meds to test.
He’s been dealing with constant hives/welts/flaking off skin since the beginning of July when the bugs came out. He’s always had mild reactions but this year is beyond that. Last year he decided he couldn’t handle chemical fly sprays without his skin falling off. This year? Natural fly sprays do the same. Something causes a reaction and his skin falls off.
He’s covered in a fly sheet except when in his stall under a fan plus boots. When he sweats, he reacts to his sweat. Gets bitten, massive welts. Hives, everything. On Zyrtec (10 2x/daily) though it does nothing.
We started on pred which has made the most difference but his skin is still a mess. He can handle added flax or any product with soy (he colics from soy). It’s fun. Just trying to make it to the fall.
Your Zyrtec dose is really low! (I don’t know the strength you are using, but the dose range is .2-.4 mg/kg every 12 to 24 hours). For my horse, who weighs 1288 lbs, that works out to 23 Costco pills two times a day as the max dose. Zyrtec for horses
Cetirizine in horses: pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics following repeated oral administration - PubMed (nih.gov) My boy is doing well so far on an elimination diet following the serum blood testing that showed the highest reaction to flax and oats. I canceled the appointment with the allergist to see if this is going to be the ticket. So far, no more hives and they were coming back a week after dexamethazone. We are at two weeks now. I still have him on zyrtec, but will start reducing the zyrtec once I get the ration balancers completely switched over.
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He’s on 15 Zyrtec twice daily, not 10. That was a typo. This was the dosage my vet told me to use (my appendix was on 20 2x/day years ago so I know you can give more), but I was listening to my vet. He’s definitely smaller than your guy 1050-1100? But I haven’t taped him for a while.
I was using the CoCo Omega granuals, and when I had my horses annual Vit E/Selenium blood work done, all her numbers skyrocketed.
Everything in that product is grown in the ground, so depending on where it’s grown it could contain high levels of the Vit E and the Selenium.
The packaging does not list the values of these, I immediately took my horse off this product.
I had allergy testing done, sprayed for the weed she is allergic to and started allergy shots this year. Knock on wood, so far so good.
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Flax contains histamine (low levels)
Waiting for the allergy shots to be delivered to me from the vet (they have arrived) but my boy has been hive free for a couple of weeks now (elimination diet/sprayed the weeds) and has been completely off of zyrtec.
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Here also…I use PP Skin and Allergy for a pony who reacts to the no-see-ums. He has been through one bug season on it with great success. Now, however, the feeders report that he won’t eat his concentrates with that particular supplement included. Wish it came in pelleted form.
Yes …serum allergy testing and immunotherapy shots work very well in the long run
I have found that Spirulina, msm& flax along with Zyrtec seem to help and the serum allergy testing and Immunotherapy shots in the long run …along with eliminating or reducing soy
I have a very large container of an allergy supplement that I now can’t use because the testing showed that my horse is allergic to flax and the supplement is flax based. I would recommend getting the horse tested before spending $100s on supplements for this reason. I think the NextMune testing was $500 and included (in my case at least) the 9 month allergy shot loading protocol.
That said, if you were going to do one supplement, I think MSM is probably the safest. I also used a topical spray that was great made by Equishield. It is really hard to get down to the skin with a topical, however. I also used the Equishield shampoo, but I felt that cool rinses worked equally well. Cold towels on hot spots work well.
Flax allergies are very uncommon. Nextmune shows nearly every horse as “allergic” to flax (and oats, and cottonseed). Ignore that, unless a solid elimination diet proves it’s a real allergy. If your blood test showed lots of hits in the low 100s, you likely have a leaky gut situation, it’s not allergies
Maybe so, but he showed improvement after the elimination diet (his testing showed sensitivity to flax, oats and soy). It definitely did not eradicate the episodes of hives, but they were less frequent and in patches rather than all over his body. Weed management also helped a lot (the weeds got crazy because we were uncharacteristically unable to spray last summer with rains every day until the end of July). I’ll be interested to see how he does when the weeds come out this year. I am not opposed to using a specialist if necessary. (NextMune provides one specialist consultation for free if their immunotherapy is not working.) We have one allergist in this area and I was having to wait three months for an appointment, so I decided to use NextMune. He’s doing so well that I’m not going to chance feeding him flax. Also, I have two other friends who did the NextMune testing before I did and, while they are not giving the shots, the food elimination (one was flax, one was soy and alfalfa) cleared up the hive episodes completely.
that sort of speaks to my point though. Yes, those things can definitely be causing the reactions, but because of a leaky gut and those proteins inappropriately crossing the intestinal barrier, causing the hives and other allergy symptoms. So absolutely, removing that source of irritation can lesson or even eliminate the symptoms, but it doesn’t mean it’s an actual allergen, or that the root cause has been resolved.
Well my horse doesn’t have symptoms of leaky gut, except that he suddenly started getting chronic hives this year when we had a summer of more moisture than we’ve ever experienced and couldn’t manage the weeds. He doesn’t have ulcers, has normal poops, is not obese, does not get NSAIDs, has a fantastic coat and is energetic. And he is getting pre- and pro-biotics (including a dose of saccharomyces boulardii, which all of my animals and myself get), a primarily forage diet spaced through the day with two pounds of low starch ration balancer (Hygain Meta, at the moment, which is what I give all of mine) and a half cup of rice bran pellets. I don’t know how I could manage him better if he DID have leaky gut. He is under the care of an educated vet. But she is coming to give spring vaccines on Friday, so I will ask her about it.
