My daughter’s horse had a type of lymphoma. He had abnormal cells on a blood smear, which was done because of weight loss and decreased exercise tolerance. After ?5 monthly doses of chemo, he was completely healthy for 2 years. He died suddenly at age 21 with colic and a recurrence of the lymphoma. I am undecided if we would do chemo again. He did well, but I wonder if he was an unusual case. A woman who used to post on COTH had a horse with lymphoma who had a much more tumultuous course, followed by recurrence.
I lost my 38 year old gelding to Lymphoma. He had it on the LF radius. He developed a bump that kept getting bigger. We thru the ultrasound on it thinking he may have banged his extensor tendon, but nope. We radio graphed and the bone was pretty wasted. We euthanized him that week. My veterinarian was concerned he would break the leg getting up. He was my heart horse. He was my perfect match. I still cannot believe that is what took him. I will try to figure out how to post the rads.
Thank you all for your thoughts and personal experiences with this disease.
Update on my front: With minimal evidence or studies showing the efficacy of chemo in combating this, I have decided to eliminate that as a treatment - for both logistic, financial, and prognosis reasons.
She will be started on 20mg/tab x 25 tabs of prednisolone once a day for 30 days, and half that for another 30 days. Her status will be reassessed at that point to decide if a low “maintenance dose” of the steroid would be helpful in her case. Meds arrive tomorrow.
She will get her stitches out tonight (god help me lol) and be able to be turned out for the first time in 10 days +. I took a chance and lunged her a little for the last two days as she was seemingly getting depressed not being allowed to do anything, and it seemed to lift her spirits. She’ll be tickled to be out with her buddies again. I’ll ride her lightly tomorrow and monitor for any reactions to the drugs.
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I think I found the other thread on the horse. His name was Calvin. It was the final deciding factor in my decision to not pursue chemo.
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Yes, Calvin was going through lymphoma treatment at the same time our horse was going through it. I am glad you found the thread on it.
I think so too.
That teleporting second one definitely seems very happy.
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UPDATE:
One week into the prednisolone, and I’m sure the masses are shrinking. I was starting to think it wasn’t working, but then today I can finally see a difference. There are a couple new ones, but they are much much smaller than ones prior. I anticipate they will also regress.
In other news, our new Adam Ellis monoflap came today! Hard to tell if she “liked” it or not, as she is a very fussy mare and didn’t like that it was new. Plus, I hadn’t ridden in a jump saddle since my October show, so she was not thrilled with the shorter-than-the-dressage leg position. Ah well. Here are some stills from the video.
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UPDATE:
Masses continue to shrink, though at a slower rate than before. One new one has appeared on her neck, near the scapula, large marble sized as the original ones were.
She has been blowing abcesses out of her heel bulbs left and right- this coming from a horse who didn’t have an abcess for a year and a half while being barefoot for a large portion of it being ridden 6 days a week. Left hind, right front, now she’s brewing a right hind. Her environment has not changed, so I’m guessing something is going on with the prednisolone. I don’t for a minute think it’s laminitis because 1) prednisolone has no statistically significant tie to triggering laminitis, 2) she doesn’t have a temperature and 3) any of the non-abcessy or old-abcessy feet are ice ice cold with no pulse. Regardless, I’m really frustrated with it all. Good news is, she’s ace at soaking her feet now.
Not sure if related: She, who formerly knew how to tie, broke two break away straps in a week - I do day to day handling in a breakaway because of convenience honestly, it’s already on her stall door so… - and landed herself in a rope halter to learn that isn’t how we get pressure off our poll. She seems to be a lot less sassy since paying that particular “stupid tax”.
In other news - I managed to get ahold of the person who stood both her sire and owned her dam. He, without knowing my mare or her issues, was touting some of the dam’s get’s success on the track and mentioned “one had a big ol’ cancer on the side of her face”. So, it appears any genetic component is on the dam side - El Portal.
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Thank you for the update and for updating the archive, for science. I always think that the most benefit from COTH comes from the archived knowledge of thousands of users over years and years, so it is good to have all this written down and committed to the ether for someone’s potential future benefit.
Best wishes to you and your lovely mare.
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It’s amazing how many times COTH comes up in Google searches :yes:
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1/22 Update:
We are pretty much at a standstill with the lymphoma progress. Most masses are reduced, though the new one on the left side of her neck is the same size - like a medium marble. I reduced her prednisolone dosage from 500mg/day to 400mg/day on Saturday 1/19, and will reduce further to 300mg/day today. She will stay there for 30 days, then get reduced to 150mg/day for the better part of forever.
The mass on her hock has reduced in size, but honestly not in a drastic way. The portion of the mass on the inside of her leg is “baggy” now instead of firm. I’ve been putting DMSO on it every other day or so… honestly, I can’t tell you exactly why other than I’m shooting in the dark at this point.
There has been consistent lameness in the right hind for about 3 weeks now, so the local vet is coming Thursday to take a look. It originally presented like an abcess with heat in the hoof and a digital pulse, but now it’s wishy-washy. Last night there was heat in the hoof again, but the night prior it was just barely warm. You can palp all over her legs as hard as you want and she doesn’t care. Her heel bulbs seem sensitive, but not super awful. She rests the foot a lot.
Cruel as it may be, I’m continuing to ride her, and will even jump cross rails with her this evening, in hopes that the lameness is significant enough that we will accurately find it this time. I have spent a fortune trying to work out what’s wrong, and can’t afford to do this anymore.
I’ll give an update after the vet visit.
UPDATE 1/25: Vet says he thinks it’s an abcess. I’m honestly not completely sold, as I have been dealing with this lameness for what feels like ages (we’re talking 6 months at this point). At any rate, I’ll treat as if it is one for a couple weeks, and then plan to get thrown through the ringer again. Soaked her foot and put that epsom salt poultice in there and wrapped it up.
I did ask for blood to be pulled for Lyme. It’s a shot in the dark for sure, but who knows.
Good luck, and thanks for the update.
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UPDATE 2/11:
Still dealing with the right hind lameness. Vet will be out again this week. I’m running out of money, honestly.
I tried a week and a half previcox trial with no result.
She has front pads with frog support now, those she seems to like. 
Tried taking her completely off the steroids to see if that changed anything. No, and in fact, the lymphatic masses began reappearing that quickly. She is back on 300mg/day for the foreseeable future.
Test came back negative for three different aspects (?) of lyme.
The mare holds her leg bizarrely when she rests it - out to the side and forward. Any tips offs on that?
Shooting in the dark here, but would it be possible for her to get a growth in the hoof capsule?
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Definitely possible - but we xrayed all 4 feet at the same time she had her bone scan. I’d imagine something would have showed up there, or on the soft tissue phase of the bone scan.
I can re-xray though. That’s not too pricey.
I’m trying to figure out where I draw the line, and find somewhere that can turn her out for a year.
When my WB was 3, his symptom of holding his leg (same one, actually lol) that way, was a torn flexor tendon sheath. But I’m sure that’s only one cause of symptoms like that, including causes higher up the leg.
How did his lameness present when he did that?
She is almost on/off lame, in the same ride. Does not correspond to workload. Tracking right, it almost looks like she’s slapping the ground with the foot… tough to describe. Tracking left, the lameness is much more observable at the trot.
He was actually barely lame, so subtle I probably wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the swelling on the outside of the fetlock, and then noticing that his flight pattern was to the outside, as well as standing with it to the outside. But just because mine was only imperceptibly lame, doesn’t mean another cause could be more lame.
Slapping the ground makes me think stifle, and I can totally see a stifle issue causing them to stand like that.
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The mare does track wide behind. I’ve been looking up as much as I can about stifles, but there don’t seem to be many videos to give examples of what stifle soreness can look like.
I have seen the leg “stick” on downwards transitions, but not in an extended position. It’s always in the flexed position, and she will hold it for a fraction of a second before completing the transition.
