Re: Icky dicky

["beth glover" <bgloverhrsewmn@hotmail.com>]

When my mare had the habronema fly larvae in the eyes, (she had it twice- I will never leave her without a mask again, even for a week)  She had runny teary eyes that had some white drainage, but then looking in the corner of her eye was this gritty , yellow sandy looking stuff, and it really adhered to the mucosa.  I had to have the vet come and tranq. her, and we really cleaned out the eye mucosa, and then I had to wash the eye with saline drops every day, and some optic ointment with a steroid and antibiotic applied also.  It took a long time to clear up.  They say the horses can get it in the male genitalia too.    Beth

>From: "Mike Hilyard"

>To:

>CC: "ridecamp@endurance.net"

>Subject: Re: Icky dicky

>Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:36:00 -0500

>

>Urine was clear with no abnormal color or smell or trouble urinating, so the vets didn't run a culture on that. I think the Bactrim works (some) because he wasn't dropping to urinate and so the sheath was populated with surface flora (fauna?) that thinks urine is yummy. N0 "beans", stones or calculi. We've had the gelding five years (he'll be 16 soon), as far as I know, he's never been used as a stallion. They did run a surface culture him at State - it all came back negative, except for surface crap - normal bugs, none in super abundance. They also did a special fungal screen on the biopsy - negative. Don't know about the fly larvae - what are the symptoms?

>Laurie Hilyard and Revy,

>and Mike's horse Andy, of the icky dicky.

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: beth glover

> To: PFmorabs@toast.net

> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 12:09 PM

> Subject: Icky dicky

>

>

> Okay old nurse, here comes another one. (rubbing hands together, scratching head) How about, what is his urine like? Has it ever been analyzed or cultured.? How about stones, blocking up the urinary tract and causing dribbling? (Oh wait--dribbling, that's the prostate- hee hee) But horse can get stones, and cystitis. What about, how long was he a gelding? Was he a stallion? Could he have....VD? Why did the sulfa clear the problem initially. ? That is Bactrim, commonly useful for urinary tract infections (many women nod their heads here). What about Candida--yeast. Yeast is happy to grow in the mouth and the genitalia also. What about fungus? What about parasites? Are there gritty nodules forming? Has anyone thought about Habronema fly larvae (I had that in my mare's eye!) Just a lot of questions to help this mystery along. Beth , also a nurse.

>

>

>

> >From: "Mike Hilyard"

> >To:

> >Subject: RC: diagnostic ability of vets

> >Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:50:22 -0500

> >

> >I hate to say this, but I have to agree that if it ain't obvious, it ain't going to be diagnosed. I have a gelding that last year had a chronic sheath infection. As the vet said the first time he cleaned it "This is the ugliest penis I've ever seen." High doses of a sulfa based antibiotic partially cleared it (enough so he wasn't laying down so he could reach back and scratch), but it never went away, despite 3 cleanings by the vet. He won't drop for me - wonder why? Well, after fly season we had the local vet clean it again ($40. farm call, $35. cleaning, $90 drugs), then packed him up and headed for Michigan State. At the vet clinic they discovered raised plaques in his oral mucous membrane, as well as on his penis. They did punch biopsies of both (my husband got a little green) and had a vet dermatologist look at him. Apparently, large animal dermatologists are hard to find (I guess there wouldn't be much of a market), but this small animal guy said it looked exactly like the raised marks some dogs get in their mouths after pulling burrs out (note for you desert and Texas dwellers - in Michigan it is possible to pull burrs out and not draw blood). Well, the biopsies showed it wasn't burrs and that it only involved the upper layer of the membrane - the epidermal layer, not even the dermis. Also, there is no sign of these plaques in the anal area, so not all mucous membranes are affected. They are calling the plaques "atypical" cells, not even pre-cancerous. Meanwhile, after steroids and another round of high dose sulfa antibiotics, I still have a very nice gelding with a small amount of drainage that I'm sure will flare up in 4 weeks when the flies hatch in large quantities. I still have no diagnosis or definitive treatment. Chemotherapy was mentioned, but as an old oncology nurse, I know that systemic chemotherapy would have to be pretty high to reach epidermal skin layers, and 5FU is hard on the immune system. We know it is not melanoma or sarcoids.

> >

> >So I guess the moral of my story is that a vet, trying to treat a dozen different species in every stage of life from new born to geriatric, is not going to know everything. And apparently the specialist vets at large teaching facilities are just as lost where to start when presented with something unusual. How about you ridecampers? Anybody seen anything like this? And no, I am not putting Schreiners on it!

>

>

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