I was just enjoying another blogger's posts, and this week she blogged how important it is to her to properly groom her Arabian before she gets on.
And I remember just as she was, being shocked at my first endurance ride (crewing) to see my mentors getting on their horses after only grooming tack areas. What! I had spent too long in dressage. Let me just get that little bit of mud....
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Well, I wonder what she'd do with a gelding who flings and grinds himself into the mud every single day, encrusting every centimeter, including the inner ears with mud. INNER ears.
Do you spend 2 hours trying to get it all off, or do you do your best and ride? Cuz tomorrow, this mud-meld will reoccur.
Does she make her bed? Her horse always looks gorgeous, of course she makes her bed every day. Love this blogger, no idea if she knows that I read her, cuz her blog is semi-private. Really love her horse too. Someday I'll own a bay mare.
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Vet says give Mag 2 or 3 days off the med, and then start again, and then consider his future.
*sigh*
Surgery, scarring, (he says surgery involves scarring but I'm not so sure - is Fiddle scarred?).
Treat with rubbing alcohol after every ride (why?).
That's it - I just want more opinions now. He told me to try to ride through the pain, and that is not my favorite thing.
I'm thankful for my blogger friends' opinions and experience in this. Appreciation.
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11 comments:
Scarring: Fiddle has about 10 white hairs on her left flank from her surgery incision; no white hairs on the right (smaller incision, less "stuff" going in and out that side). I cannot feel any ridged flesh on either side, and I can palpate all day and she doesn't care.
Mud: That is...impressive. I've never had a horse who was consistently a mud-monster. How did I get so lucky?
Grooming: Fiddle enjoys the ritual, and so do I, and I do groom every few days even if I don't ride. I give a pretty thorough grooming before I ride, including the removal of mud from the entire horse AND mane AND tail. Because I'm vain, and because she likes the attention.
Hm. How frustrating! Has the vet made an actual diagnosis about the lumps? I might be remembering past posts wrong, but aren't they hard lumps which were biopsied and found to not be cancerous? Or are they cysts that have active infection inside? Seems like he is trying to dissolve them with the steroids... how is he determining that they are a big problem? Does he think he knows what they are and why they are there?
That the area was irritated by all the treatments before is not so shocking. Maybe his sensitive skin has absolutely nothing to do with the lumps themselves.
Also... yeast? Maybe?
I wasn't sure if I should comment or not because advice from random internet people should be suspect. But then I was thinking about it more and decided to type it anyway. I will in no way be offended if you disagree/do not follow. I would not do the surgery because I don't think that will stop more bumps from coming. They sound very much like protein bumps which result from irritation.
let me tell you my story: Years ago when Irish was about 6 or 7 he started getting these weird hard bumps on his back. Now irish is what they call a 'thin skinned' horse- it takes very little for him to rub off hair or get a scratch. I had the vet out and he said that it was a heat reaction and that I was to cool off his back very quickly after the ride (he also recommended rubbing alcohol because it dries the sweat) and to keep them washed. I followed his advice to the letter- I never used a dirty saddle pad, in warmer weather I rinsed his back after every ride, is cold weather I used a towel to clean it. I made sure I washed saddle pads in mild detergent and only used breathable fabrics.
I also was speaking about these bumps on an horse forum and one woman said that I should look to my tack. I said that my vet didn't mention tack and said it was because of heat. She responded that she's seen those bumps before and every time the tack was changed/adjusted they went away. We agreed to politely disagree.
I followed my vet's advice and ignored hers. After all Irish's back didn't seem sore and he was going fine. Following the vet's advice the bumps would lessen but never completely disappeared. Fast forward 2 years and it's clear that Irish has outgrown his saddle. I got a new one professionally fitted. The bumps disappeared in 3 months. And they have never come back. Since that time I have become friends with my saddle fitter and I asked her about those lumps and she said that if the saddle is not quite right it is very common for these bumps to occur.
So what I am advising is to go back and look at your tack. It is probably not a bad fit but might be rubbing is just the wrong way to cause this issue (like an ill-fitting sock or slightly narrow shoe).
i hope i have not offended you- I'm feeling like a one track record on this. I am fine if you disagree because you know the situation far better then I could. I just felt that I should say what I think since you asked. :)
Some references:
https://schleese.com/2015/04/20/saddle-fit-and-bumps-and-blisters/
https://www.easyfitsaddles.com/signs-saddle-doesnt-fit-horse
https://horseandrider.com/health-and-advice/saddle-fit-trouble-16340
As for mud- I have no advice. This is why I blanket (well one reason, the other is where I iive). Carmen still tries to grind mud into her exposed parts as much as possible.
Ha! Hahahahahahha! Sorry, just peeing myself laughing over here :) My bed hasn’t been made in years. My house is always a disaster thanks to full time job, a mini zoo of indoor animals and a tornado toddler. But my horse is clean when I ride :) Guess that says something about me LOL!
My husbands gelding is a mud monster. Only happy when he is covered from tip of nose to tail with filth. Hubby did his best to get most of it off before riding but he was still always gross. Now that he is retired he is living the life of a pasture pig. I’m very lucky Gem stays clean in general. Not sure what I’d do with your guy. Go crazy likely!
I’ve got no advice on the bumps, but I hope it is something simple and you get a diagnosis soon. Not knowing what you are dealing with is always the worst part.
(aside to TeresaA): I wish more people could couch their online communication as tactfully and effectively as you did ^^^. You stated all the caveats, and cited sources, and offered the results of your one-rat study. And you were kind about it.
Even if the problem with Mag turns out to be unrelated to the problem you experienced with your horse, I still award you a gold star! :-)
Aarene, so no significant scarring from an ovarectomy, interesting!
Sirje, you're right, they were biopsied and non cancerous, rather they were determined to be sebaceous cysts. He palpated them last week and said they are painful, which for me is a problem cuz I wanna be able to use a saddle. I'm not able to get a pain reaction from Mag though, well, actually sometimes I can. Today nothing. They're hard and cylindrical in shape, which also fits with the diagnoses of entzuendete talg druese. The vet wants me to use Franzbrandwein on them after riding for cleanliness. I found out that's isopropyl alcohol, or, liniment. I have not seen liniment for sale for horses in Germany. It is used to clean and cool the legs/bodies of horses after racing. You may be right about the lumps having nothing to do with his sensitive skin.
Teresa, you're not a random internet person, and I did ask and appreciate any personal experience with this issue. I read all three articles you sent (hey, I met Jochen Schleese's wife!) and my vet did say the cysts were originally caused by carrying a saddle, but not necessarily from bad fit. I'm not sure what the exact difference between a protein bump is and a sebaceous cyst. I've definitely experienced heat bumps/swellings and won't use neoprene ever again. Like you I clean my pads (brush them) after every ride, and only wash them in a tiny bit of soap, and then again with no soap at all. I learned this the hard way when I gave my horse chemical burns due to soap+sweat; (
Although saddle fit should be regularly checked, I had mine done this year with that electronic pad thingy and the pressure areas corresponded to the stirrup bars on both sides. But I will ask around about getting a western-style saddle fitter to come out, that should be interesting (or impossible). I always palpate his back, cuz that's what endurance riders do, and I've never had him flinch. He is a dream to saddle and girth up - he just stands there as if not noticing. But most of all, after all the problems I've seen in the past, the shape and location of these lumps makes me think it's not saddle fit. They are not near the shoulders, and not near the loin, and also not near the spine. They are in the spot of lowest pressure - the very middle of the back, toward the lower end of the bar. I've read Schleese's other articles on fit and movement in saddles, how this movement is normal and gives worrisome sweat patterns. However my horse is very crooked in his body, so anything is possible. Also I would think the lumps would change based on being ridden vs. not, but I see no difference if I quit riding for a while. Can you explain to me the difference between protein bump and sebaceous cyst? You know what's ironic (and irritating) - I never ride Mag into a sweat, ever. Maybe a tiny bit of damp under the girth and behind the ears, that's it. Oh, also I wanted your opinion on epson salts. They are not used in Germany, but I found a container and I don't know why I shouldn't try epson salt compresses. Don't they encourage diffusion/osmosis, (like DMSO, which I'm using now but no effect). I don't see how epson salts can hurt, but then again, coconut oil hurt him.
Sara, thanks for reading: ) I think it must be a boy horse thing.
Aarene, such circumspection is rare.
Hmmm. My two internet cents: An actual infected sebaceous glad ("entzündete Talgdrüse") would be unusual, and to have a cluster of them would be even more unusual. Like, really really unlikely. As I understand it, most so called "sebaceous" cysts are actually caused by sebum or some other skin stuff that has been blocked on it's way out of the skin, either it forms a pocket at various layers of the skin or there is a blockage at the pore, for example. It's a catch-all name for "I dunno, it's a lump". Ha. The two basic kinds of cyst as far as I know are those at a follicle or pore, and those unrelated to a follicle or pore. If there is an infection it it's more serious, but then I think they are not quite so hard, they are inflamed and painful, with junk coming out. I knew a Weinmeraner who had a lot of keratin cysts and they looked pretty grody but caused her no pain and were biopsied, non-cancerous, so after a lot of worrying, her owners eventually just sort of lived with it. She just got them, some came and went, for whatever weird genetic reason.
Warning: gross
I've had ganglion cysts, which were unrelated to sebum, from playing the violin. Those were actually painful to touch. I get cysts on my waterline in my eyes, which is I guess the tear ducts getting a bit blocked or something? Not painful. Then there is acne or blackheads, which we all know, and then you have your infections that cause a massive grossness until the body can wall it off and it hardens into something nasty over time that eventually comes out, or you have to cut it out, and in that case they are not going to return, but if there is an external irritation they can recur kind of at the same general spot. Like if your saddle plus his body caused major problems. You know that carbon paper they use at the dentist to check your bite after a cavity gets filled? I wonder if you could use something similar to lay under the saddle and see if there is some special hidden spot that is getting all this irritation. Maybe there is even something happening at the opposite point to where the cysts are occuring, causing them. At least that would explain any mechanical friction?
When I hear Franzbrandwein I cringe, sorry to say. This usually means something like Klosterfrau, this herbal alcohol stuff which you can get in the blue bottle at Rossmann or DM. I would seriously not use that on irritated skin, it has zero benefit, it's akin to a HNO telling you to snort Meditonsin for your sinus infection. :(
Sirje, you are right - "sebaceous cyst" is a misnomer, the more I read about it. It was the simplest translation from the German Talgdruese Entzuendung. The salient point was that my vet says they are actually infected.
Holy crap, from the violin! I have to talk to J about this. I don't know what Klosterfrau is - I always had the idea it was a feminine wash. I don't know what Meditonsin is, but have only had bad experiences with HNOs. Franzbrandwiein is what we used to remove stickers from products, it's a cleaning agent in America. But ethanol is also a disinfectant. I don't know about carbon paper, I hope I never do. To lay under the saddle, we just lay a strip of clean white bed sheet (but you know this) and see how it looks after the horse moves, the dust/sweat arrangement. I always look at the pattern of my lambswool pad after use, where it is most pressed down. When you mention the opposite point, I wonder what that could be. The opposite of the middle lower back?
Ha! Maybe it IS a feminine wash. If so... WHY?????????
I actually don't know the clean white bed sheet trick. Or if I did at one point know it, it is lost to all time. There's a lot I don't know, which never stops me from spouting off my wisdom. :) But it makes sense, good trick! By opposite point I am thinking of like the cyst area being the place where some weird little compensatory action pops up due to pain/discomfort/conformation/the wind blowing in some other spot.
I literally just scrape the mud off the saddle/girth area and call it good. Otherwise, I'd probably just go home. No advice on the bumps though, sorry.
Thank you ArenaX for the feedback. I try to be careful so I'm glad that it was noticed.
Lytha: if they were painful wouldn't you notice when riding? he would be reactive, I think. And yes you can use epsom salts. They will not hurt anything.
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