SARAH: "How do you tell if a horse has an allergy
to fly spray or some other product?
I've heard of horses having reactions to citronella,
but what are some other common ingredients that horses
may have a reaction to?"
All right, so we got two questions.
How do you tell if your horse is having a reaction?
And what are some common ingredients
that might cause it?
DR LYDIA GRAY: I better start with the common ingredients
because if I get talking about the other,
then I may forget it.
So here's a list that I found.
Neoprene is in some splint boots or girths.
Some horses just don't do well with neoprene.
Wool and the lanolin in the wool,
but there's also lanolin in products, like some shampoos
and stuff have lanolin.
Rubber or latex like you might find
wrapped on a bit or something.
So those are some common products that horses
can have a local reaction to.
And then, her first question is, how do you tell?
When you're having a reaction to something that you contacted--
so contact dermatitis-- it's in the area right
where you touched it.
So if you're going to have a sensitivity to bedding,
then it's where you laid in bedding.
So a horse might get up and have a little shavings suck on them
and then have bumps too right there.
If it's a neoprene or something, then right
where you put the neoprene or the wool
might be in the saddle area.
If there's something on the bridle.
So if she's talking about fly spray,
if you sprayed it in an area-- a certain area--
it would be exactly where that spray landed.
And then the signs would be the hives, the bumps, itching,
maybe some dryness or hair loss.
But what you do is you don't put something
on a horse on its entire body the first time.
You do a patch test or a spot test.
And you just pick a little area, you apply the product,
and then you wait 24 to 48 hours.
If your horse is going to have a local reaction,
it will happen in that time frame.
If not, chances are, he's OK with it
and you can use it everywhere you need to.
So did I answer that?
SARAH: I think that answers both of the questions.
Do you now-- and this is a separate but kind of related
question--
if horses are, like-- and this might not even
be true for people.
But I've heard that if the first time you're
exposed to something, you might not have an allergic reaction.
But then subsequent exposure could cause it.
Do we see that same sort of thing in horses?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yes.
But allergies are different.
So you can have a contact dermatitis
that is not allergic.
And you can have hives that are not because of allergies
that are just because of--
SARAH: --irritation.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
So a local skin response, the local ones probably
aren't systemic immune-related.
And so that phenomena that you're
describing of the first time, you get a freebie.
And the second time, well, that's not going to happen.
SARAH: Because that's more related to allergies.
It's not related specifically.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Now, if the horse has
a true allergy to a substance, then
yes, it takes exposure the first time and then the next time,
they get worse.
So that can happen too.
And that's why allergies and hives due to allergies
are so challenging to figure out because you don't know what
the things were that could have caused this
because it's systemic.
Like contact ones, the reaction is
right there where you put it.
SARAH: It's localized.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right.
And systemic ones, the true allergies are like whole body.
But it could have been something that they touched or inhaled
or ate.
And so then, you're back to that process of elimination.
SARAH: Yeah.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Ugh.
SARAH: But what you can do to help yourself out
in a situation like that is something my good friend Dr.
Gray always does, which is journal what
you're doing with your horse.
Because if you write in your journal
that you started your horse on a new feed,
or you introduced a new product--
whether it's a topical product or a piece of equipment
that has wool in it that you've never used before--
and then a couple days later, you
notice that something's happening,
those might be trends you could share with your veterinarian
to help you in that overwhelming process of elimination
of all of the things that could be causing what's going on.