Thursday, March 22, 2012

Allergic Reaction



Oh my goodness, my poor Pinky looks like Muhammad Ali after a bad fight.

I went to bring her an Taj into the barn tonight and noticed that she had hives on her face, and then on her neck, and her lips, up oh.



By the time I got her inside her eyes were swelling and her lips too.

I put in a call to my vet, who was just here yesterday for shots.  Good lord.

Any way he was on his way back from Costco and would be here in about 20 minutes.



By now she was extremely peeved, and was rolling and then pawing.  Really slamming that foot into the stall mat.  I left her alone and noticed she was a little calmer, so I did a few little chores, fed the other horses and waited.



She was really hot by the time he got here, and had broken out a little sweat on her face.  Her eyes were so swollen, poor girl.



He gave her a shot of Dex, part IV and then the rest IM. 

Within a few minutes she seemed a little better.  The swelling seemed to be going down already:)



We visited for a bit while she hung out, he checked her gut sounds (OK, not great, but not bad either).  Doc left me two more shots for tomorrow and the next day and cautioned me about the slight possibility of founder from Dexamethasone.

I've seen it given to a lot of racehorses and never had one founder, so I'm hoping that we don't have any troubles there.  Given how quickly she was swelling up I think the benefit certainly outweighs the risk. 

Hopefully Pink can catch a break soon.

These photos really don't do the swelling justice, she looks like a cartoon horse :(

For contrast, what Pink's face usually looks like:

4 comments:

HHmstead said...

No way! How long have they been in the area's where they graze? I'm thinking several seasons? Some emerging plant that she tried to eat? Did your Vet comment as to what might be the cause?

Funder said...

OMG, poor girl. Tons of sympathy for her (and for you)!

AareneX said...

Yowza! What the heck did she do?

CG said...

No idea! She is in a pea gravel/sand pen because of her hoof problems. She had her snack hay (local grass) which grows in our back field, same hay for 10 years or so.

I had just hung a new net up prior to the reaction, so I think it was either something in that hay bag, a weed? a spider? It happened really fast- so I'm thinking it was a bug and not the food.

Vet is stumped as well, bees aren't out yet.

??????