Horses can be allergic to one or more elements in their environment. Your horse may have never experienced allergic symptoms to a particular element before, but now the same trigger is causing an allergic reaction. Treatment may not permanently cure allergy symptoms, but your horse will feel better and have a better disposition.
Treatment of Respiratory Allergies
Coughing, watery eyes, and nasal discharge can result from pollen, dust, or mold in your horse stable.
Letting the horse breathe fresh air by running in the pasture can temporarily relieve symptoms.
If your horse has been sleeping on a straw bed, try shavings or shredded paper to eliminate any allergy triggers. If symptoms don't improve, use a rubber mat for the horse's bedding.
If eating hay seems to produce allergic symptoms in your horse, try soaking the hay in cold water to remove allergy spores. If symptoms remain, use a pellet feed, which contains less dust than grain.
Body Grooming
The lung meridian or channel controls respiration. When the horse breathes, oxygen is inhaled and carbon dioxide is exhaled, while dust and debris are filtered out.
Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that this respiration is also vital to energy flow, and if there's an imbalance in the energy flow, the horse may experience coughing, asthma, or have difficulty breathing.
Beginning with the horse's abdomen, and rising to the chest area, the lung meridian continues down the front part of the foreleg, and ends just above the coronary band.
Body grooming stimulates the lung meridian, helping the horse achieve normal energy levels, and improvement of respiratory symptoms.
Start behind the ears, and work your way down to the base of the neck, and the shoulder area. Groom the rib cage area, the diaphragm and the hips.
Pay special attention to the lower legs and coronary band, because these areas are where many acupuncture points are located.
Skin Allergies
Raised red bumps typically appear around the neck and shoulder area about 12 hours after being exposed to allergy triggers, and some horses may have a fever.
Medication
Horses with severe itching can be given cortisone treatments, but discuss benefits and possible side effects with your veterinarian.
Based on allergy testing results, your horse will be given small quantities of these same allergens through an injection. Allergen amounts will increase gradually until your horse builds up a tolerance, and allergy symptoms are reduced or eliminated
Burdock Infusion
Burdock root helps improve itchy skin, and an infusion works quicker than mixing dried burdock with the horse's feed. The usual dosage is 10 to 20 grams a day.
Fill a cooking pot with a pint of boiling water, and add to burdock root. When cooled completely, take the infusion including the herbs, and moisten the horse's feed.
If you don't have a cooking pot, soak the burdock overnight in cold water to release healing properties.
Acupuncture
According to Joyce Harmon, DVM, regular acupuncture treatments can help relieve mild cases of itchy skin in horses during warmer weather.
Injections of vitamin B-12 along the major acupuncture points on the side of the horse's spine can increase the effectiveness of the acupuncture treatment.
The acupuncturist may ask you to describe the horse's symptoms, daily routine and any behavioral changes you've noticed.
Fine needles are inserted at various acupuncture points along the muscles of the back and neck, and if the horse doesn't like the needles, a cold laser treatment can be effective for acupuncture points on the lower legs.
Most horses tolerate acupuncture treatments well, and the release of endorphins puts them in a deeply relaxed state during the half hour that the needles are left in.
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