Not much to report. I tried to ride Thursday and Nay tried to hold it together, but there were bugs. And they drew blood. And he was very upset every time they came near him. And he had welts even before our ride. And hives. But I tried anyway.

I actually called the vet before I got on, waving the white flag. She called me back while I was riding and we made the decision to put him on prednisolone through the end of September. It’s helping, not solving the problem, but helping. Instead of fist sized welts, he has half dollar size welts. But, progress.

His skill is still falling off. I’m guessing that will take time. We’re working with microtek spray which seems to be what he tolerates, some antiseptics which may or may not be helping, and that blue stuff lotion (he loves the lotions but I don’t always love using lotion even though it’s Nay’s preference). I tried to spot check some fly spray that I hadn’t tried on his legs so now his legs are a mess with hair and skin falling off even though I shampooed immediately after… Lesson learned.

I rode on Saturday. But, decided to invest in a riding fly sheet. Nay looks ridiculous, but it helped. A lot. Not perfect, but way better.

I have some other stuff going on so my riding will be hit or miss for a few weeks. It’s fine. I just really need to get some stuff done with a hard deadline that takes priority. But, hopefully we’ll get some light rides in here and there.

Before next spring? We’re allergy testing and hopefully can treat so we don’t end up with this hypersensitivity/hyper-reactivity next year. It’s. Not. Fun. I doubt he’s actually allergic to everything, but you never know.

Writing this vs working on my dossier. It’s amazing how I don’t feel like blogging and yet I’m blogging now vs writing the thing I REALLY don’t want to work on.

I haven’t posted in a while because, honestly, all my posts will be is my whining. My horse is, for the most part, fine. But, he’s also not.

Since I got Nay Nay, he’s had issues with summer. Bug bites cause welts or hives, but we’ve gotten through it. Then last summer, he magically developed a fly spray allergy. He did OK with some natural fly sprays and his fly sheets. That was the plan this summer.

Except come July? That plan failed. Complete, utter, fail.

The fly spray we used last summer and, actually, all spring, suddenly stopped agreeing with his body. And his skin decided to slough off. It wasn’t the red, awful chemical burn of last year, but it was painful and not fun.

Thanks to a combination of fly sheets, diluted witch hazel, and microtek, we got through this and life LOOKED like it would get better. And then Nay started getting stung by something. Huge, massive welts. He was already on Zyrtec, but welts anyway.

Then? He developed some sort of fun fungus. We’ve been dealing with that for a couple of weeks. It’s sort of kind of healed, but also spread some. The problem is, air helps the healing, but no fly sheet? He’s covered in welts.

So I compromise and keep his fly sheet off in his stall and he gets bitten and swells. I can’t win.

Yesterday? He decided hives were a good addition to his mystery box of ailments.

We can’t win. Seriously. Wake me when September ends.