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.
Three Chestnuts 
are you sure he isn’t actually secretly a red head wrapped in a bay costume?! poor guy…. it feels like the bugs have been particularly ruthless lately too, and with recent weather ALL our horses are hivey and funky, ick…
Actually, he is a chestnut mare… he knows I really only like chestnuts… lol
I’m sure the weather doesn’t help, but he’s always been reactive. His inability to handle fly spray doesn’t help either. Add in crud. Add in extra hypersensitivity. Add in hits to his immune system as he fights one reaction after another. Perfect storm. So I raise the white flag and called the vet (again. It’s not like we haven’t talked multiple times). He’s on steroids through the end of the season. No choice. We’ll probably allergy test before next summer and see if we can come up with a better plan. Fun, fun.
Ugh, I feel you on the summer skin stuff. We have had cannon crud, heat rash, etc. Poor ponies
I’m really hating summer. I’ve never dealt with anything to this extent before, but all his issues just snowballed.
Eros had a terrible time last summer. I had him on Benadryl for months. This year he’s done better (so far) but I couldn’t tell you what’s different. Actually I can. NOTHING. Nothing is different. Horses never make sense.
I hope whichever bug(s) is/are torturing your boy move along soon. Poor guy!
He’s always reacted, but it’s been manageable? This year? Nope. His hypersensitivity just increases each day. We started steroids yesterday and with 2 doses he seems so much more comfortable and doesn’t seem like he wants to jump out of his skin. He still has the crud, but the steroids should help that too. Not thrilled to keep him on through September, but it’s our only option. We’ll allergy test for next year. All of this is impacting his immune system at this point so the the benefits of steroids outweigh any risks.