Polly has been chronically itchy for years. It’s been on the deal-with-eventually list for a while. 2022 was all about rehab and recovery and finding new baselines. At our fall vet visit, we opted to move forward with ulcer treatment, but also do allergy testing. The supplements were helping some. She was still itchy. She’d break out in hives on her hind legs and wanted so badly to rub on things when put in turnout.

Some horses have minor allergies to things, break out in hives, get over it, repeat. Polly was stuck in a cycle where she’d break out slowly in hives, get itchy, stay itchy, start to rub a few sections raw, get coated in cream.. maybe I made a blog post about trying fly sheets on her to see if that helped. It did not, but I got good at patching the many holes she’d put in the fly sheets.

The test results came back. Polly is allergic to, and this is not a comprehensive list:

• flax
• alfalfa
• wheat grass
• rye
• oats
• and various weeds, trees, insects, etc.

Polly’s “safe” cookies were flax cookies. They all got gifted to her cob friends. They’re great low-sugar, good for coats, all that stuff.. but bad for Polly.

Thankfully I’d just finished the alfalfa pellets – that’s what you give horses with ulcer problems, after all! – and moved her to grass pellets.

Also thankfully, the barn has already been feeding her straight grass hay, as the grass/alfalfa mix we started on wasn’t available and I didn’t want her on a straight flake of alfalfa. (I did talk to the vet, and we’re in agreement that if/when we move into endurance rides, Polly can eat whatever the heck she wants at the rides and we’ll just address the symptoms afterwards. A day or two every once in a while isn’t awful.)

Polly is now on one OTC allergy supplement, one prescription allergy supplement, and allergy shots. We had some breakthrough hives this fall that might be tied to the shots, so backed down on the dose with vet/clinic guidance and so far so good. Some folks would call in with great concern for the low-level stuff that we’ve just accepted as normal. She’s no longer rubbing herself raw or destroying her halters with how itchy she is in turnout, mostly! I won’t leave her there unsupervised, and I do ask her not to rub her neck on the trees, which seems to come up mostly in the week or so after the injections.

Polly no longer absolutely melts into my touch every time I offer wither scratches. I’m delighted. Poor mare was so uncomfortable for so long, and I hope we can keep making progress on this, even if it means doing allergy shots for the next 20 years.