2 1/2 month update

It has been two and a half months since my last update and four months since the last treatment. Bridling is going fine and I can touch, grab, squeeze and poke his ears again. Even the clippers to make him show ready are welcome. So I thought it was time for an update.

The good news however stops there ... The plaques are back albeit not at a painful level ... yet ... It is definitely looking better than it has been but I am debating if I should give him an other round of treatment in the fall or if it will be coming back after that as well. I'm still on the fence....

Here the pictures:

Left ear:

Right ear:

The small joys in life....

It's kinda sad but one week shy of his 12th birthday, I am overly joyful that I can bridle Beamer 'the normal way' again.
Since his last treatment end of January we have been slowly progressing with the ear touching stuff. Scratch behind the pol without star gazing, cookie, brushing forelock without flinching, cookie, stroking the base of his ears, cookie, pulling halter on and off over the ears, cookie. You get the point. I have been less and less careful pulling his blanket over his head and when today he did not pull back and let me take it off despite the pressure on his ears, I decided we were ready to try again.
I say again because I tried this a week ago and after him snapping is head up the moment I touched his ears with the bit still in his mouth, we had a standoff. He refused to take the bit no mater how much I tickled his tongue. It took a good ten minutes of coaxing when he finally took the bit again.  Of course I had to take the damn thing apart for it ...
So fast forward to today. I kept the halter underneath to be safe. Without a fuss he took the bit and joy oh joy I grabbed his right ear pushed it forward trough the head stall, grabbed his left and stuck it trough. Before he realized it he was bridled !!!!
I know it is pitiful to be happy with such a small thing but those of you who have been following this blog will understand ....

We're done !!!

I can not believe I actually did not get a good picture of either ear. But we're done. I cleaned out all the loose scabs and dried crud that had formed. I wanted to do this last week but I budged the shot when he moved his head and neck.
There is some redness from the tender exposed skin in his right ear but aside from scarred spots the ears are clean. No sign of white plaques anywhere.
Now comes the long road of recovery and retraining bridling the normal way. I sure don't want to be taking this thing apart for the rest of his life. I'll give him few more weeks of healing before I'll start with this. The fact that there are no dangly things in his ears anymore should help. The weather is getting nicer too and that will help in making them less tender to the touch.

We're slowing down and getting there

I think Beamer is trying to find ways to get his shots. I have been treating him once a week but I think he thought he could trick me and get me to add an extra  round.

When tacking him up last Tuesday I noticed his muzzle hairs being short and thick. Well they we're not. He had 'spikes' sticking out of his nose about 20-30 of them. Not that he seems to be bothered by them but touching them did make him flinch a bit. First I thought they were some kind of thorns or so. But when I pulled the first one out, which was not easy, it looked more like a quill. Only a lot shorter then I would expect from one. So, a hedgehog ? No not indigenous in the US. So I settled on a 'baby' porcupine.

Now were he would have found one in the middle of January I do not know but he does have a habit of sticking his nose in places where it should not be. He's been known to pull bra straps of unwary farriers but that's a different story.

The night in question however was not a planed treatment night and I had not brought his fix. Pulling them out by hand and non-sedated it had to be. Besides him sticking his nose in places, he also has an sick liking to a light pulling on his nose whiskers. This helped a little and despite the slipperiness from the blood now running down his nose I got most of them pulled out straight. I found one that was in with only a 1/4 inch sticking out and I could not get a hold of it with him twitching his nose. It became a catch game with pliers and even with those I had to pull hard. In the end there were about 20-30 laying on the floor. All about 3/4 of an inch long and had been buried about 2/3 of that into his nose. They definitely felt scaly stroking towards the tip. Leave it up to him to wake a sleeping needle pin cushion !!

So onto his ears.

The whole thing was pretty uneventful and I think one more week and we're done. The white seen is mostly new skin that comes off when cleaning. Some round white spots that I think are deeper damaged tissue and will heal over time.

Left ear:

 Right ear:

We're back !

Treatments have been halted since the last one on Dec 21, 2011 and it has started to heal up nicely. Today I wanted to see where we stand and get all the dangly scabs out of his ears. It's amazing how quickly the hairs grow back. His left ear is quite clean and I will leave it alone for now. There might be little spots left on the white scarred skin but I'll have to wait a bit longer and let it heal more before I can tell for sure.
His right ear on the other hand needs an other round. I was afraid of that as I started to get down to the skin rather late in the last round.
I'll get an other bottle of the Xylazene and get at it again :-(
I really want to do it right and complete so I don't have to get back at it next winter ....

Left ear:

Right ear:

Day thirteen: slowly improving although it does not look like it.

We're in the full swing of treatment now. The schedule is set and really, the whole thing usually lasts only 15 min. The first day after the week off there is however some more cleaning to do and it takes a little longer. The sedation sets in quickly but starts to wear off after 30-45 min. So I do have to act somewhat swift. Plucking out the chunks and scraping of the soft plaque with a wet clot is still a little of a struggle but doable. Yesterday he had a shaking fit at the end of my ride and I let him get it out of his system. After I saw a 1 inch big chunk fly out of his ear he was done. It must have come loose and started to really irritate him. I'm glad he got it out on his own.

After the cleaning I search for the trouble areas to treat very locally as both ears are pretty raw. His left ear looks the worst as I was treating it near the tips. On the pictures it looks like his ear is swollen this is however just from the lighting. The white areas are white skin patches that are healing and the red areas are where the cream did it's job. His right ear has only been treated about half way in and the old 'plaque ridges' are gone and starting to clean up nicely. I will finish this weeks schedule as I want to completely get rid of it and I think we're getting there. I might even be able to stop after this week !! That would be a nice Christmas gift to Beamer. Not more pestering with his ears. Then we can start the New Year with clean plaque free ears, wouldn't that be nice ....

Left ear:

 

Right ear:

Day eleven and twelve: here we go again...

So, I didn't post since last Sunday as there was not much to post about. I re-started the treatment on both ears now and will continue until it is done. After the Wednesday session his ears caught on quickly with the inflammation and they are all raw and red again. The scabs come off easy as the are are pussy underneath. Cleaning with a wet cloth is still not his favorite part but we're getting the job done. The good thing is that with all the hair gone and most of the plaques as well, I get to focus on the left over spots. The whole thing does not take more than 15 min (+5 min for the sedation to set in).

Lesson learned though that a sedated horse can still be easily startled. I went into his stall to put his blanket on and he did not notice me coming. He had his face to the back corner. Suddenly he realized something was rustling and rattling behind him and he flew forward, head first into the wall !!!! Then he turned his head around and looked at me with a sheepish look on his face. Thankfully he didn't hurt himself and with the sedation he might not feel a headache either ... Sorry Boy, I'll be a little LOUDER next time so you can hear me coming into your stall!!

No pictures this time.