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Trakehners Australia Inc TA NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2011 ISSUE EQUITANA Greasy Heel 2011 T A I get to see a great many horses in my professional life. I take particular interest in those horses that appear to be suffering the condition known as 'greasy heel' and will always try to make a point of approaching the owner and ask how long the horse has had the complaint and how they are treating it. Through this process I have been able to determine that at least 45% of horses that are being treated for greasy heel have in fact are suffering from a little known about complaint known as Pastern Leukocytoclastic Plasmosis. This complaint that has the exact same symptoms of and presents itself in the same manner as the complaint known as greasy heel. Yet when treated as greasy Leukocytoclastic Plasmosis heel, it only serves to inflame the situation and ongoing treatments then become a nightmare in their own right. Pastern Leukocytoclastic Plasmosis is quite often easily cured. It is a condition quite often mistaken for greasy heel and when misdiagnosed becomes not so easy to cure as it has been improperly treated. Despite having some research done into the condition, so far no determinable causative factor has been identified as the main protagonist; although photosensitization and damp and perhaps a bacteria are thought to be major considerations. Some other thoughts lean toward it being associated with particular drugs being administered to the horse. Others lean more toward it being triggered by UV rays of sunlight (this combined with wet conditions is also my own experience on the matter). Still, it has yet again re-appeared in March 2007, and I am about to treat it with the topical yet again. To sum the condition up as far as cause it is fair to say that so far nothing of note has been determined as the causative factor other than anecdotal, but an immune component is also thought to be possible as Leukocytoclastic Plasmosis well as the fact that being confined to the nonpigmented areas of the horse, UV rays could also be a possibility.
Trakehners Australia Inc TA NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2011 ISSUE EQUITANA Greasy Heel 2011 The condition is also referred to as Photo aggravated vasculitis and most commonly affects the mature horse, in particular the horses with no pigmentation of the skin in the lower limb extremities such as the pastern or fetlock or heel bulb. The multiple lesions that occur in these areas are well defined and will present with the following visuals. * A redness or reddening of the entire area * Oozing and open crusted sores develop * Swelling of the affected limb occurs. * Sometimes in chronic cases, it will take on a crusty wart like appearance. My own (Painthorse) presented with the condition as a 4 yo. Like most people I first thought it was a simple case of 'greasy heel'. It appeared identical to that condition. I treated the condition with all the usual 'scrub the scabs off', plaster it in a drying agent, used a wide range of other products -Potties, Illium Neocorte, Prednoderm, yellow lotion, copper sulphate spray, Zinc etc. etc. you name it, I tried it and all to no avail. All these different treatments only served only to aggravate the condition. Despite these treatments, it was as if I had thrown an accelerant on a fire, the condition quickly worsened and spread upward at an alarming rate. This treatment period was in the vicinity of about 2 months and still no further advanced in so far as curing the complaint. The horse by this time was extremely tender and sore and reluctant to allow touch to the area. After considerable weeks of consulting with different other veterinarians and alternating various treatments of the range of products and potions, I was at wits end and fast running out of ideas when I accidentally found a rather small book written by Professor Reginald Pascoe, a world recognised equine veterinary authority, and within the pages of this small publication, Prof. Pascoe described to a letter the condition my horse was suffering. The article also gave the known cure for the condition - the application of a topical cortisone. T A
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8'800 Price neg. 0437 — 800 — 339 or celestialpark@iinet.net.au

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