Oh, Boy, Was That Ever Gross

If you are squeamish, simply read the condensed version that follows. If you dig learning about all of the weird crap that can happen to horses, stay tuned. It's about to get weird(er). Here's part one.

Short Version:
Speedy does indeed have a summer sore in his urethra. Summer sores are caused by fly larvae. They typically occur on a horse's moist areas such as eyes, corner of the mouth, and occasionally, the penis. Treatment includes steroids, to reduce the inflammation and allergic reaction, and dewormers.

Long Version:
Holy hell, summer sores are gross, creepy, and not something you ever want your horse to have anywhere near his junk. As I suspected, Dr. Tolley thought I should bring Speedy in, and the sooner the better. I called on Tuesday morning, and we were there by 2:45 that afternoon.

I unloaded Speedy and walked straight into the hospital's examining bay. Dr. Tolley didn't mess around. He asked a few questions, and then he brought out a sedative. Speedy has proven to be a roaring dragon when he's in the stocks getting messed with in a serious way, and Dr. Tolley wanted no part of that business as he was messing with Speedy's ... business.

As soon as Speedy's lil' dude dropped, Dr. Tolley took hold and peered closely at the urethra. It was nasty. I mean, I had seen it, felt it, and held it up close and personal, but seeing it exposed in full daylight without Speedy snapping it back inside showed how disgusting and crusty it was. What Dr. Tolley had to do next made it all even worse.

Dr. Tolley used a very pointy pair of scissors and dug inside the tube of the urethra, scraping and scooping all of the funk out. As Dr. Tolley is wont to do, he scraped the gunk into my hands for examination. Speedy isn't always the best patient, and I am a hands on type of client, so Dr. Tolley long ago gave up using "real" assistants. I am now the assistant, so handing him the soaking cotton and squirting soap onto it as he passed me the necrotic tissue to examine was no big thing.

Even sedated, Speedy wasn't too happy to have the inside of his you-know-what scraped with a long pointed object. I couldn't blame him. Before long, the dead tissue was scraped away and blood was dripping to the floor. I didn't know you could dig into that little opening quite that far, and I am sure Speedy wasn't aware of that fact either. Either way, it had to be done.

While Dr. Tolley is happy to explain what he's doing, I have learned to be a tiny bit patient and let him do his job. So while I wanted to keep asking, and then what are you going to do? I didn't, but I so wanted to. Instead, I waited and watched. Once Speedy's manhood seemed to be free of all things nasty, Dr. Tolley brought out some Elastikon tape and a thing that looked like a baby sock. Yes, you read that right, and yes, it was actually a penis sock. Dr. Tolley didn't call it that, but that's what it was.

Unlike vet wrap, which only sticks to itself, Elastikon sticks to everything. In fact, if you were to wrap it around your arm, you would lose all of the hair once you pulled it off. It is STICKY. I can see you doing the math right now, and yes, you would be right. Dr. Tolley wrapped that super sticky tape around Speedy's ding-a-ling and actually WANTED it to stick. Before wrapping it around though, he first slipped Speedy's penis into the sock and then taped the sock to his penis using the super sticky Elastikon. I swear this was not a scene from the movie American Pie.

Once the sock was taped securely in place, Dr. Tolley applied a huge handful of Triamcinolone Cream - the same steroidal cream he prescribed for Izzy's gnat bites, to the entire head of Speedy's very tender doodle. Before finishing completely, he also gave Speedy a dose of dewormer and an injection of Dexamethasone. Once all of that was finished, Speedy was taken to a paddock, and Dr. Tolley and I had a powwow.

What I wanted to know (and I am sure you do, too) is how did that happen, and what the heck does one have to do to not let it happen again? In short, summer sores are the result of a nematode (worm). Rather than explain the life cycle, read this bit from Arizona Equine (full article here): 

Summer sores are commonly found on the lower limb, corner of the eye, and the urethral process of geldings and stallions. They can also be found on the face neck or any other area of the body that has had an open sore or wound. They are characterized by a non-healing sore with small yellow granules, and decayed tissue.

The adult worms live in your horse’s stomach. The eggs are passed into manure where flies ingest them. The larvae then move to the mouthparts of the flies and get deposited on moist areas of your horse while the flies are feeding. The routine life cycle occurs when the fly lands on the horse’s mouth, the larvae are deposited and swallowed.

​Flies are attracted to different areas on the horse for feeding, mouth, eyes, wounds and sheath. Any skin abrasions or wounds are also potential sites for the larvae to set up housekeeping. The larvae do some damage directly simply by migrating into tissues and causing irritation. The larvae cannot live in these areas. Much of the reaction is from the horse’s own immune system responding to the larval invaders.

Image borrowed from Arizona Equine

For now, I'll be giving Speedy injections of the Dexamethasone for the next ten days, applying liberal amounts of Triamcinolone Cream to his kicky-wicky, and dousing him with fly spray. Because his body's immune system is over-reacting, his eyes are also filled with puss because of the flies, so I am adding an ointment as often as possible. And while Izzy will probably have them torn to bits, I covered Speedy with a fly sheet and fly mask. Surprisingly everything, including the penis sock, was still in place yesterday afternoon.

Normally, Speedy is fly-free. I don't know why they've bothered him so much this year. I rarely even use fly spray on him, and they are never on his face. They love Izzy instead. My fingers are crossed that we can kill off any lingering Habronema. My boys are wormed regularly, but since not everyone worms their horses, reinfection is possible.

And that my friends, is one of the grossest things one of my horses has ever had!