Hi Everyone I wondered if anyone could throw any light on problem I have with Kismet my 20 yr old pony. I rescued him as yearling, he had a few problems in his early life probably down to his poor start, the ones I think may be relevant now are, a kick to his R stifle not long after I got him, infected gelding wound, Lymphangitis in all 4 feet as a 2 year old, apparantly a severe reaction to a couple of fly bites. Now his problems are arthritis in that stifle only presents as a stiffness and slight swelling but does hurt when his back feet are picked up, but not always. He still chases around the field bucking and prancing (he has always been a drama queen!) he still loves to go out for rides and always comes over when he sees his tack so I know it does nt hurt to be ridden. However for the last year or so he is getting very itcy in his sheath area, it has always been swollen, a legacy from the lymphangitis? there is also alot of scar tissue from his gelding. I use a proper sheath cleaner on him, recently he is producing less smegma so vet suggested K y jelly or aqueous cream which has helped the dryness. But he still itches even when I stroke inside his back legs, his ultimate treat is to find the big traffic cone and rub just in front of his sheath! otherwise it looks like he is trying to pee but has to rock about abit first. Incidently his pee is fine, he produces a good stream of a good colour and no stopping and starting. The vet thinks its poor circulation, which does make sense. I have to massage him which I do anyway for his stifle and he loves his body massages so I just include his swollen sheath in the routine! There is no sign of any growths inside his sheath or on his penis but to examine him properly vet would need to give him something which would predispose him to laminitis which both he and I are reluctant to do. His penis also hangs to the right, I know that sounds bad but It makes me wonder if it could be tied in with nerve damage to his right stifle? The vet could nt really throw any light on it. Anyway apart from this he is fine, in lovely condition etc he is fed dengi hi fi lite and spillers hi fi cubes he is living out only in at night if weather nasty. supplements are garlic, seaweed, cider vingar, glucosamine and has access to a mineral block. He was on cod liver oil (dry skin) but stopped a couple of years ago due to starting glucosamine I had a few issues about feeding too much fish based product to a herbiviore? maybe I should try soya oil or something? Has anyone got any idea on this? I feel it must be so annoying to be this itchy. Kismet and I hope someone can help!!

a few thoughts...

with regards to stiffness, it probably is arthritis considering his age and the previous injury. there are lots of supplements on the market designed to help. the ones i have been told by my friends that work are Super Solvitax R~A Formula, Cortaflex and Cortaflex HA, Equiflex, and although I have no need of an arthritis supplement so I haven't tried it I use Feedmark herbal products and find them great. I agree keeping him out as much as possible is the best thing. if you do bring him in at night shavings might be a better option because you can have a nice deep bed without it becoming difficult to walk around in, which can happen with straw. Also leg wraps or stable bandages over gamaee will help to keep the joints warm so he's less likely to stiffen up. With the riding I'd carry on as normal if he's happy, remembering that a short ride every day is better than one long ride at the weekend for keeping the joints loose.

the swollen sheath
- heart trouble (failure) can cause this so if your vet hasn't already investigated this possibility it might be worth mentioning, but don't panic it doesn't necessarily mean your horse is about to die.
- fly bites. you mention a reaction to fly bites above. the sheath is one of only a few non hairy areas on the horse so therefore easier for the flies to get to the skin. in summer loads of tiny tiny black flies bite my horses sheath and if too many do it he gets very swollen. hot temperatures continue for longer these days, it may not yet be cold enough to kill all the flies. if i look carefully i will see lots of red/black dots (blood fresh/dried) on his sheath, but my horse has pink skin there so maybe not so easy to see on dark skinned horses.
- this is going to sound disgusting but have you looked into the "eye" of the penis? two horses i have known had a little trouble weeing, as in they would seem to want to go, but sometimes wouldn't, although they both could and did wee at other times. they were both also very itchy. in both cases it turned out to be a solid build up of "willy muck" (for want of a better term!) that was partially blocking the "eye". this is not something that is immediately obvious, as one of these horses was owned by a veterinary nurse and she'd looked everywhere to find the cause of the possible discomfort to her horse, but didn't think to look there until i told her. both people simply picked off the lump of muck and the problem was solved. your vet may need to give a sedative to make your horse relax and let his penis hang out so you can see, unless he's the naturally laid-back type who always has it out anyway.

can't think of anything else right now but if i do i'll post it on here.

have you thought of having some scrapings tested for the sheath area to see if it's a fungus or an infestation?

Thank you both for the advice, he is on shavings if he comes in and bandaged at night I did try Cortaflex HA on him and my old 31 year (RIP dear Humphrey) a few years ago but have to say over the course of a year or more didnt notice any benefit ( although I realise it may have prevented them getting worse.) I ve just taken him off the glucosamine supplement I had him on, just wondered if he may be sensitve to that (shellfish origin) Im on a vegetarian one, maybe they do Vegetarian ones for horses??? at the moment I m trying movefree by global herbs and Im going to try a lymphatic support also by them. The end of his willy is clear so its not that, and yes he has always loved having it cleaned so theres none left behind!!!! and I put a herbal fly balm called itch stop by net tex around the inside of his legs etc. as well as fly repellant elsewhere. I do have the vet coming out to him soon so I will mention a skin scrape as well as about his heart. Thanks again and keep racking your brains PLEASE!

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Global Herbs also do something called Stop Itch i think. great natural supplement for the itchies. Maybe another idea? Is it possible its something in the shavings your getting?

a word of caution: the cream itch stop salve complete by net tex contains benzyl benzoate which is commonly used in the treatment of sweet itch but some horses are allergic to benzyl benzoate it and it makes their skin go flaky and itchy. i'm sure you'd have noticed if this is the case with your horse, but i wanted to point it out just in case.

Its not the shavings, started when he was on straw, anyway he is out more often than not, but thanks anyway. The comment about the itch stop is interesting because although kismet is fine on it, I have another pony with sweet itch who although it soothes him it does make his skin flake and we are going to try another product by global herbs for him. so thank you for pointing that out, thats convinced me to try the other for sam!! thanks everyone for continuing to mull this one over, I ll leave you with a pic of sam now!

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if it started when he was on straw could harvest mites be part of the problem? i'd be surprised if all your horses problems were down to harvest mites but they can make horses itchy. they live in the bedding and get on your horses hair, biting and sucking his blood I think.

I had vet again this week who is adament it is down to circulation, I am now trying a herbal supplement to help with this. I also had a niggle that he had something going on inside his sheath a bit like thrush or something, the vet wont have that at all, says he feels fine, so I googled this and found some people recomending vagisil, believe me watching him itch last week there was nothing lost in trying so I got some, spot tested it first, all was fine so Ive started putting it on twice daily after one dose he was completely different and improving all the time, so although his circulation still may be a bit slow there WAS something else going on as well. I will tell the vet I think, I ll be interested to hear what he says. I exercised caution using it at first and still will with it being a human product, but the way it appears to be helping hopefully i will stop it in a couple of days. Thanks everyone for your help on this and I will let you know of any updates!

glad you're getting somewhere with solving the itchyness at last. I suppose it will be slow progress but at least you've got a diagnosis on his legs now. x