I suppose I can just start out with the book definition “Strangles is a highly contagious disease that affects a horse’s lymph nodes in its upper respiratory tract. It is caused by a bacterium called streptococcus equi.” Sounds fun, huh? Has anyone thought about what causes the lymph nodes to swell up so much? Has anyone looked toxin levels in your horse? My guess is no.

“Good” barns will bring their vet in every six months and have people sign up and pay for their horses vaccines. Its no big deal, right? Vet comes, horse gets shot up, and you carry on. How many vaccines did your horse just get? Do you know what’s in those little syringes? I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I was pumping poison into my animals, and even myself! This leads me to the answer to my previous question; what about the lymph nodes? Lymph nodes are all over a horse’s body and ours too, amazing things that filter toxins out of our bodies, much of which gets sweat out.

When a horse get vaccinated it also gets a whole array of poisons put into its body. Some of which include formaldehyde and mercury. I know vaccines are a very controversial topic and I’m not trying to start a debate here, just trying to open some eyes. What I hope you open up to that these vaccines are what your horse’s body is trying to filter out. This “highly contagious disease” is nothing more then nature not being able to filter out the synthetics that it has been subjected to. Everyone knows that the term “strangles” comes from these swollen lymph nodes that get big enough to strangle a horse, by blocking off its airways. When the lymphatic systems can’t work properly they begin to capture these poisons yet never get rid of them. Thus you have a big ball of pus and synthetics that proceed to grow and strangle your horse.

Think about these grand prix show horses who travel the world, they get tons of vaccinations just before they get on a plane. This kills the body, and on top of that stress its even worse. So they get off the plane drugged and sick. What I don’t understand is why no one has made the connection between vaccinations and the disease. A WHOLE barn gets their vaccinations, and week later when the body’s immune system starts to fail the WHOLE barn gets sick. Connection? Maybe? I’ll let you be the judge of that. In my mind this isn’t as contagious a disease as they’ve made it sound. What do all show horses get just before a big show? Vaccines. I could go on forever… Sadly, if a horse has gotten to the point of oversized lymph nodes there isn’t any medication that can help this. From what I’ve seen, cutting the lymph node and letting it drain can be the best thing. There is also a treatment that I’ve been looking into called, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. If you like the sound of that its all over the internet, just type it into google and start learning. Its for everyone and everything.

I encurage you to research the vaccines you and your horse has been given and will get, if you can find a source that will tell you what is in these vaccines- even better! Send me some links if you ever find anything interesting.

-H&H

Its a an unexplainable occurrence in horses! “My horse became moon blind when he was nine and I had to put him down.” Yes, its a sad statement, yet apparently its permanent. Permanent? Is that what your vet says? Of course, that’s what all those good medical minds have come up with. Bravo! What if I told you that there was a cure? A completely simple cure that no vet has or will acknowledge thus far. 

Have you ever played around with a rubber band around your finger? When you tie it too tight, your finger starts to lose its blood supply and discolor. Now imagine that with the small nerve endings around your horses eye and instead of a rubber band, its a tight muscle. Horses have tons of muscles in their faces, and many of them cross over blood vessels and nerves. A major nerve that goes to the eye is called the Lacrimal Nerve and can easily be tightened over and causes the eye to blur over and cause blindness. Once the facial muscles are released the nerves and blood vessels are able to work correctly so the eye can return to normal? Its almost a paralysis of the eye. How do you fix this? SCRATCH! Scratch around the eye and all over the face. Even if the horse seems to be hurt at first, its just because of the tight muscles causing him pain. With more scratching they’ll soon let out a breath, drop their heads, and lick and chew with their mouths. Once this sign is seen then you’ve gotten a release. The more you scratch the better the horse will feel.

Uveitis can also be caused by worms. Worms? How does that affect the eye you ask? I’ve treated a mare who had signs of worms, with a lumpy neck and constant itching of it. Vet’s said she wouldn’t be cured, it was just another case of moon blindness. I’m glad we didn’t take that for an answer, since she now has her eye back. With some extensive use of the internet we learned that an old dog worming medicine from a compounding pharmacy would be useful. After some nonsense arguing with the vet we finally persuaded him to prescribe the the compound, at a low dose to begin with. This wormer comes in tubes and is called- Are you ready for this? Better write it down- Diethylcarbamazine. I’m not one to agree with medications but sometimes the old are better then the new. After about a month her eye started to clear up and she could see just fine. I wouldn’t try this in big doses just start out small to let the body get used to it. These little neck threadworms that cause “crusty necks” are tied to recurrent uveitis. The reason the uveitis keeps coming back is because these worms attack the eye and the natural way that the eye protects it’s self is to put up the cloudy barrier that causes the horse to lose sight in the eye. As the eye healed itself we noticed that the heat would pour out of the area and burn off the hair around her eyes at the same time the eye drained out.

-H&H