Anhidrosis
11/12/21
“Anhidrosis - ever heard of it?”
This is the inability of the body to sweat properly.
When affected, a horse that normally sweats when exercised or under certain environmental conditions will stop sweating or sweat minimally.
If you're unfamiliar, this condition is usually brought about by a stressful event, although the cause remains largely unknown. For further reading: https://www.hagyard.com/anhidrosis-in-horses....
Also... did you also know, certain medications can cause this?
Here is my horse as a case study for today...
My horse had been coughing intermittently for about a month. We tried wetting his hay, wetting feed, swapping hay, changing feed,, etc. but nothing helped. So I had the vet out to do an exam and scope him, he scoped clear. So it was determined the likely culprit is environmental allergens.
For the past few weeks he has been on an antihistamine for allergies causing coughing. The coughing stopped! However, last week we noticed during his workout he wasn't sweating as he usually does (we live in Florida, horses and humans all sweat a lot down here ) and his respiratory rate was greatly elevated without doing too much exercise. We then temped him and found his temperature was 102.9.
What was going on?...
To make a long story short- he is otherwise healthy but suffering from anhidrosis induced by the antihistamine he's on. This is a side effect in some horses, which I didn't know of prior.
How do we know it was the medication? The non-sweating only occurs when he's on it. We removed it for multiple days to see if he would sweat again and he did. We then put him back on it and he stopped sweating again.
What we did, and what you can do if this happens to your horse,... cold hose them extensively, put them under fans, offer plenty of fresh cool water, allow ample time prior to feeding them for their respiratory rate and temperature to go back to normal. If elevated temp or signs of distress persist CALL YOUR VET.
Luckily we have options and I am very in tune to how much he sweats. For now, we are going to try another antihistamine to see if that helps his symptoms but still allows him to sweat as normal.
Disclaimer - I am not a vet and it is best to check in with your vet if this has occurred with you horse. But hopefully these tips give you a few pointers if you start an antihistamine with your horse and they stop sweating!
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