One unfortunate blemish Naia has is a sarcoid on the left side of her muzzle. It developed soon after I bought her. At first I thought it was ringworm, and tried treating it accordingly, but the fact that it didn't spread, nor respond to treatment made it clear that I was dealing with something else. I had my vet look at it and she is pretty sure it is a sarcoid, but she didn't think there was value in doing a formal biopsy to confirm. We talked through our options. There are multiple techniques that can work to remove sarcoids, but none are guaranteed, and all carry the risk that you may irritate the sarcoid and cause it to grow. Right now Naia's is not causing her any issues, but it's location is problematic should it decide to grow. Based on my vet's advice, I am leaving it be for now, but monitoring it's size and appearance. The second it shows signs of growing we will act quickly and my vet will try and do surgery to remove it with as good of margins as possible, but if it doesn't grow we are just going to let it be.
Honestly, the most annoying parts of it are that it makes her a bit less photogenic on the one side, and I know it is something that would turn off some potential buyers should I choose to sell Naia in the future. While those things suck, they are not nearly significant enough to risk surgery unnecessarily now so we will keep monitoring Mr. Sarcoid and hope that he stays chill and small. In case you ever see a weird spot on her face in photos, now you know why!
Anyone have any sarcoid stories of their own?
I had an 8 yr old TB mare that developed a sarcoid on the right side of her neck shortly after I purchased her. I though it was a scab from a bite mark, as she had a few of those on her. It started as the size of a dime and grew to the size of a quarter. I consulted with my vet (at the time), who recommended that we remove it surgically. I went ahead with the surgery - after all, the vet recommended it. The surgeon assured me we had clean, healthy margins all around, and felt that we would have success with healing and no reoccurance.
ReplyDeleteI ended up selling the mare for other reasons, but a year or so later I saw her - the sarcoid had come back ANGRY and with a vengeance. It grew to encompass a large portion of the side of her neck.
Bottom line is that I wish I had left it alone. Looking back, I think the vet was excited to use his shiny new surgery clinic and didn't give me the best guidance on my situation. Your situation may be different, but I felt compelled to share my experience, if it could help someone else avoid what I consider a mistake that I wish I could go back and change.
That's exactly the kind of scenario that scares me!
DeleteI had a little gelding that developed one near his girth. It was a number of years ago and my vet injected (I want to say he equated it to chemo drugs) into the margins of it and it disappeared. I sold little gelding a couple of years after so I don't know if it eventually came back, but the initial results were encouraging.
ReplyDeleteYes I had this treatment for my gelding too. It worked really well. He had a sarcoid on his chest and we left it. But then it started to grow and bleed.
DeleteGood to know in case we get to the point where treatment is necessary
DeleteSo this is going to sound really random but Tristan had one on his chest for a few years - 2-3 maybe - and then one summer it just dried up and fell off...and now you can't ever tell anything was there. It was so random. My vet had strongly advised me to leave it alone, because she didn't want it to react, so I had resigned myself to it and...boom. Gone.
ReplyDeleteI would love if that happened to Naia!
DeleteOne of the horses at my yard came to me a couple of years ago with a sarcoid on her belly. It blew up a bit in the summer, and we were just starting to think of having it removed when it suddenly shrunk and almost disappeared. They're funny little buggers!
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