The Impact of Air Quality and Pollution on Your Horse’s Lungs
barn and a careful physical and respiratory examination that often involves rebreathing. This is a technique where a bag is briefly placed over the horses nose causing them to breathe more frequently and more deeply to make their lung sounds louder. This helps your veterinarian hear subtle changes in air movement through the lungs and amplifies the wheezes and crackles that characterize a horse experiencing a severe asthma attack. Wheezes indicate air whistling through constricted airways and crackles mean airway fluid buildup. The fluid accumulation is caused by airway inflammation and contributes to the challenge of getting air
Other tests your veterinarian might use are endoscopy bronchoalveolar lavage and in the specialist setting pulmonary function testing. They will also perform a complete blood count and biochemical profile assay to help rule out the presence of an infectious disease.
Endoscopy allows your veterinarian to see the mucus in the trachea and large airways of the lung. It also lets them see whether there are physical changes to the shape of the airways which can be seen in horses with sEA.
