Fever, but no other symptoms?

[alakazam]

What would cause a high fever, but no cough or nasal discharge? My horse had surgery for poll evil a year ago, and that's what we suspected is causing a high fever, but we just got culture results back that says its sterile. Potomic horse fever? She's been on gentamicin and naxcel since monday. My vet is going to consult with the people who did the culture to see if it could be because we were only able to aspirate a small amount of fluid to send away. Any ideas?

[Zu Zu]

Infection somewhere would be my only thought ~ check her over with a fine tooth comb could be a puncture wound ~ then localized swelling with appear soon Jingles for your mare ~ Jingle Jingle Jingle & AO ~ AO ~ AO Always Optimistic .

[NancyM]

IME, it usually means a viral infection, that has not yet had time to become bacterial. It is more the secondary bacterial infection in respiratory infections that causes the snot and productive coughing. It is the viral stage that produces the initial inflammation and damage in the airways and lungs and dry, unproductive cough, that the secondary bacterial infection then takes hold there after that. Dunno if maybe it is or is not related to the previous poll evil problem. Good luck.

[Phaxxton]

Might it be the early stages of a tick-borne illness?

[deltawave]

Hoary alyssum in the hay?

[LauraKY]

Here in Kentucky and elsewhere (I've heard from friends) there is a virus going around that causes a high fever, anorexia and nothing else. Vets have been treating it with banamine. We thought that was what my guy had, but his progressed to a lot of other symptoms which looked like Potomac fever (but this was in January/February) and vet pretty much ruled that out. Could have been a lot of things, but he was on 10 days of Oxytet and a couple of weeks on Doxy just to cover everything.

[Highflyer]

Did you pull blood? Best guess is Erlicchia or something else tick borne. Tetracycline IV for 5-7 days and banamine as needed. I pulled a tick off a horse in mid-Feb., so they're out there.

[alakazam]

Did you pull blood? Best guess is Erlicchia or something else tick borne. Tetracycline IV for 5-7 days and banamine as needed. I pulled a tick off a horse in mid-Feb., so they're out there.

Good point. That's a possibility. We haven't pulled blood, we've been going under the assumption that it's the poll evil. I'll mention something to the vet.

Thanks everyone.