Remedies for Resolving Abscesses

Romeo and Summer

By Mary Gallagher

Last month, a mare belonging to one of our boarders developed an abscess. The owner, Blaire Elizabeth, and I agreed to wait patiently for it to ‘ripen’ and open on its own, which I have found to be the wisest approach. However, after two weeks, Summer (the mare) was still lame and our patience was running thin. I decided to look up a homeopathic remedy for her, and found that Silica was recommended to help resolve abscesses. So Blaire gave Summer one dose of Silica 30c, and sure enough, the next day the abscess had burst and Summer seemed greatly relieved.


Not long after, oddly enough, Blaire's other horse, Romeo, was playing hard in the pasture and came up lame. Blaire thought it was a tendon or ligament injury, as he had injured himself that way a few years back. With that in mind, we agreed that the remedies Arnica (for trauma) and Rhuta-grav and Rus-tox for soft tissue injury, would be the way to go. But the next day, Blaire found a soft spot on Romeo’s heel, which seemed sensitive when pressed. Remembering our success with Summer, she went ahead and gave him a dose of Silica, and what do you know, an abscess opened the next day and he was much better.

The timing here was interesting, as I have been helping Blaire compile remedies for her home horse kit (Summer and Romeo will soon be moving to her family’s new property near by). What a good reminder to stay curious about methods and remedies for familiar equine ailments. I think the best way to learn about remedies is to use them; homeopathic remedies are benign and there is rarely a downside to trying them. Audrey Bryant started me on this path years ago, with her colic remedy kit, and I have just added to it since.

Audrey comments:

Hepar-Sulph is the recommended remedy to “ripen” an abscess. It promotes suppuration or the formation of pus, however Silica (silicea) is the remedy that will “push” it out.  It’s a great remedy to expel foreign bodies lodged in the tissues. The body treats damaged/bruised tissue as foreign and will form an abscess to purge it.  This is why it’s never a good idea to try and cut or dig an abscess out.  There is no way of knowing if all the damaged or foreign tissue has been removed and it will continue to abscess if it hasn’t, and what generally takes a few weeks to resolve, will take months.