****4 year old diagnosed with liver disease after collapse today****

[princestar]

Hi

Star had a 'fit' today, she went stiff, arched her neck, her eyes rolled and she fell flat onto the side. she knocked the fence down as she fell, but she fell with her legs straight onto her side, her legs didn't buckle. Vet came out and checked her over - she said she was a very fit and healthy horse, she's 4 1/2 so young and has moved to a new yard 5 days ago... She's settled in very quickly, has been out as usual and stabled at night.

Vet took bloods and checked Star over, said she was all in all a very good healthy little mare.

She called back tonight to give us results.... Star has liver disease, (we dont know to what level yet) and some blood clotting. She also has low white blood cells.

We are in bits (my friend and me share her), we have no insurance, but we are more worried at the moment about her prognosis.....

The vet is coming back tomorrow to do further tests, speak to us about options and give us advise, such as feeding and managing. She will also tell us what level the liver is at.....

Has anyone else's horse suffered with this at such a young age (she will be 5 in May, we have owner her for 8 months).

What can we do to manage it, what is her life expectancy, will we be able to insure her (she isnt insured and i dont think many companies will insure her and we wont be able to get her insured to help with covering the costs)

Vet said if she had a 5* vetting she would pass perfectly.... Just the liver that is the problem......

Gutted... Poor Girly...

Please, any advise or reassurance!!

 

[flintfootfilly]

Sorry to hear about Star. Hope things start to look up.

Insurance-wise, no, you won't be able to take out insurance for her for what is now a "pre-existing condition". In some ways that's a pain, because with insurance you could opt for all sorts of investigations almost regardless of cost. But the flipside is that without insurance, it really does help focus the mind in terms of WHY would I choose to opt for a particular test/procedure, WHAT would we do differently depending on the results of that test/procedure, is there any merit in just WAITING rather than rushing in to certain treatments etc. So I would just be very careful to think through each suggestion that the vet makes very carefully, and be absolutely clear on approximate costs, and how often a particular procedure provides results which really do help the horse.

My gang have ongoing liver problems (probably started after supplementing selenium to counter a muscle problem, but one pony was subsequently confirmed as having liver fluke, so all have been wormed for fluke and shown an improvement in liver enzymes), but I've not had one who has had a fit like your horse. I think I'd be asking questions about that - is it that the fit had something to do with clots in the blood getting to the brain, or something like that (I've no idea. Just total speculation, but I think it's important to know whether the liver results and the fit are likely to be connected or whether they are separate problems).

Liver problems can be very difficult to get to the bottom of. A lot of times, people cannot find the cause of the problems. Some may be chronic; some acute. In other words, some liver problems may have been building up over a long time, whilst others might relate to something very recent.

I would ask for copies of all blood reports so that you can start to monitor any changes. GGT is probably elevated, and can take a while to drop even when the insult to the liver is removed. However, I understand that GLDH tends to go up quickly when the liver is compromised, but then also goes down again quickly when the insult is removed. So GLDH can be really useful in terms of getting an idea whether you have an ongoing insult, or whether it's something historic..... if that makes sense.

Also worth seeing what values are for alkaline phosphatase, bile acids and urea as these can indicate whether the liver function is impaired (whereas GGT generally indicates cellular damage to the liver, but the liver may still be working ok).

I know that liver disease can cause manic behaviour, but I don't know whether that includes fits etc. It can be important to keep the diet low in protein (as a compromised liver struggles to cope with protein) and also to make sure it's "good quality" protein - ie lysine and methionine, so worth having a word with some of the good nutritionists at feed companies.

If the white cells are low, it probably indicates that your horse is fighting an infection (which may be related to the liver damage). A friend opted to have a liver biopsy on her liver-diseased horse and this was able to find which antibiotic could best be used against the infection in that horse's liver. But I've also heard of plenty of horses who've had liver biopsies which have really not revealed much, and certainly haven't influenced the course of action/treatment.

I think if it was my horse, I'd be wanting to check out what has changed recently, especially as you say you have recently moved yards. You could for example have the forage tested for minerals in case any are at toxic levels (Sciantec near Selby do a good fast service on this), mycotoxins in hay etc.

They say that the liver has amazing powers of regeneration, but that by the time signs of liver disease are apparent there may have been too much of the liver damaged for it to repair. But each horse is an individual, and again I know of one horse whose liver biopsy looked fairly horrendous but the horse is still apparently fit and well and working.

Good luck with things.

Sarah

 

[iconique]

I've got an older mare that several years ago collapsed on the road with me, she's always been scatty but was more erratic than ever, weaving (she did it when we bought her) for no reason, standing at the gate wanting to come in, sensitive to the cold and more hungry than usual. We think it was an infection and have kept her low protein diet since, something isn't quite right now, but we are 5 years on and she's in her 20's so not the same as you, but wanted to post don't worry too much quite yet. The specialist from the rvc was sure it wasn't ragwort which was our big concern, plus if there is one organ in the body to affect the only one that can regenerate its the liver (however if it gets to neurological signs it may be very difficult)
Box of frogs on here has posted a lot and if you search some of her threads it may help you. Many things can cause the liver to react including toxins and infections.
Hope star does well.

 

[Rebels]

My then 2 yr old collapsed with a liver infection. He had had several incidences of colic, up to 3 a week for around a month before with the vet bemused but treating it as colic. Then he got wobbly, lost some weight so vet took him in to weigh thinking it was worm related which didn't help. The next day he collapsed and was unconsious to the biggest stimuli, I tried everything and so did the vet. In the end she stabbed him with scissors until she got him up and we then carried him to a field shelter. I honestly thought he was a gonner, we literally had to hold him up and she was convinced he had neurological problems. She took blood, raced off (literally hit 50 mph on a rutted track) and yelled to feed him the highest protein food we could cue dad racing to feed shop. We had just started stuffing that down him when she rang to say no protein whatsoever, his liver was almost fatally compromised. We had a long period of feeding him every two hours to give him strength to fight the infection with antibiotics and steroids. He was so I'll and he was so close to death we couldn't even put him inside as vet pointed out the hunt would struggle to get him out if he died. It took a while, £1100 and a lot of sleepless nights but now have a healthy young (5) event prospect so don't despair.
Also this year my whole yard was hit by a virus that caused raised muscle enzymes and some unusual liver signs, we put the slow to recover ones on Legaphyton, search and you can get it cheaper online. That had an immediate improvement in bloods. Its super super concentrated milk thistle and my vet recommended it to me.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

The prognosis depends on what is causing the liver disease. If it's ragwort poisoning then the outlook is poor. Ragwort damaged livers cannot regenerate. Liver damage only starts to show when approximately 70% or more of the liver is damaged so unfortunately a lot of harm can be caused before owners realise there's a problem. The liver has such a range of functions within the body that any damage to it can cause major problems. One symptom is neurological damage which can take the form of fits, blindness, unusual vocalisations, self harm, unsteady gaits and a host of other distressing things. To support your horse's liver while the vets work out the cause and prognosis, you need to feed a very low protein diet, absolutely no oils or conditioning feed whatsoever even if the horse starts to lose weight, feed Milk Thistle and Yea Sac, feed little and often. Top quality nursing to counteract depression and loss of interest in life. Keep out of strong sunlight. Fingers crossed - do let us know what your vets say x

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Hi

Star had a 'fit' today, she went stiff, arched her neck, her eyes rolled and she fell flat onto the side. she knocked the fence down as she fell, but she fell with her legs straight onto her side, her legs didn't buckle. Vet came out and checked her over - she said she was a very fit and healthy horse, she's 4 1/2 so young and has moved to a new yard 5 days ago... She's settled in very quickly, has been out as usual and stabled at night.

Vet took bloods and checked Star over, said she was all in all a very good healthy little mare.

She called back tonight to give us results.... Star has liver disease, (we dont know to what level yet) and some blood clotting. She also has low white blood cells.

We are in bits (my friend and me share her), we have no insurance, but we are more worried at the moment about her prognosis.....

The vet is coming back tomorrow to do further tests, speak to us about options and give us advise, such as feeding and managing. She will also tell us what level the liver is at.....

Has anyone else's horse suffered with this at such a young age (she will be 5 in May, we have owner her for 8 months).

What can we do to manage it, what is her life expectancy, will we be able to insure her (she isnt insured and i dont think many companies will insure her and we wont be able to get her insured to help with covering the costs)

Vet said if she had a 5* vetting she would pass perfectly.... Just the liver that is the problem......

Gutted... Poor Girly...

Please, any advise or reassurance!!

Little Froggy has been of help to me. She has been there got the t shirt, as I have now having spent 10 months nursing my mare with liver disease.


Take all oil feeds out of her diet
not concentrates
no alfafa
be prepared to give lots of small feeds
another important thing NO straw based feed like hifi or fast Fibre. This causes ammonia to built up and makes liver work to hard, the ammonia will cause more jaundice and cloud fog in her mind


call Teresa Hoyllands from D&H they work hand in glove with the worlds
leader of liver decease in horses.


On this website for H&H members is the all the info so far added to help others here is a list under *L* http://horse-care-and-advice.weebly.com/l.html

get some milk thistle
yea sacc etc

 

[putasocinit]

Sounds like hepatitis which can be cured, speak to your vet.

 

[putasocinit]

How did you find out, test for your pony that had liver fluke, and what did you give her as a wormer please

 

[princestar]

Hi thanks everyone

She's got to have another blood test in 6-8 wks time.

Defo liver disease, rest of bloods came back clear.

Will be retested as she's had a diet change and supplemtents to see what changes have been and to see what level of liver function.

Thanks guys, all been very supportive - will keep you all updated x

 

[flintfootfilly]

princestar, hope you see some improvements when the next bloods are done. Thanks for the update.

putasocinit, the liver fluke in my boy was found via a faecal sample sent to David Sutton at Glasgow university. DS has an interest in fluke in horses.
He advised on treatment, using triclabendazole flukicide (Fasinex) which is not licensed for horses, but is used in cattle and sheep.

Sarah

 

[Louis]

It's cheaper to worm for liver fluke which the Vet can prescribe at about £6 per horse than trying to get the test done. It's more likely to be something environmentally wrong . I was advised to use fast fibre by both vets and feed experts

 

[princestar]

Well, fits and seizures are a bad sign for liver disease. Not sure how worming for liver fluke could help if its bad? She had another fit yesterday.... goes down like sues been shot then jumps back up... very strange

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Hi

Star had a 'fit' today, she went stiff, arched her neck, her eyes rolled and she fell flat onto the side. she knocked the fence down as she fell, but she fell with her legs straight onto her side, her legs didn't buckle. Vet came out and checked her over - she said she was a very fit and healthy horse, she's 4 1/2 so young and has moved to a new yard 5 days ago... She's settled in very quickly, has been out as usual and stabled at night.

Vet took bloods and checked Star over, said she was all in all a very good healthy little mare.

She called back tonight to give us results.... Star has liver disease, (we dont know to what level yet) and some blood clotting. She also has low white blood cells.

We are in bits (my friend and me share her), we have no insurance, but we are more worried at the moment about her prognosis.....

The vet is coming back tomorrow to do further tests, speak to us about options and give us advise, such as feeding and managing. She will also tell us what level the liver is at.....

Has anyone else's horse suffered with this at such a young age (she will be 5 in May, we have owner her for 8 months).

What can we do to manage it, what is her life expectancy, will we be able to insure her (she isnt insured and i dont think many companies will insure her and we wont be able to get her insured to help with covering the costs)

Vet said if she had a 5* vetting she would pass perfectly.... Just the liver that is the problem......

Gutted... Poor Girly...

Please, any advise or reassurance!!

My mare had liver disease. some useful info
http://horse-care-and-advice.weebly.com/l.html







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