advice on liver disease needed...

BackInBlack

BackInBlack

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after vets diagnosing that unfotunately my horse has liver disease he has been rested, is now being lightly hacked and i am getting the vet out again to do a 3rd blood test on 20th august. 2nd blood tests showed an improvement but showed signs of previous liver damage.(this is as much as i've been told - nothing specific). please could somebody advise as to what key things i should ask vet when i see him or when i get next results. many thanks
 
Cairo had an infection. He was fairly severe when we found him - he was bow shaped and could only walk like a crab and was sweating, heart at 72 and temp of 103 and very distressed - and this was within three hours of being checked earlier.

He was treated with daily injections of pen and strapp for 8 days. Unfortunately his infection may have been due to failure, as he had to be pts a few weeks later as it came back and didn't respond to the drugs and could not get up.

Initially I was told to give him complete rest as the muscle enzymes in the blood were high and this causes weakness and if worked can cause muscle damage. He was also given a supplement to help the liver repair itself and he was already on brewers yeast which is very good.

I was told the liver can regenerate itself but as it only shows sign when 70% is damaged, horses don't always make 100% recovery - this does not mean they don't have a useful working life.

When it was originally thought to be an infection, I was told they can be difficult to clear up as bacteria can hide in the pockets of the liver so he would need several bloods tests and careful monitoring.

I hope what I have said has not frightened you, not meant to, only offering what happened in my experience. The other possibility was that Cairo had liver cancer. He had eye cancer all his life and was (for a clydie) a good old age.

I do hope all goes well for your chap.
 
Hi Tallyhohoho - 1st, don't panic yet. I took on a rescue mare who had severe ragwort poisoning following tragic circumstances with her previous owners. The liver function (biochemistry) results from the blood tests were so bad that the vets suggested immediate pts would be kindest. However, my YO has huge experience of rescued horses and she suggested holding fire for a bit as the mare seemed to be rallying with a change of diet, management etc. So I set about finding the best guidance available and, with the help of Prof Derek Knottenbelt of Liverpool University (a world expert on liver disease in horses) I was able to put in place veterinary attention, a special liver-support diet and management changes that would offer maximum support to what remained of her functioning liver. She is now fat, well, full of attitude and currently at a carefully selected boot camp to learn basic good manners, mouthing and backing. And she's doing brilliantly. Of course, she still has at least 70% of her liver forever destroyed but horses can manage ok until the damage reaches about 75%. Then sadly, all horses will die. Could your horse have eaten ragwort in the past, before you got him? Was he neglected or kept on poor, ragwort infested pasture? Ragwort poisoning can take years to develop as it is cumulative and it often shocks owners.

So the first thing you need to ask your vet is, is it ragwort or some other liver disease. It's only ragwort that totally destroys liver cells - the liver can regenerate from many other liver diseases, although of course, not from cancer. If its a viral or bacterial disease, then there is a good chance your horse can survive with the right management and support. If its ragwort, you need to ask the vets if they can give an indication of the % liver damage as indicated by the blood tests. They may be reluctant to try to do this as the normal tests don't give a %.

I'd also ask the vets whether there are any other clinical signs of the disease. Classic signs are loss of weight, loss of appetite, depression, lethargy, terrible photosensitivity, jaundice and some other end-stage stuff that you would already know about. If the 2nd tests showed a slight improvement, you stand a good chance of supporting your horse to a long and happy life. I wish you could have seen my rescued Angel when she first came to me, close to death and with almost no desire to carry on living. And if you could see her now you would never, ever know there is a thing wrong with her. Support for a damaged liver includes a LOW protein diet, but since all animals need some protein, what your horse does eat must be the best quality, keeping in out of even weak sunlight, B vitamin supplements (Yea Sac is good as it is also an appetite stimulant) to aid hind gut digestion and Milk Thistle which has been proved to support the liver.

If it was me, I'd hold off on work for your horse if he's ill, although if he's one of those horses who gets miserable if he doesn't work then you might want do do a teeny bit. Good nursing that will focus on giving him things that make him happy will give him an interest in life. Feed little and often if you possibly can.

If I can possibly help any more, please do PM me as, sadly, Angel's terrible liver damage meant that I needed to learn as much as I could about this in a very short time. Prof K will also help with advice on diet, management and veterinary intervention and I can give you his e-mail address. He's brilliant at answering questions from ordinary horse owners.

Wishing you and ned well - please let us know how he does or if I can give you any more advice xxx
 
thanks so much for your answers - i have been searching forums and there seems to be lots of good outcomes and lots of bad doesn't there. smokey is out at grass at the moment but comes in when it's sunny, he's having hi fi and sugar beet with milk thistle and vit's. still seems a bit lethargic and i do catch him yawning. only had him 10 months, have tried to find out history from previous owners but obviously he was fine when they had him - tho i know his performance wasn't quite as it should have been when i 1st had him. i have so much info that i would like from the vets but seem to get all muddled when the vet is here and forget to ask everything i want to. now i know the key things to ask - thanks very much box of frogs- at least i will have found out the most important things 1st and any more info i can get will be a bonus.
 
if you need any advice email me and i will give you has much info as i have due to i had to find out loads and quickly when my horse was dianosed with liver diease witched turned to liver failure and unfourtuntaly i lost my best friend 2 months ago!
 
thank you i will. so sorry about your horse. i can't believe the amount of people that have lost their horses to this disease - never heard of a horse around here with it - was such a shock when i was told smokey had it. usually you're all clued up on the common ailments arn't you but with this i didn't have a 1st clue about it.
 
good luck to you, I have a client of mine that had a horse who had a severe liver problem, it collapsed when she went into canter riding her, very scary and the vet said only about 10% of her liver was functioning. Along with vet treatment and rest she has done very well on silver lining herbs (uk) liver support herb. They were very helpful and really made a difference, she is now back in work and going well. I fyou want any further details PM me.
 
THANK YOU. HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START! I'M GOING TO CONTACT PROF KNOTTENBELT AS WELL, SUCH AS...
WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT WORMING?
HE ALWAYS LEANS ON THE BIT - COULD IT BE CONNECTED?
HE KEEPS GETTING MILD LAMENESS - DITTO?
HAS A SLIGHT COUGH_ DITTO
CAN HEAR HIM BREATHING_ DITTO
I THINK MAYBE I MAY HAVE A FEW MORE PROBLEMS TO IRON OUT!
confused.gif
 
worming get a egg count?
slight cough could be due to run down due to the diease?
his is breathing laboured noisy are flanks going when breathing?
is is temp normal?
what his he fed?
IH he on any medication?
when are next bloods being run?
do you know if it is ragwort or not?
 
coughing (usually only once on way back from hack/excercise) started before i found out he had LD. i thought his lack of stamina was something to do with this and his breathing-you can just hear it, like if you have been hit in the stomach and you breath out really fast, it sounds like that. he was going to have a lung scope after we ran the bloods. not laboured breathing just puffy. temps normal, no medication - was on extra vit b but have just ran out, waiting to see what vet says on weds when he takes next bloods. going to ask then if he can tell me if it's ragwort from the results.
 
Hi

My gelding was diagnosed with liver disease last December and having read your post wondered if you might be able to also give me Prof Derek K e-mail address. I am not getting much helpful info from my vet. Latest bloods have got worse and I am thinking about getting another biopsy done. Any help or advice appreciated - he has just been put on Visorbin - vit b supp and vet is coming on tues to give him steroid injection but I don't really know how this is going to help. Thanks
 
hi longslade, have just found that you can tap it into google.what was the result of your biopsy? is your horse quite bad then? wish him luck . x
 
Hi Biopsy in dec said "low grade diffuse acute hepatitis may explain liver enzyme elevations" - he looks fine , is eating well but has just got very lethargic and lost his sparkle - he did get better in the spring and i hoped that he was recovering but in the last few weeks he has gone back to being lethargic again so i got some more bloods done and they are now worse than in dec. It was about august last year when he started getting slower and now i am wondering if uv light in the summer is affecting him and causing him to go downhill again. Do you know anything about steroid injections? my vet wants to give him one on tuesday? thanks for help nice to find someone to talk to about it.
 
to be quite honest i don't know much about the testing, perhaps one of the other members on this thread might? it does sound just like smokeys condition to me tho- he's eating fine but as you say has lost his sparkle. i noticed that he bacame more lethargic after i had put him out on the spring grass so maybe the higher protein levels in the grass plus the sunlight may have contributed.
 
[ QUOTE ]
coughing (usually only once on way back from hack/excercise) started before i found out he had LD. i thought his lack of stamina was something to do with this and his breathing-you can just hear it, like if you have been hit in the stomach and you breath out really fast, it sounds like that. he was going to have a lung scope after we ran the bloods. not laboured breathing just puffy. temps normal, no medication - was on extra vit b but have just ran out, waiting to see what vet says on weds when he takes next bloods. going to ask then if he can tell me if it's ragwort from the results.

[/ QUOTE ] just pmed you call me!
 
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