Ataxia and lameness….. my poor pony!

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glinda

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I have a 12 year old mini shetland…. on saturday when I checked her in the afternoon she was lying down on the concrete outside her stable- not good! She struggled to her feet and then fell over…. I got her into stable where she laid down and I couldn't get her up. Vet came straight away and diagnosed gassy colic as she was tachycardic and tachypnoeic. She was given pain relief, sedation and she was stomach tubed etc

I was up all night with her but she seemed to improve, getting to her feet and standing quietly. Sunday she was quiet but eating well- bran mash and some inland grass, she just seemed a little wobbly but put this down to her being weak etc

Monday morning I left her in the stable and she seemed ok- went to check her at lunchtime and she was lying down again, really struggled to get up, fell over and was VERY wobbly on her back legs- Vet came back straight away and wondered if she had dislocated her hip (OMG)

Took her straight to the surgery and 5 vets looked at her, she had full blood tests and about 30 X-rays……. they can't find whats wrong !!!!

They have ruled out hip luxation- both her hips are in place but all agree something is very very wrong but they have no idea whats going on!!!

She has spent the night at the vets and they are doing more tests as we speak…..

She had had bilateral luxating patellas since I rescued her when she was 8 months old…. these have never caused her any problems and the vets don't think they are now.

Ideas anyone ??
 
We had a horse presenting similar symptoms a few months ago. Colic was the first thought so was given drugs, walked, examined etc. and then sent down to the vet school for a colic op. He couldn't walk straight, kept falling over, was in a fair amount of distress and showing major colicky signs. Nothing felt twisted inside on examination. Upon arrival to the vet school he basically fell into the exam room and was put to sleep on the spot. The owner did not want to pursue a colic op but a PM was carried out and the horse had a brain tumour that had either activated or got too big and was putting pressure on the brain in the last 72hours. There was nothing that could be done.

I'm not suggesting your pony has this but maybe any examinations the vets can do for that might be a good idea to rule it out.
 
Have they ruled out laminitis? I'm sure they have but I have seen a similar presentation.

Fingers crossed they get to the bottom of it soon. x
 
EKW said:
the horse had a brain tumour that had either activated or got too big and was putting pressure on the brain in the last 72hours. There was nothing that could be done.

I'm not suggesting your pony has this but maybe any examinations the vets can do for that might be a good idea to rule it out.
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when I looked at the heading of this post, the breed of pony and the OP's other thread on cushings (different pony) I wondered if the final stages of cushings could present in this way?
 
glinda said:
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I was up all night with her but she seemed to improve, getting to her feet and standing quietly. Sunday she was quiet but eating well- bran mash and some inland grass, she just seemed a little wobbly but put this down to her being weak etc

Monday morning I left her in the stable and she seemed ok- went to check her at lunchtime and she was lying down again, really struggled to get up, fell over and was VERY wobbly on her back legs- Vet came back straight away and wondered if she had dislocated her hip (OMG)

She had had bilateral luxating patellas since I rescued her when she was 8 months old…. these have never caused her any problems and the vets don't think they are now.

Ideas anyone ??
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Maybe she has some kind of neuro condition as a result of calcification on her spinal column and pressing on the spinal cord or associated nerves. This happened to my ten year old who suffered a fall prior to developing ataxia. As a result of the fall he developed calcification that reduced the size of the spinal column from 51mm to 17mm and impinged on the nerves. He was diagnosed with CVM (same or very similiar to wobbles syndrome).

Your shetland could really do with being referred to an equine hospital for xrays. The danger with using a portable xray machine can be that the machine is not powerful enough to penetrate the large muscles in the neck, thus giving a false reading (which happened to my horse). He was eventually diagnosed at Liverpool Equine Hospital some weeks later after I inisted on him being referred.

Of course there can be lots of reasons for ataxia, including poisioning by eating certain plants/weeds and the ingestion of certain crop sprays.
 
My mare was ataxic and tachycardic with a high temp. After being taken to the hospital and having numerous x rays etc she was diagnosed with EHV-1. This showed up as a negative in the first lot of tests but further testing 7 days later proved positive.
 
HYPERLIPEMIA is an illness that Shetlands are prone to ,two of the symptoms are weakness and ataxia,females are more prone to it than males,the sooner the pony is treated the better the chances of recovery, ask your vet and it may be worth looking at the blood again or taking another sample.
We have a mini ,so wishing yours a speedy recovery.
 
I forgot about that shergar but isn't it related to underfeeding (forage, not talking about hard feed)?

How is the pony glinda?
 
Pipkin said:
My mare was ataxic and tachycardic with a high temp. After being taken to the hospital and having numerous x rays etc she was diagnosed with EHV-1. This showed up as a negative in the first lot of tests but further testing 7 days later proved positive.
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EHV was diagnosed with my horse too but 33% of the horse population are carriers and not all are shredders. Its my understanding that until they shred the virus (and actually have symptoms of EHV) they are not contagious to others. They cannot display symptoms just because they are carriers - if this makes sense.

As with my horses diagnosis it was totally wrong, (the vet clapped her hands together with delight and said she hoped he had EHV as she could write her thesis about being the first vet in the county to discover this on her doorstep) - I could have cheerfully strangled her. Then because she grasped this 'diagnosis' with all her might and refused to let go of it for weeks, my poor boy got misdiagnosed. When I pushed for referral they finally agreed with my diagnosis (as an owner) that he could have wobblers and 'allowed' me to travel him for diagnosis. As a result he was pts with inoperable CVM/wobblers aged ten years.
 
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She is already at a large equine hospital (they are my normal vets) They have taken some very good spinal X-rays and they show no problems with her back/neck at all
 
Well she is still at the hospital….. they really can't find anything abnormal on any of her probably 50 plus X-rays they have taken, just about every blood tests has been run and is normal…… she is well in herself, eating normally and her normal cheeky self but still wobbly though I think not as bad as monday.

They are wondering about laminitis in her hind feet- her feet X-rays were normal and she has been living on the same regime as a laminitic would for years and only gets limited grazing when grass is growing etc, soaked hay, low sugar diet etc etc- only thing i can't do is exercise her as she has a luxating patella (genetic condition)
Her weight is and always has been good….. she carries no extra fat etc which is good for a little one!
The vet has said its a possibility though it would not be because of the normal causes of lami- i.e. too much sugar etc and that it would be caused by a problem with her that I could have done nothing to prevent. Some kind of hormone problem- its not cushings though!

However they don't think that lami is the only problem !!!!! and that something else is going on also they just don't know what.

They have taken video and sent it to a professor of orthopaedics at one of the uni's for his opinion.

Its surely a strange one but all the time she is happy then i'm going to keep going and see if we can get to the bottom of it.

Hopefully she may come home tomorrow- her stable mate will be very happy to see her, she has been screaming for her non stop lol (they never normally spend any time apart)

and thanks for your replies/concern….. i'm very sorry to hear about the unhappy endings for some of you….. hopefully mine won't come to that just yet x
 
The horse I saw that was very wobbly and weak, especially her back end had laminitis much worse in her hind feet.
I wonder if some sort of toxic response or toxin could have produced laminitis and other symptoms?

Fingers crossed she gets back to normal soon.
 
glinda said:
The vet has said its a possibility though it would not be because of the normal causes of lami- i.e. too much sugar etc and that it would be caused by a problem with her that I could have done nothing to prevent. Some kind of hormone problem- its not cushings though!
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We have a horse on our yard that has lami despite his owner doing everything possible to prevent it. Like your vets have said to you, the cause must be something other than sugar and the other 'normal' causes, but the horse does not have cushings or EMS or any hormonal problem that they can find. Because they can't find the cause, they can't treat it and the horse is probably going to be put to sleep very soon. I don't say this to scare you, I just wanted to point out that it is possible for them to get lami for seemingly unknown reasons, so really push your vets to get to the bottom of it if they think laminitis is part of the problem.
 
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