Ataxia

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DZ2

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Has anyone had any experiences, and maybe positive outcomes with ataxia?

My rising 5 year old mare has been diagnosed with ataxia (grade 2). I took her to hospital to investigate something completely different (slight gait abnormality), but whilst there vet picked up some lack of coordination, called neurological specialist and after running series of tests they decided she's displaying lots of classic signs (like crossing front feet when walking downhill) and started suspecting she's a wobbler, or has some kind of neurological issues.

They x-rayed her neck but nothing showed up there. They went ahead with myelogram and CT scan which again didn't show anything abnormal and I thought that's it then, we are clear. However after long discussion they still seem absolutely convinced there is something very wrong with her, apparently not everything can be picked up by scans.

I'm getting really nervous. She is big chunky warmblood who has lots and lots growing to do, and is unbalanced like any youngster. She never tripped when being ridden or showed any inclination to fall over though.

Vets suggested to get her vitamin E supplement and took bloods to test for deficiency, though they don't really think it's that. They suggested to re-assess in 4 weeks to see if symptoms get worse (or maybe better).
 
I have only had experience of it in one horse. Sadly it didn’t end well but she was much older and it progressed scarily quickly.
 
I wonder if your vet is thinking of EMND when suggesting Vit E?
If you google it and especially EMND and vitamin e there are lots of items.

I expect you will see from the name it is not good. If it was me, especially if the vet had suggested it, I would get the horse onto 10000iu of natural vit E immediately split into 5000iu morning and 5000iu evening. I doubt this will do any harm at all even if it isn't EMND or a vit E deficiency. Make sure you choose a vit E only product not one with selenium added or you will hopelessly overdose on selenium. The products people have found to be of good quality (and quality is paramount with vit E) are equimins oil and forage plus powder.

People introduce this dose all at once (no building up)

There was someone on here with EMND several years ago. I think she consulted Cathy McGowan at Liverpool uni equine hospital. AFAIK Cathy is one of the experts in the UK on EMND. It may help if your vet were to contact her even if only to rule it out.

Link below gives you a site to start with.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/topic...terinary-medicine/equine-motor-neuron-disease
 
I have had experience of it in a horse I had. Unfortunately it didn't end well. His appeared after having an eye removed which had a squamous cell carcinoma. He was fine for a few weeks, then developed uveitis in his remaining eye, and ataxia, and went downhill very fast. A week later he was gone. It's unclear if it was related to the surgery or not.
 
Ataxia is in itself a symptom. My only experience is my old boy, who had periodic bouts of it caused by what turned out to be a brain tumour. It can also be caused by viral infections, if they attack the spinal cord (from memory, EHV-1 is an example).
 
DZ2 said:
I took her to hospital to investigate something completely different (slight gait abnormality), but whilst there vet picked up some lack of coordination, called neurological specialist and after running series of tests they decided she's displaying lots of classic signs (like crossing front feet when walking downhill) and started suspecting she's a wobbler, or has some kind of neurological issues.
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A little confused by your statement that they are unrelated? Is the hypothesis not that the gait abnormality may be connected?
 
paddy555 said:
I wonder if your vet is thinking of EMND when suggesting Vit E?
If you google it and especially EMND and vitamin e there are lots of items.

I expect you will see from the name it is not good. If it was me, especially if the vet had suggested it, I would get the horse onto 10000iu of natural vit E immediately split into 5000iu morning and 5000iu evening. I doubt this will do any harm at all even if it isn't EMND or a vit E deficiency. Make sure you choose a vit E only product not one with selenium added or you will hopelessly overdose on selenium. The products people have found to be of good quality (and quality is paramount with vit E) are equimins oil and forage plus powder.

People introduce this dose all at once (no building up)

There was someone on here with EMND several years ago. I think she consulted Cathy McGowan at Liverpool uni equine hospital. AFAIK Cathy is one of the experts in the UK on EMND. It may help if your vet were to contact her even if only to rule it out.

Link below gives you a site to start with.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/topic...terinary-medicine/equine-motor-neuron-disease
Click to expand...


Thanks Paddy, they didn't mention EMND but may be they are thinking of something like this. They said 7000iu daily dose but I'll do what you suggested and increase it to 10000 to be sure. I've ordered natural vit E from progressive earth (no selenium) so we'll see how it goes.
 
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Leandy said:
A little confused by your statement that they are unrelated? Is the hypothesis not that the gait abnormality may be connected?
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't word this well. Vets said whilst it is possible gait is related to neuro signs they are observing, it's unlikely as only affects one hind leg and not both. They said neurological issues usually affect both legs. She occasionally swings one of her hinds sideways. All this in walk only, there is no lameness and trot and canter are completely fine.

Current plan is to re-examine neuro side in 4 weeks, and if she's not worse than do a bone scan to investigate the hind. And if ataxia is worse and progressing than no need to do much about gait as she'll be deemed not safe to carry on riding :(

Thank you all for the replies. Absolutely terrified reading all the stories. She's just such a beautiful talented animal who could go to the very top (OK not with my riding) with fantastic temperament, and I'd be devastated to lose her.
 
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DZ2 said:
Thanks Paddy, they didn't mention EMND but may be they are thinking of something like this. They said 7000iu daily dose but I'll do what you suggested and increase it to 10000 to be sure. I've ordered natural vit E from progressive earth (no selenium) so we'll see how it goes.
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excellent. I am really sorry for the position you are in. I hope you can get it sorted.
 
This sounds very, very similar to one of mine. Sound apparently but never looked right at all. Instead of bringing his hind leg under he swung it out and round, almost like dishing with one back leg. He had no power going forward, becuase he couldnt push evenly off both legs. A physio who saw him was convinced it was it was neurological, I was convinced it wasnt. My vet wanted to do a work up. He was very close to PTS as he was a cheapy project pony and I knew he wasnt right when I bought him, and knew if it wasnt an easy fix then it would be PTS.

As a last ditch attempt I got the horseback vet out. He said it was very unusual but he had seen it before. Did some sort of horrific yanking thing to both back legs and he walked away sound and stayed that way for a fairly long time. I cant remember all the details but it was something to do with the ligament that comes from the SI joint and controls the flight path of the hind leg.

One leg was very weak and the other was very over developed, it was very noticeable on the inside of his legs if you looked from the back. It took about 3 months of remedial work and physio to get them both normal again.

I had a quick look and can find them, but somewhere I have photos showing the muscle development and videos where you can see the odd movement if you want to see them
 
Leo Walker said:
This sounds very, very similar to one of mine. Sound apparently but never looked right at all. Instead of bringing his hind leg under he swung it out and round, almost like dishing with one back leg. He had no power going forward, becuase he couldnt push evenly off both legs. A physio who saw him was convinced it was it was neurological, I was convinced it wasnt. My vet wanted to do a work up. He was very close to PTS as he was a cheapy project pony and I knew he wasnt right when I bought him, and knew if it wasnt an easy fix then it would be PTS.

As a last ditch attempt I got the horseback vet out. He said it was very unusual but he had seen it before. Did some sort of horrific yanking thing to both back legs and he walked away sound and stayed that way for a fairly long time. I cant remember all the details but it was something to do with the ligament that comes from the SI joint and controls the flight path of the hind leg.

One leg was very weak and the other was very over developed, it was very noticeable on the inside of his legs if you looked from the back. It took about 3 months of remedial work and physio to get them both normal again.

I had a quick look and can find them, but somewhere I have photos showing the muscle development and videos where you can see the odd movement if you want to see them
Click to expand...

This is very interesting, thank you for your post. I'll have a look at the horseback vets. Did you have to take horse to them, or do they travel? Video would be very interesting to see if you find it, but from your description it does sounds similar.
 
DZ2 said:
This is very interesting, thank you for your post. I'll have a look at the horseback vets. Did you have to take horse to them, or do they travel? Video would be very interesting to see if you find it, but from your description it does sounds similar.
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He came to me. Depending where you are it can be a bit of a wait though. Tom Beech is the other person I would recommend. Tends to come out much quicker and is a bit more whole horse centric. I would happily let either treat my horses though, and in furture I'll always get them out for a look before I go down the expensive investigations route. Both are vets and will tell you if they cant help.
 
I've found this. Its not really clear but you can see it kind of at about the 40second mark and again at 1min20 ish. But even to me who knows what it looked like, you cant really tell.


One leg was fine and landed straight and pushed forward straight. The other pushed off and swung out and round. The only way I can think to describe it is like dishing with a back leg. It meant he had no power and couldnt get straight. We did give him about 3 weeks of schooling to see if he came right with the right sort of work, but once he didnt we started looking at more serious things
 
I had a fabulous warmblood mare who came in from the field one day looking very stiff behind. She had a scrape down her side which looked as though you had maybe collided with a gate post. She was very slightly lame on one hind but then would get much better but I did notice that she didn't seem to lie down in her stable (although I did see her rolling in the field one day) and also had trouble backing up from the door. Vet thought she probably had a torn cartilage in her stifle as x-rays were clear.

We boxed her up to Newmarket Equine Clinic (2 hour drive) but when we got there she was very ataxic. She went down in the stable there overnight and they were unable to get her back to her feet to she was pts 36 hours later. It all happened very quickly from first signs and I think being squashed in the lorry was a significant factor. I did have a PM done which showed two bleeds in her spinal column but the vets said they couldn't really explain it.

I hope it ends better for your mare.
 
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