Can Colic Not Be Colic?

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Whoopit

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Had to get the vet out yesterday as the youngster had all the physical signs of colic - rolling, sweating, cramping, nipping at her sides.

Clinical outcome - no temperature, no impaction, no reflux when she was tubed and she was happy to eat grass. Vet very confused. No reaction to the gut relaxant and pain killers didn't touch her. I caught her early and we were at the point of literally flinging herself into the floor - I mean pick all legs up and drops, no effort to "lay down".

Anyway, the upshot was that we had to let her go - she deteriorated even after all the voodoo and was in a lot of pain. Fallen stock man came out for her so I haven't had a PM on her and now I'm sort of wishing I had - I just wanted the day over with I think.

Has anybody else ever come across the "all the signs" but ended up as puzzled as my vet?
 
What an awful day, poor you.

EGS can present like colic but would have thought she would have had more symptoms for that as well. In the early stages it can be difficult to diagnose, but as she deteriorated so quickly it would be hard to say.

Did she have a raised heart rate?
 
This is happening right now with a yard mates horse. Symptoms not so serious but mild colic symptoms pretty regularly - like two or three times a week and generally unhappy. Vet has GI scoped found cleared up ulcers but nothing else. There is an enlarged ovary so she is on regumate. I don't know the whole story but clearly her owner is v worried.
 
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Sorry you lost her always worse when they are young and you don't really know what happened, almost all the colics I have dealt with over the years have presented differently, the ones that came on quickly and violently were usually the worst, if pain relief does not help the outcome is unlikely to be good sadly.
I think something catastrophic that comes on that quickly doesn't always show the "normal" clinical signs, probably no time for a temperature to develop if it was a serious twist or torsion beyond the reach of the vets arm, I had one that I lost, he did respond to pain relief and almost complete sedation initially, there was no impaction to be felt it must have been deep inside and nothing short of surgery would have helped but as an older boy that was not an option.
 
I am so sorry you lost your filly. Grass sickness may be a possibility, or atypical myopathy depending on what other symptoms she had. Unfortunately both are quickly fatal, though a few cases of atypical myopathy have been saved when they managed to last long enough to make it to hospital.
 
No raised heartbeat. Everything that was checked and tested came back as normal.

She was fine at 8am and when I went passed the field on my other horse she was on the floor. Got her up and to the yard but it was rapidly downhill from there.
 
I lost my 21 year old horse had all symptoms of colic. No impaction could be felt all meds given no change in condition no reflux. Thought it was very strange as had him 18 years and never had colic just thought we were unlucky. He was also tested for grass sickness and that was negative still a mystery to this day. Sorry to hear of your loss.
 
Oh my goodness I can't imagine anything worse :( I'm so sorry to hear this. I hope you get some answers.
 
I am so sorry for the loss of your filly, what a truly awful day that must have been.

With AM, usually they do have colic like symptoms but generally these are coupled with respiratory distress, sudden heavy cold sweat, like sweating buckets, they're unsteady on their feet, pass dark red urine. If she had any of those type of symptoms check your fields for the sycamore helicopters.
 
I'm sorry :(

Colic can be anything from lung pain/trouble, to kidney pain/trouble, liver/bile duct or basically anything in the horse :(
 
My first horse had a sudden, severe colic attack which happened very quickly. We called the vet who thought he must have a torsion somewhere he was thrashing about so much, we decided to operate (he was only 6yrs old and insured), they found nothing, no impaction, no twisted gut, all appeared fine, nothing to explain his reaction. He came out of surgery, 5 weeks into recovery he started to colic again on a semi regular basis, in the end he was suffering too much and was PTS, post mortem found hind gut ulcers; they must have just been getting worse and worse until he couldn't cope anymore. This was a horse who lived out, looked well and even while colicking would poo normally and even try to eat hay/grass.
 
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So sorry to hear of your loss. I had something similar with my 3 year old who lived out and was absolutely fine at 8.00 am but then at 10 was seen down in the field with blood coming from his head. Turns out he had a torsion and injured himself thrashing around. We managed to get him to the RVC (on doing the rectal my vet couldn't feel anything and she said that often a young horse is very reactive to their first colic attack). Unfortunately he was pts in the recovery room.
 
I had a Clydesdale mare who had an impaction colic which we thought was caused by stuffing herself on chopped down nettles. She recovered quickly after one vet visit (on a Sunday of course!) but about a year later she spent about a fortnight eating and drinking only half of her usual amount but no other symptoms. Then had a rectal prolapse, which the vet dealt with and she seemed to recover well from. Two weeks later she was found in her box in the morning, staggering about, shivering. Vet came out, recommended pts as she couldn't even be led out of her stable safely. It is thought that she had a rupruted internal tumour but we didn't have a post-mortem done. We have wished that we had asked the crem which removed her to have a look at her insides to see if anything was obvious but you don't think of that at the time.
She was 11 yrs old.

Sorry to hear about your youngster, OP.
 
so sorry to read this all of you who have lost horses. I lost my lovely 6 year old last year to a trauma to the gut caused by, we are pretty certain eating the hawthorn. It had breached the gut wall (pricked into the gut wall) and very unusually had let the E coli from his gut into the blood stream. He was operated on and was in hospital for 4 weeks he did pick up but kept have little colicy turns on and off throughout the day and night. The vets who were amazed that he even came through the operation, put a camera through a smnall incision in his side and found a lot of adhesions caused by the inflammation and also some dark fluid that should have been pale amber and where there should have been a gap between his kidneys and his spleen this had completely closed up so he was put down that day.

In 50 years I have never lost a young horse and still cant believe that it has happened even though I have now found a new horse. It is quite common for horses to get peritonitis from eating sharp or prickly things but it was the E Coli that the vets were amazed by, it took 11 days before it was discovered that this was the problem as he did not respond properly to the metronidazole. Once given Enrofloxacin he picked up but there was far too much damage to his gut.

The strange thing is I have not been able to find anyone else on any forums who has had a horse with the same problem.

Big hugs to OP they really do you're head in dont they as well as break your heart.
 
Sounds awful, worth a phone call to the vet re PM, they're often not "disposed of" immediately, we often go up to the fallen stock yard the next day to do a quick pm to confirm/rule out a diagnosis before they go. EGS does spring to mind but would get reflux if that acute.
 
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