Can poor immune system /vit e deficiency contribute to thrush

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Saw a similar post in Vet section but decided to start another anyway. In spring the BBP has a nasty thrush infection that got away from me and ate away a lot of his frogs, putting him into a toe first landing. I got to grips with this, treated with red horse and the frogs seemed to fill in nicely and he went back to heel first. Then over the last few weeks since clocks changing I was less rigorous in my routine of applying red horse and only picked them out once a day. The sulcus of the fronts has in a very short space of time gone very very deep again. So I’m back to packing with hoof stuff/artimud, and will start using boots with pads again to stimulate the frogs more.

What I wondered was, can this be a sign of a depressed immune system in that it has affected him very fast whilst all the other horses have fab feet and frogs in the same conditions and on the same feed (thunderbrooks chaff and spillers lite balancer). He also reacts really badly to any bite or scratch and swells to big oozing lumps where the others don’t react at all. He is already on echinacea, and I’m looking to switch to forage plus balancer but he’s an incredibly fussy eater and last time I tried it he gave up eating. I’ve heard that equimins isn’t great for fussy eaters either, which is why I ended up going back to spillers. His bloods last year showed he was vitamin e deficient and didn’t respond to supplementation, but the thrush has been an issue since I stopped supplementing it, do you think that it could be a factor or am I grasping at straws?
 
I use to have real problems with mud fever, change diet to include broad spectrum mineral ie 14 essential from feedmark, brewers yeast and linseed and never looked back. Well the horse that is. For the immune feed from within in your case I would add the vitamin e
 
He is 12, never had a cushings test. With my limited knowledge of it (we test two of our others annually) I wouldn’t have said he had the classic symptoms but I’m prepared to be educated. (He is full of energy, fabulous coat, no weight loss or fat pads, no filling over eyes or excess thirst, I’d say no abscesses but I’m scared to tempt fate!). His horn quality is very good.
 
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The reaction to insect bites and scratches shows his immune system is working (maybe a bit too well, I'd be wondering about hypersensitivity if there's a lot of swelling/oozing). But it's not depressed. Why are you feeding echinacea?
Why did he have a vitamin e deficiency last year, was his grazing limited? A horse that has access to good grazing and/or good quality hay is unlikely to have a vitamin e deficiency. So if he has access to plenty green stuff and the thrush gets bad when you relax your hoof cleaning regime, I think that's your answer. :)
 
Good point about the immune system, I fed echinacea thinking it would help boost his immune system, not realising that it could be overactive. (Interesting you say about hypersensitive as I have a hypersensitised central nervous system and often wonder if he suffers the same thing but that’s another story).

We don’t know why he is deficient, he is strip grazed on a track system so his access to fresh grass is limited and his diet is mostly hay based. He also has RER. His bloods were quite a lot lower than the ‘normal’ range for vitamin e and didn’t improve even when supplemented with good levels of good natural vitamin e. I haven’t had him tested this year but I might do so out of interest.
 
And maybe test for selenium while you are there as the two go hand in hand. I am in a low selenium area and some horses just seem to need it more than others.

I know for my own horses, I feed hemp seed cake, but the one winter I couldn't get it I had both rain scald and mud fever. Drove me nuts.
 
KatPT said:
Good point about the immune system, I fed echinacea thinking it would help boost his immune system, not realising that it could be overactive. (Interesting you say about hypersensitive as I have a hypersensitised central nervous system and often wonder if he suffers the same thing but that’s another story).

We don’t know why he is deficient, he is strip grazed on a track system so his access to fresh grass is limited and his diet is mostly hay based. He also has RER. His bloods were quite a lot lower than the ‘normal’ range for vitamin e and didn’t improve even when supplemented with good levels of good natural vitamin e. I haven’t had him tested this year but I might do so out of interest.
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Have you considered PSSM? Those horses can need 12,000iu a day. How much did you give? My two need 3000iu in winter and half that in summer when grazing.
 
He was on 4000iu a day. He had a muscle biopsy as Hair test for pssm was negative and he didn’t fit the pssm picture all that well. Biopsy showed chronic mild RER rather than a polysaccharide storage issue, so his cell calcium regulation is the issue. I had selenium tested and those levels were fine.
 
KatPT said:
He was on 4000iu a day. He had a muscle biopsy as Hair test for pssm was negative and he didn’t fit the pssm picture all that well. Biopsy showed chronic mild RER rather than a polysaccharide storage issue, so his cell calcium regulation is the issue. I had selenium tested and those levels were fine.
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Then I would test him for Cushings, there are plenty of horses with it that show no symptoms except failure to heal cuts quickly and thrush infections. I hope you find an answer.
 
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