Chronic laminitis - does it ever end?

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SuzyQ66

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Hello. I jointly run an animal rescue in Tenerife, in the main dogs, however 2 years ago we rescued a then 12 year old Arab cross called Katie. We were told she had been mistreated and neglected and had chronic laminitis. Moreover if we didnt take her on they were going to put her to sleep. So we did.
It was painful to watch her, like literally walking on egg shells, but with the right vet care, a good blacksmith, and TLC within 2 months she was trotting. She spent several months in a stable on wood shavings and was soon out in the paddock cantering around. We got brave and let a couple of small light children ride her for a short time, she loved it, tail up and ears forward.
Then it all went wrong. I was out walking with her last september when she spooked, reared up, pulling the lead rope from my hand, and galloped like a bat out of hell back to the stables. She has been lame since. We have had 2 different vets and 2 different blacksmiths to her, hoping that someone can bring something new to the table. She is on Danilon twice a day and Bute when she is really bad and I just feel we are throwing pain killers at her and it is no life. She could barely walk on sunday. She is shod, with pvc "insoles" and the whole lot sealed in silicone for extra cushioning. Her current vet and blacksmith still insist she will recover, but they dont have to see her in pain every single day.
My questions are :- is their a more effective pain relief combination, could she be getting immune to Danilon?
Are we missing something? We are at the point of trying anything at this stage.
Thanking you in advance for your time and input.
 
Has she been tested for cushings and EMS? Both of these can cause constant lami outbreaks.
Truthfully though, mine had lami in all 4 feet due to EMS, he did come sound but was extremely sensitive to changes in the grass and would become footy again when the grass came through meaning we had to keep him off it during peak times and exercise him more. Speak through options with your vet, they might have some good advice x
 
Hi Suzy,
So am I right in understanding that she recovered from laminitis then became lame following bolting home, therefore this episode is not lammi related. What is the evidence that it is laminitis?
Has the vet taken x rays?
Does your management include deep bedding, soaked hay etc?
As for drug resistance, yes it does become less effective with long term use.
 
Is it possible she injured herself in some way in the bolting incident and it's something other than lami causing the lameness, ie a tendon or something. Could you get her scanned to make sure, just in case you are treating the wrong problem. Hope she comes right.
 
Thank you all for replies, I do appreciate it. As I do not have a deep knowledge of horses, I am not sure of some terminology used, so I am going to show this to the person who owns the stables where she lives. EMS and Cushings I will need to google, haha. They diagnosed laminitis the first time, and yes they did X-rays. Both vets we have used and both blacksmiths have confirmed laminitis. I presumed the bolting incident made it recur, can this not happen? She was on a bed of wood shavings but now is back out in the paddock because they say her constant laying down in the stable is not helping her circulation and therefore healing. She is never on grass, we have no grass here. Hope all this makes sense, I am a dog person really....
 
Sorry, EMS is abit like type 2 diabetes so causes blood sugar levels problems and results in lami and cushings is a tumour on the pituitary gland (alot or horses have this so don't panic. Both things are extremely common reasons for lami. Do you feed any hard feed, hay etc? I was told when my horse was at his worse that he was best off layed down taking the pressure off his feet whilst he was sore, although i have heard people say to keep them moving. However mine was in alot of pain and I wouldn't have asked him to move around!
 
Sorry: you should not keep an animal in pain which has a poor prognosis and is not having a nice life. I often think that there are too many fluffy bunnies about, but there are some horses who can't be given a nice life.
Bite the bullet if it is required. It is nice to shed tears, but it is not nice to keep an animal in pain.
She is lying down because it is too painfull to stand up.
 
It could still be laminitis - stress laminitis. My vet told me about a case he had where the simply shoeing the horse had triggered it. A good gallop on a hard surface could easily do the same to a horse that had had laminitis before.
 
BlackVelvet said:
Sorry, EMS is abit like type 2 diabetes so causes blood sugar levels problems and results in lami and cushings is a tumour on the pituitary gland (alot or horses have this so don't panic. Both things are extremely common reasons for lami. Do you feed any hard feed, hay etc? I was told when my horse was at his worse that he was best off layed down taking the pressure off his feet whilst he was sore, although i have heard people say to keep them moving. However mine was in alot of pain and I wouldn't have asked him to move around!
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She is on hay yes, I will find out what else she is given. Again, you like us are being given conflicting opinions, lay her down, keep her moving..... its a minefield.

Bonkers2 said:
Sorry: you should not keep an animal in pain which has a poor prognosis and is not having a nice life. I often think that there are too many fluffy bunnies about, but there are some horses who can't be given a nice life.
Bite the bullet if it is required. It is nice to shed tears, but it is not nice to keep an animal in pain.
She is lying down because it is too painfull to stand up.
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I do understand your point, I work in animal rescue and am used to making those kind of decisions, but we have professionals here who are saying she WILL come good. Our concern is that it is taking far too long and yes, she is not happy in the meantime.
 
Laminitis can be triggered by a number of things, bolting home could have bought in an attack in a susceptible horse BUT bolting home could also have caused injury/lameness unrelated to laminitis. You need a vet to look at the horse to make a diagnosis.

In a horse with laminitis history then my advice would be to play it safe and assume laminitis until you find out otherwise. The WORST thing you can do during a laminitic episode is to encourage movement. What that does is essentially acts as leverage on the soft tissue in the foot increasing the likelihood pedal bone collapse. Turning out or riding a laminitic in the acute phase could literally kill the horse. Deep shavings bed rest and soaked hay. Plus whatever supportive treatment your vet recommends, usually bute and sometimes ACP.

So in short get lame horse in from paddock and call a vet!

When the vet is there discuss cushings tests.

Laminitis is a horrible disease, and you need to be prepared to either manage the horse to the Nth degree or call it a day. In my mind it is as black and white as that.

I own 2 horses susceptible to laminitis - an old cushings boy and a younger horse with a weird metabolic/cushings thing. Neither have had a full blown laminitis attack (yet). The young horse is closely managed. The older horse not so much, but the minute he gets (if) laminitis is the minute he will go to horsey heaven. IMO there are few laminitic horses with a good enough quality of life. Ponies generally fare a bit better.

ETA: if you have a horse that is still lame on special shoeing and daily danilon/bute 6 months on then I'm sorry but I think you should be letting her go sooner rather than later.
 
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ihatework said:
Laminitis can be triggered by a number of things, bolting home could have bought in an attack in a susceptible horse BUT bolting home could also have caused injury/lameness unrelated to laminitis. You need a vet to look at the horse to make a diagnosis.

In a horse with laminitis history then my advice would be to play it safe and assume laminitis until you find out otherwise. The WORST thing you can do during a laminitic episode is to encourage movement. What that does is essentially acts as leverage on the soft tissue in the foot increasing the likelihood pedal bone collapse. Turning out or riding a laminitic in the acute phase could literally kill the horse. Deep shavings bed rest and soaked hay. Plus whatever supportive treatment your vet recommends, usually bute and sometimes ACP.

So in short get lame horse in from paddock and call a vet!

When the vet is there discuss cushings tests.

Laminitis is a horrible disease, and you need to be prepared to either manage the horse to the Nth degree or call it a day. In my mind it is as black and white as that.

I own 2 horses susceptible to laminitis - an old cushings boy and a younger horse with a weird metabolic/cushings thing. Neither have had a full blown laminitis attack (yet). The young horse is closely managed. The older horse not so much, but the minute he gets (if) laminitis is the minute he will go to horsey heaven. IMO there are few laminitic horses with a good enough quality of life. Ponies generally fare a bit better.

ETA: if you have a horse that is still lame on special shoeing and daily danilon/bute 6 months on then I'm sorry but I think you should be letting her go sooner rather than later.
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Thanks for that, youre the first one to make the connection between the bolting home bringing on an attack. It has been diagnosed already, along with assurances that she will recover, its the amount of time it is taking that is worrying us so much.
 
SuzyQ66 said:
Thanks for that, youre the first one to make the connection between the bolting home bringing on an attack. It has been diagnosed already, along with assurances that she will recover, its the amount of time it is taking that is worrying us so much.
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It shouldn't take this long to become comfortable again. I really would suspect there is something else going on alongside. Have you done nerve blocks, scans & X-rays?

Go with your gut feeling. Does this horse look and act happy and do you think they have a good quality of life? That will give you your answer on what direction to take. From what you have said I know what I would be doing.
 
Whenever you feel that you are in a hopeless situation the only answer is to put the horse in a position to fix itself.

The presence of a shoe will remove that opportunity and thus prevent the horse from creating its own ideal hoof.

Are the heels still very high as at the beginning of the movie? The coronet is almost horizontal allowing the front of the pedal bone dig into the sole corium; ensure the pedal bone is oriented parallel to the ground and that the toe is very short.
 
Was the second diagnosis (following the bolting home) also done on the basis of x-rays, or just "it looks the same so must be the same"? I'm not saying that it isn't laminitis as there is something called road founder where laminitis is triggered by excessive roadwork.

I think you are right to be very worried. It sounds like what is currently being done is not working for this horse, so she either needs to be PTS or something needs to be drastically changed. If she is going to come right with the current therapy she should be improving, she should not be unable to walk more than 6 months after the initial episode.

Laminitis (like many foot issues) has different treatment methods that different vets and farriers recommend, particularly the remedial shoeing vs barefoot decision. I have seen a horse come good after a bad laminitis episode once through remedial shoeing. The shoes were fitted with the aid of x-rays (i.e. the farrier looked at the x-rays when making the shoes). I have seen far more successful barefoot (i.e. un-shod) rehabs.

If she were mine I would get the shoes taken off, give her feet a thorough clean and sort out any thrush (hoof infection), and put her in boots and thick pads. She would need to stand on something soft so you can pick up her feet to do this without causing too much pain. If she were still unable to walk comfortably in boots and pads and after any serious thrush was resolved then I would probably PTS. If she was comfortable in boots and pads then I would probably try a barefoot rehab, though this will be more difficult in tenerife as you probably don't have any specialists out there so would need to do the research and either trim yourself or persuade a farrier to trim to the guidelines. This article http://www.equethy.com/Laminitis article Equestrian Life Magazine.pdf gives an overview of the barefoot approach to laminitis rehab. It would require a lot of time and effort, especially if you couldn't track down an experienced barefoot rehab professional to help. You might be able to contact someone in the UK or USA who could at least advise via e-mail, photos, videos etc.
 
Keep sugars and starches low, ie.don't feed cereals or molassed anything. Ensure that your horse eats nothing with glyphosate in it, ie wheatfeed etc avoid soya and corn oils. Don't spray or fertilze pasture with chemicals or artificial fertilizer. Try and get organic hay or haylage. Try to keep your horse out 24/7 on unimproved pasture, feed hay if you have to. If you can adopt this lifestyle for your horse, you'll be likely to reverse the effects of EMS, IR and cushings and consequently laminitis.
 
Pale Rider said:
Keep sugars and starches low, ie.don't feed cereals or molassed anything. Ensure that your horse eats nothing with glyphosate in it, ie wheatfeed etc avoid soya and corn oils. Don't spray or fertilze pasture with chemicals or artificial fertilizer. Try and get organic hay or haylage. Try to keep your horse out 24/7 on unimproved pasture, feed hay if you have to. If you can adopt this lifestyle for your horse, you'll be likely to reverse the effects of EMS, IR and cushings and consequently laminitis.
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Cushings is caused by a tumour on the pituitary gland, it cannot be reversed with diet changes. They may help to control it for a time, but laminitis in a cushings horse is often impossible to prevent.
 
I have a mare that I bred myself, she went down with laminitis in November when it was obviously not grass or weight related she was fit and healthy and just 5 years old. Vet and farrier thought it was stress related as she had lived out all summer and I had started bringing her in at night and she didn't like being in. She got over it but every time I walked her out just leading her she would develope an abscess. This went on for years, she had about 34 abscesses over the next 10 years. It affected all four feet and many times I thought I would just give up and pts. She was so happy in between bouts that I couldn't bring myself to do it so she was left in the field and every abscess was treated and she was on bute during each episode. She has been abscess and laminitis free for 7 years now and at the age of 22 she now gets walked in hand and loves it. My point is that laminitis can be caused by many things and galloping on hard ground could be a massive problem for a horse with previous history of any hoof issues. As to whether to continue is a difficult one, if my mare had been in constant pain and there were no good days I would definitely have pts but the good days were very good and she was obviously a happy horse so perhaps you need to see if your horses good days out way the bad to help you decide the horses future.
 
twiggy2 said:
did anyone watch the video?
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Yes. I found it quite disturbing 3.35-4.20 that anyone would consider working a horse showing that degree of lameness. I fear that was when Katie was considered to be 'good' I dread to think what she is going through now.
 
SuzyQ66 said:
By the way, for anyone interested, this is the video we made of her first year with us. You can see how quickly she improved. I am sad to say that now she is worse than when we first got her. It is heartbreaking.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_sYp1GHFr0
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I have just watched this video. If she is now worse than when you got her and you have struggled as long as you have to get her right, then I think you should put her out of her misery. Laminitis is an exceptionally painful disease. She is living life like a human who has been smashed with a hammer on the bed of all the nails on her toes and fingers. Except that she walks on her nails, so it's even worse.
 
I hadn't watched the video until now and it would seem that she hasn't been sound at all. Unless her owners are prepared for a long rehabilitation and for her to remain an unridden animal for the rest of her days then I feel best to pts now.
 
ihatework said:
Yes. I found it quite disturbing 3.35-4.20 that anyone would consider working a horse showing that degree of lameness. I fear that was when Katie was considered to be 'good' I dread to think what she is going through now.
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I agree and it is why I asked as no-one had commented on it, I think this mare has been through enough and she be put out of her pain
 
twiggy2 said:
did anyone watch the video?
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Yes and wish I hadn't. The only part she looks acceptably comfortable is when spinning on lunge, the long reining section where she is clearly lame is upsetting. Poor girl would be released from her life of pain and suffering pronto if she were mine.
 
OP
Please get in touch with Andrea on the Facebook group EMS, PPID(Cushings) and Laminitis UK group. She will give you some excellent, well informed advice.
Laminitis is totally treatable but you have to find the cause first ...and treat appropriately. It's quite likely, having looked at the video, that she has never properly recovered and so when she bolted, she has caused further damage. Has she had X-rays since she bolted? Often all shoeing does is mask the feeling in the foot and so a horse appears more sound than it actually is.
It is important that while having a laminitic episode, that your horse is stabled anD prevented from moving around.
Laminitis is nothing to do with circulation...that's an old fashioned and outdated opinion. The 'glue' that is holding the inside of her hoof onto the outside of her hoof is not attated properly and if she moves about that will get worse not better. She needs to grow a new hoof correctly (one that it attached properly)and to help that you need to manage her,( feed, trim) to allow her to do that but in the meantime, stop her from doing more damage.
This link should help you understand it better and provide you with info on Cusgings etc:

http://www.thelaminitissite.org/

Good luck x
 
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