Colic, now laminitis?

Black_Horse_White

Black_Horse_White

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I brought my horse in from the field on Sunday, he could hardly walk. He kept lifting his hind legs up and looked very tender through his hind quarters. I rang the vet who came out and started the usually examination for colic. His heart rate was 60. He was not sweating trying to roll or trashing about, he was very calm. He had 2 Pooh's wanted to eat and generally looked relaxed.

The vet made a comment that he could feel nothing in the rectal examination, so tubed him and flushed his stomach. Now I'm not a vet and have never claimed to be an expert. But he has had colic before and this was completely different, he didn't want to walk. As i had explained all this to the vet he then pressed down his back, then asked me if he was a bit of a mard arse as he was tender on his hindquarters. He never asked me to walk him out neither did he examine his feet. Advised me to leave him in with no food and to feed him on Monday then turn out on Tuesday.

Monday he was still shifting the weight off his hinds, but was walking better. I rang the on call vet Monday who obviously wouldn't comment. So i called out another vet today for a second opinion. He straight away lifted up his legs and tapped his feet. Laminitis he says. Now bearing in mind he has the same symptoms today has he had on Sunday. So i rang my now ex vet and explained to him what the vet had said, he replied laminitis can be brought on by the stress of severe colic and that when he checked his feet they were not sore. urmmm i was in the stable the whole time and he most certainly did not go anywhere near his feet. I told him he had a strong digital pulse, he said it was ok when he felt it. Another fib he didnt do that either.

So my poor baby was in his stable for a day with no pain relief. I'm so angry and upset at them and myself that he now has this horrible illness. He is now on a nice deep bed and getting the pain relief. No thanks to my old vet.
 
The original vet is correct in a away....colic is connected to diet (not in all cases) just as laminitis is (not in all cases). Overeating on grazing that is too rich by the sound of it.
 
Laminitis can be secondary to colic. In fact its a relatively common complication. Whether that is the case here or not is a different question - one that you may not get an answer to.
 
Even so he should have diagnosed the laminitis. He only had a high pulse rate which he concluded was caused by colic. When it could have been high due to the pain of the laminitis. He was completely lame and tied up, and very reluctant to walk.Which was the reason i called him out.
 
So was the vet informed that the horse was 'completely lame'? I assume you were there.

This is by the by really as your horse now has a diagnosis of laminitis so you need to address the CAUSE. I assume you have both the vet and your farrier booked for visits?
 
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Poor horse. It sounds like it will be a long haul back to the road of recovery for him and a complete overhaul of your management to restrict your grazing when necessary as he will always be prone to it now if you don't even if it was colic induced.
 
I think there are two issues here. The first and most important is that you need to address WHY the horse developed laminitis in the first place - what sort of grazing was he on? Is he a "fattie" native type who might be prone to it, and if so, how was he being managed to prevent the possibility from occurring? I have a very good doer (IDxTB who is a better doer than my Welsh D ever was, he only has to think about eating grass to put weight on) and I have to keep him on very poor grazing, practically mud, throughout the entire spring, summer and autumn plus bringing him in for 24hr-soaked hay all day, every day just to get him off what little grass there is. His weight has to be monitored weekly to ensure he isn't putting any on and he only goes on to more grazing once the other horses on the yard have eaten all of the good stuff away. My YO has other, very lush, grazing which has been rested all winter that her TB poor doer is on; I could never consider putting mine on this, he'd be huge within a week and end up with laminitis. Be honest with yourself and consider whether you could change anything in your management of your horse to prevent this happening again.

The second point is the apparent misdiagnosis by your vet. This has to be dealt with separately. If it was me, I would complain formally in writing to the practise if you are 100% your horse did not have colic.

You do need to consider that, if your horse did not have colic (which could have caused the laminitis), then you may need to rethink your management as something else must have caused the lammi...
 
glenruby said:
Laminitis can be secondary to colic. In fact its a relatively common complication. Whether that is the case here or not is a different question - one that you may not get an answer to.
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that was my first thought too TBH. if he has been shovelling rich grass then he could colic as a primary symptom and get laminitis as a secondary issue..

Hope you are able to manage his discomfort and find a suitable plan for preventing it in future
 
Yes i told the vet, and yes i was there. And so were many other people. When he was brought in no one suspected colic. He looked like he had injured himself. He was stiff through his hind quarters. I've only been on the yard for just over a week. And yes he is on rich short grazing. I was aware of the risk of laminitis. He is a native type, he is not a fattie. No one is beating themselves up about it more than me. I do my best for my horse and would not cause him to suffer. He has never suffered from it before, and i will do my utmost to make sure it never happens again. The vet did say after examination that he didn't think it was colic. And 2 ladies on the yard heard him. The fact is a vet should be able to diagnose laminitis, and before you all say so should I didn't as it was so obvious his back feet. And my farrier is on standby when my horse is better. He is improving and when he is better he will be muzzled with limited turnout. We all learn from our mistakes. I know I will. I will pay my vet bill. because i know i did the best for my boy. I got him treatment to stop his suffering. The vet didn't. He didn't even walking him out when i told him he was lame. No painkillers just tubed him gave him a nose bleed then buggered off.
 
Sorry to hear about your horse, laminitis is tricky and not always easy to identify in the early stages. But I just wanted to say that vets are not infallible and can struggle to diagnose at times. My lad had what the vet and blacksmith swore blind was an abcess and we treated it as such for 3 weeks and nothing appeared...so he went in for xrays and it transpired he had laminitis and rotation in the worst foot. It was apparent to all that if we had treated it as such to begine with the rotation may not have happened...but who knows and being left for three weeks before treating correctly (on vets instructions) will not have helped...but that is life and I accepted that there was nothing could be done and I just had to get my horse right from that point onwards.
 
Black_Horse_White said:
Yes i told the vet, and yes i was there. And so were many other people. When he was brought in no one suspected colic. He looked like he had injured himself. He was stiff through his hind quarters. I've only been on the yard for just over a week. And yes he is on rich short grazing. I was aware of the risk of laminitis. He is a native type, he is not a fattie. No one is beating themselves up about it more than me. I do my best for my horse and would not cause him to suffer. He has never suffered from it before, and i will do my utmost to make sure it never happens again. The vet did say after examination that he didn't think it was colic. And 2 ladies on the yard heard him. The fact is a vet should be able to diagnose laminitis, and before you all say so should I didn't as it was so obvious his back feet. And my farrier is on standby when my horse is better. He is improving and when he is better he will be muzzled with limited turnout. We all learn from our mistakes. I know I will. I will pay my vet bill. because i know i did the best for my boy. I got him treatment to stop his suffering. The vet didn't. He didn't even walking him out when i told him he was lame. No painkillers just tubed him gave him a nose bleed then buggered off.
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((hugs)) hope he is feeling better today and stop torturing yourself, we all make mistakes, whats important is we learn from them and move on. My Dex is very ill ATM and i am very worried about the little chap so i know how sad you must feel. In my case i was strangely almost disappointed that his liver biopsy showed no sign of ragwort poisoning as i had convinced myself i had missed some in the paddock and thats why he was ill!
Secondly- your (ex)vet sounds like he has a real attitude problem. My vet adores horses and the number of times he has stayed chatting to us, making a fuss of Dex/Jacob whilst his poor wife is phoning to find where the heck he is...He even phones everyday inc weekends for an update on how Dex is!

Chin up girl x
 
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