Colic Question

minesadouble

minesadouble

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 June 2005
Messages
3,200
Visit site
We own a horse who has, on a few occasions had mild colic symptoms. As you can imagine this rather stressful for us. My vet, who is a respected horse specialist has said to me that it is very rare for a horse to present with mild colic that then develops into a severe, surgical case. He said that usually, if a horse has a severe colic incident, by this I assume he is referring to surgical cases, it usually presents with severe symptoms from the onset.

Luckily we have only ever owned one severe surgical case and she did indeed show dramatic symptoms pretty much straight away.

I would be interested to hear other people's experiences though, has anyone ever had a mild grumbling case that then went on to severe complications?
 
Did the vet see the horse when it showed colic symptoms? I would imagine it would depend on the type of colic.
My horse went through a year of intermittant colics. Each time it was spasmodic. He would bloat up & become very gassy. Often the symptoms were pretty dramatic - but he is a hypochondriac! He would kick, roll, sweat etc & often attempt to throw himself down if walking around. Each & every time he responded well to the buscopan injection & eventually it stopped happening. He was scoped at the time & no obvious problems were found. So the cause was never really identified other than he had had bouts of box rest for certain things. Vet suggested it had slowed his metabolic rate causing food to sit in his insides too long & begin to ferment.

Have known a few horses with grumbly cases to develop into full blown severe symptoms, but these were different types of colic, I think 2 were impactions.
 
Yes, ours was spasmodic too, I suppose an impaction is a different scenario altogether. He saw him during his first incident, after that when I have rang he has said just keep an eye on him and call if he gets distressed.

He passes droppings and will even pick at food during an incident (there have been 4 now) if you don't take it off him. Did you ever get to the bottom of what caused yours?
 
I had a TB mare who quite often had mild colic symptons over 2 years, then one day had very bad colic, i was advised to have her pts but wanted to give her a chance with surgery. I turned out she had a strangulated hernia, and according to the vets the amount of damage to the intestine thet would guess that it has been a problem for a long time. Though I do know of a few horses that have mild colic symptons and its just that.
 
Tried to edit my post as re-reading it I think I've made my vet sound a bit haphazard!!He did say he could investigate further with tests etc. but said they rarely show up anything concrete and it could just be one of those things, but obviously if the attacks became frequent that would be the road he advised going down.

He has been OK for months now but had a mild colic a couple of days ago, I thought that one could be down to the spring grass coming through as he is a TB and is a sensitive soul.

Annaellie - how frequent were your mare's attacks and did she have any oter symptoms?
 
Last edited:
She could have a couple a week or go for a few months there was no pattern, it presented as mild spasmodic colic, nothing showed up on any tests. It was only when they opened her up that they could see the damage that had been going on.
She also would pass droppings and nibble on food if it was not removed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top