Colic surgery.. would you put yours through it?

[Pearlsasinger]

I rather suspect a lot of the people who say 'I would never consider colic surgery because I'm too concerned about my horse's welfare' are actually not able or prepared to pay - and that's fine. As long as the horse is either treated or PTS as required, I have no issues.

I find this extremely insulting tbh. We don't insure our horses because we want to be in complete control of what happens to them - and yes, you can over-ride ins co's views but there is no point in paying the premiums to do that.
We can afford to treat horses or dogs (which is all we have currently) but have made the decision in the cold light of day not to do so if the treatment would adversely affect their quality of life.
We had a mast cell tumour removed from one of the dogs last year. Fortunately the prognosis was good, although the healing was a pain, as it was on her elbow but we would not have put her through chemo and had made that decision although it was never suggested as being necessary.

 

[WandaMare]

It would be unlikely I would put a horse through it unless it was young and strong, would cope well with the recovery regime and my vet thought the prognosis was sufficiently good. My vet has looked after my horses for 20 years and the advice has always been 100%. He has a similar ethos to me when it comes to animals and quality of life so luckily I know that if god forbid I was in that situation I would have the support I needed to make the best decision for my horse. One of my older mares had to be pts due to an impaction colic and it wasn't even a consideration, she was in her late 20's bless her.

 

[Caol Ila]

Nope. She's 26 years old and hates box rest.

 

[TPO]

I'm fortunate that money isn't a factor in my decision making process.

I personally dont agree with that surgery and as an aside I've had vets tell me that they would never put a horse of theirs through it.

However I don't judge anyone who decides to proceed with colic surgery. As (hopefully) good owners we can only make a decision based on the information you have an have the horse's best interest as the most important factor.

We all have different levels of experience and exposure based on our time spent with and around animals and that will have an impact on the decisions we make and our views are allowed to change. Everyone is different; some people are replying in this thread having chosen not to elect for surgery, some have, some never will and some will decide should the situation arise. I really dont see the point in attacking other people's point of view or insinuating that the heart breaking decision to end suffering is solely a money saving exercise.

 

[windand rain]

The point I was making was that the hospital claimed an 80% chance of leaving the hospital what they didnt give was the survival rate at 5 years as it would have been considerably lower many horses operated on in may cases dont make it even months post some never make it out of box rest so you are then considering the pain, longevity and distress caused by several weeks or months of pain for a fatal outcome anyway. It is much kinder to PTS before surgery so you do not inflict that on your horse. My friend has a survivor she was operated on at 19 has lived until she is 32 but she would never do it again. The pain, box rest and subsequent fear of repeat occurances has blighted both their lives since with the pony being wrapped in cotton wool and the owner having the dread of losing her. This pony had a simple lipoma and was a good candidate but it still spoiled her normal life

 

[Chianti]

No. I saw some statistics from BHS which I think said that 6 months after surgery 50% don't make it.

 

[J&S]

I am a NO, my step daughter is a vet, trained at Liverpool/Leahurst, she also says No, for our personal horse/ponies.

 

[silv]

I am a no too, not something that is done much here as far as I know.

 

[blitznbobs]

rather suspect a lot of the people who say 'I would never consider colic surgery because I'm too concerned about my horse's welfare' are actually not able or prepared to pay - and that's fine. As long as the horse is either treated or PTS as required, I have no issues.

Money has never been a consideration when treating my horses - ever but I wouldn’t do colic surgery or a foot resection for that matter... if I could have a guaranteed and painless cure for my horse I’d gladly pay double for it . Unfortunately due to experiences I know that this is not the reality

 

[Summit]

No...costs and long term prognosis. My friend’s horse went through surgery costing her £10k. She’s not long paid off the loan

 

[Shilasdair]

There is nothing wrong with setting an upper limit on the money you are willing to pay for each horse you own. I don't understand why people aren't willing to say so. I certainly have a limit on what I'd spend on vet bills.

And it's often much cheaper to PTS and buy a new horse, than operate on the one you have, if you view it without emotional attachment. One of mine cost me £13k in vet bills in a period of 18 months (uninsured, too).

The issues I have are with people who don't want to pay for any treatment at all for a sick animal - if you can't afford to have your horse PTS, you can't afford a horse at all.

 

[Shilasdair]

And to answer YCBM about control groups - before you can work out what the long term prognosis for horses undergoing colic surgery might be, you would need to have a population to compare your surgical horses to.

For example, the colic surgery group might all die at age 18. But horses who have never had such surgical intervention might all die at 16 - thus you can work out that colic surgery prolongs the life of the horses by two years (unlikely, but you get the drift). You need to match the groups for other characteristics as much as possible too, so that colic surgery is the only differing factor. Only then can you work out if a colic surgery horse is more or less likely to have certain outcomes than the general population over a stated time span. So if 10% of horses die before age 20, and 15% of colic surgery horses die before age 20 you can see the difference.

Not sure if this has been done - I'll have a look tomorrow maybe.
Sorry if this is rushed - I'm stuck in a work meeting as I type.

 

[windand rain]

That is not the question though if you take 100 horses to surgery, you take 80 home the rest die at the vets, what you need to know to make the decision is how many are still alive with no colic related symptoms 5 years later that is the real survival rate it is irrelevant to compare one group against another if they do not survive beyond weeks or months post surgery. Whether surgical survival prolongs life in post 5 year survival is not the question as a very few of your hundred will still be alive for you to compare. If you start with 100 foals and chart their lives all managed the same way, all bred the same and all brought up and handled by the same person you would have a basis for that kind of comparison they would have to be isolated from birth and given the same treatments whether needed or not to make it a true surgical trial and of course it may be that none of your foals would get colic in their lifetime so you could not do your trial Double blind trials are unethical in many many ways and statistical analysis to prove significance is impossible without

 

[windand rain]

Oh and for it is worth my decision is not based on cost it is based on the well being of my horses I can afford to do what they need but it would be unkind to inflict severe pain deliberately on my horse. I also do not believe in routine abdominal surgery for dogs either if you cannot prevent your dog from getting pregnant you should not have a female dog but that is a different subject all together. Surgery should be for prolonging life and even so should be carefully weighed up the pros and cons and long term comfort against short term pain

 

[Michen]

Unless you have been faced with the decision, I don't think you can ever really know (unless you know the horse would never cope with box rest, recovery etc)...so talking about a "perfect" scenario with a young otherwise fit, healthy horse and money or insurance to pay for it. I would have always been 100% sure I'd never put any horse through it but when the time came to either operate or PTS, I chose to operate. Would I do it again... not sure.

Sometimes, when you are faced with the life of your horse in your hands all rationale and reason goes out of the window and you make decisions you never thought you'd make. Maybe that's weak, I don't know...

 

[Michen]

Btw, if you think your insurance covers the entire cost of colic- think again. Most insurance policies are 5k vet fees. Basils was more than that and that was with no aftercare.... which would have easily been several thousand more.

 

[Shilasdair]

That is not the question though if you take 100 horses to surgery, you take 80 home the rest die at the vets, what you need to know to make the decision is how many are still alive with no colic related symptoms 5 years later that is the real survival rate it is irrelevant to compare one group against another if they do not survive beyond weeks or months post surgery. Whether surgical survival prolongs life in post 5 year survival is not the question as a very few of your hundred will still be alive for you to compare. If you start with 100 foals and chart their lives all managed the same way, all bred the same and all brought up and handled by the same person you would have a basis for that kind of comparison they would have to be isolated from birth and given the same treatments whether needed or not to make it a true surgical trial and of course it may be that none of your foals would get colic in their lifetime so you could not do your trial Double blind trials are unethical in many many ways and statistical analysis to prove significance is impossible without

So you plan to assume that all horses will live forever, with no colic incidences, 100% survival?
And compare that with your colic surgery horses?
No, for meaningful results you need a baseline to compare survival rates to. I don't know horse mortality rates over 5 years, but they certainly aren't zero.

 

[DSB]

No,deleted colic insurance from their policy,realise that if they colic and are not operated on I will not receive any insurance.A friend had a TB mare operated on ,she broke a leg,getting up after surgery.

 

[rara007]

My young ones, yes I’d open them and I’d act fast. The old boys, no probably not.
5 year survival rate would be interesting but I wonder how many horses of the average age of a colic surgery have an expected 5 year survival anyway. Plus the follow up would be a nightmare to actually get meaningful figures. All the TB youngstock now either PTS or out of racing, all the older much loved leisure horses sold on or PTS for ‘age’ etc. I’d imagine similar has been tried- surely!?
We’ve only had 1 operated on and he got home but didn’t make 5 years and didn’t get back to full work, but he’s a sample size of 1.

 

[Michen]

No,deleted colic insurance from their policy,realise that if they colic and are not operated on I will not receive any insurance.A friend had a TB mare operated on ,she broke a leg,getting up after surgery.

That's really rare. My local referral practice operated on 350 horses in 2017 and only one died from a broken leg in recovery (mine) and even then it was only because of a hairline fracture that was there beforehand but not showing on x ray.

With the various aids these days, most horses stand up fine.

 

[milliepops]

I have a friend whose horse broke a leg getting up from a hobday.
Crap things happen, it's one of the risks of a ga not specific to colic ops 😓

 

[Shilasdair]

My young ones, yes I’d open them and I’d act fast. The old boys, no probably not.
5 year survival rate would be interesting but I wonder how many horses of the average age of a colic surgery have an expected 5 year survival anyway. Plus the follow up would be a nightmare to actually get meaningful figures. All the TB youngstock now either PTS or out of racing, all the older much loved leisure horses sold on or PTS for ‘age’ etc. I’d imagine similar has been tried- surely!?
We’ve only had 1 operated on and he got home but didn’t make 5 years and didn’t get back to full work, but he’s a sample size of 1.

Yay - someone understands re stats.
I also agree that it depends on the individual horse and owner circumstances whether colic surgery is the right thing or not.

It's ok to decide to do it (following vet advice) and it's equally OK to decide not to (horse is old, has other issues, won't box rest, not insured, owner can't afford the money* or the time).

I don't see the point in attacking others who hold differet views.

* Caveat - owners absolutely must be able to PTS.

 

[ycbm]

And to answer YCBM about control groups - before you can work out what the long term prognosis for horses undergoing colic surgery might be, you would need to have a population to compare your surgical horses to.

For example, the colic surgery group might all die at age 18. But horses who have never had such surgical intervention might all die at 16 - thus you can work out that colic surgery prolongs the life of the horses by two years (unlikely, but you get the drift). You need to match the groups for other characteristics as much as possible too, so that colic surgery is the only differing factor. Only then can you work out if a colic surgery horse is more or less likely to have certain outcomes than the general population over a stated time span. So if 10% of horses die before age 20, and 15% of colic surgery horses die before age 20 you can see the difference.

Not sure if this has been done - I'll have a look tomorrow maybe.
Sorry if this is rushed - I'm stuck in a work meeting as I type.

I don't agree that this level of research is needed to make an informed decision. And because it is too difficult, it will probably never be done. When you talked about control groups I did not realise that you were suggesting something statistically perfect which is effectively impossible to achieve. I thought we were talking about the real world.

What I think most people need is the number still alive at each stage, how many further colic episodes they have had, what wound complications there have been, and the information for the dead ones of whether they died of something colic related or something completely different.

That would be pretty easy, and I think that a place like Liverpool, operating on 250 every year, should be doing it. But all they seem to publish is the numbers going home, and they seem to be using that to persuade some people to operate under what I consider to be false pretences, given the longer term survival rates.

.

 

[ycbm]

It's ok to decide to do it (following vet advice) and it's equally OK to decide not to (horse is old, has other issues, won't box rest, not insured, owner can't afford the money* or the time).

You have missed 'owner does not believe their horse should be put through such major surgical intervention', which is what many of us have explained is our reasoning and you seem not to be hearing.

I don't see the point in attacking others who hold differet views.
.

Nobody was.


..

 

[Caol Ila]

For a young horse, maybe, but I don't know. I'd probably be like Michen and give it a go, if there was a chance of full recovery. But would that be the best decision? In my totally anecdotal experience, horses I've personally known who had colic surgery all had issues afterwards, and ultimately had to be put down due to colic. They never really had a normal, healthy life. I've heard tales on here of ones who went back to full work and never had a problem again, but I've never run into one of those in meatspace.

In a way, when my horse got to her late teens, it became a clearer decision. With a seven year old horse or a ten year old horse whatever, it's much harder.

 

[bluedanube]

Probably not

 

[windand rain]

So you plan to assume that all horses will live forever, with no colic incidences, 100% survival?
And compare that with your colic surgery horses?
No, for meaningful results you need a baseline to compare survival rates to. I don't know horse mortality rates over 5 years, but they certainly aren't zero.

No you are being obtuse it isnt a question of horse survival but of surviving colic surgery in the first instance but never mind I am sure you know what you are talking about

 

[Boulty]

Nope I wouldn't put current horse through ANY procedure requiring a full GA as I think he'd be at high risk of killing / seriously injuring himself on recovery in a blind panic. He also doesn't deal with boxrest at all so anything requiring extensive boxrest as a must is out as well. If he seriously injured himself in any way he would likely be PTS. He has cushings, has sidebone, is prone to laminitis, has liver issues (which are HOPEFULLY on the home straight of improving) & currently ongoing issues with soreness in his poll & a possible issue with his back. He is not in ridden work at the moment & is moderately likely to end up officially retired in the near future. Given the no of issues he has adding any more on top would just seem unfair. This same horse is going for a CT scan of his head under standing sedation at the end of the month to try & give us a diagnosis on what's going on with his poll so we can decide if his future lies in retirement or if we can work out a way of him coming back into ridden work (which would help some of his other issues if it were possible as him being in work & burning calories helps with his feet & his cushings).

In all honesty taking this particular horse out of the equation I think it would take a very special set of circumstances to make me want to go for surgery on any horse in the future but I never say never to anything.

 

[HashRouge]

Not for my current two. One is 26, which I consider far too old for major surgery, and the other crib bites badly, so box rest would be an absolute no no for him. I would have to think long and hard about it in other cases, though I lean towards no. My view on this has been massively shaped by a couple of friends (one of whom is a vet) whose horses had colic surgery and then broke a leg coming round from the anaesthetic.

 

[JanetGeorge]

So you plan to assume that all horses will live forever, with no colic incidences, 100% survival?
And compare that with your colic surgery horses?
No, for meaningful results you need a baseline to compare survival rates to. I don't know horse mortality rates over 5 years, but they certainly aren't zero.

I have quite a few older horses: most brood mares, (now retired whatever their age). There area few former hunters (retired), and a couple of horses I have bred but couldn't sell because of an 'unsoundness' that had arisen at a relatively young age. Since I started accumulating horses (about 30 years ago) I lost: a 13 yo hunter gelding to a kick in the head from another horse, my first mare in foal who was found dead in the morning no obvious sign it had been colic - more likely pregnancy related; one foal pre delivery (TOO big), two yearlings - one a colic too severe for surgery to be consdered and one some form of virus it was thought - but never identified. There was also 4yo with a horrendous mouth at birth, we didn't realise it was a problem until he was two and did everything reasonable to save him. My only colic operation - a 5 year old - from small colon dystrophy; there were two mares in their 20s to colic - pts and foals left orphans. Of the 3 PTS in the last year (all between 23 and 25 year old) - all age rather than colic - all a difficult decision but necessary - and after SOME veterinary intervention to see if any time could be bought. I have had up to 110 horses (thankfully down to 40 now) Of those I now have, 5 are between 23 and 25, so will probably be a need to PTS at least 2 in the next year. Obviously, as a breeder, I have sold a lot of horses. Of those, I am aware on one who has survived colic surgery for more than 5 years and 3 others who either DIDN'T survive surgery for more than a week.

So, I have been lucky, I guess. ANY death or PTS decision hurts badly. Cost adds to the pain. But you have to be lucky to save a horse with colic surgery - and you have to be unlucky to lose a horse to an unavoidable accident.