Competition Pony with Suddenly Noisy Breathing and pale Gums

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nannubu

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Hi Everyone,
Having a very frustrating time with my Connie and wondered if anyone had any ideas? He has always been fit and healthy and we've been doing some eventing which has been great fun.

The week preceding our last event (4 weeks ago), he didn't feel right but is was only a vibe: very lethargic and switched off (he is normally sharp as a tack and very off the leg). I put it down to the extra work we'd been doing and promised myself he would have a health check when his vaccs rolled around in the next few weeks.

He gave me an uncharacteristic ride round XC with a stop (very unlike him) and an overwhelming feeling that I was forcing him to do it rather than his usual style which is 'lemme at em'. Had a few days off and then took him for gentle hack with short canter which left his breathing really loud. A few strides of canter meant i could hear his breathing for a good 8 minutes afterwards, which shouldn't have been the case as he was eventing fit.

Vet looked him over and couldn't see anything obvious but commented that his membranes were pale and recommended Haemavite B plus and some time off, thinking he might be 'post viral'.

It's been four weeks now and we are riding gently and he is full of beans but I can still hear this noisy breathing in canter. It is becoming so frustrating as I'd love to know what's going on. There has been no coughing or snot and I just wanted to hear some ideas before I go down the vet route as he is very needle shy and it will be a whole hoo-ha taking bloods.

Any ideas? My chiro thought maybe copper deficiency causing the anaemia but that doesn't explain the raspy breathing. All help and advice gratefully received! Just want ny boy back fighting fit!
 
Id ask the vet to come back out ( or ask a different vet) and check him over again. It could be the tail end of a virus, bit like us with a lasting cough after a cold/flu..don't ride him if he is still like that, and also check his hay isnt too dusty ( if he has hay!). Let us know how you get on
 
How ridiculous. I do despair of vets sometimes (a lot of the time actually! :( )

If your horse isn't right, and neither you nor the vet have any idea of what it is, then I'd ask the vet to come back and take a blood sample and have it tested for a comprehensive profile (to include liver and muscle enzymes as well as red cells, white cells etc). Sometimes that can highlight things which aren't immediately obvious to the naked eye - for example infections can show up as changes in white blood cells etc.

If you do go down the line of a blood test, best to make sure the pony hasn't done any work for at least a couple of days so you get a true baseline, and also ensure that the blood is done at home (ie no travelling) and no stress of any kind beforehand...... just so it is a true representative baseline for him.

I also wondered about dusty hay - has he been coming in more than during the summer?

Sarah
 
Thank you everyone, really appreciate your replies - think I will finally give in and ask for another vet to come out and do bloods. It's frustrating because there's nothing overtly wrong with him (I'm sure half the yard think I'm being paranoid) and don't want to waste my time (and put pony through needle stress) for a brush off or even more unanswered questions. We have only been doing some walk and halt work so I haven't exerted him at all in the last month; I really thought he would've been bouncing back by now.
I will keep you posted on the upshot. Thanks again!
 
Good idea on the bloods. Having just had a horse with one of these "post viral" chronic fatigue syndromes I can definitely sympathize. His blood work only showed a very low white count - nothing else was abnormal.

We did rest, interferon and aloe vera (there was also a vit tonic but that didn't seem to do much) and he did come back to being very lively. Sometimes the vets can recommend anabolic steroids, but mine wasn't really a horse you would want being more aggressive!

Good luck!
 
HD15 said:
Good idea on the bloods. Having just had a horse with one of these "post viral" chronic fatigue syndromes I can definitely sympathize. His blood work only showed a very low white count - nothing else was abnormal.

We did rest, interferon and aloe vera (there was also a vit tonic but that didn't seem to do much) and he did come back to being very lively. Sometimes the vets can recommend anabolic steroids, but mine wasn't really a horse you would want being more aggressive!

Good luck!
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Really interesting - did your horse show signs of having had a virus or was it just the fatigue that led you to get it checked out? Also, what's interferon? And how long before he was like himself again? Sorry for all the questions :) Always good to have a different perspective.
 
nannubu said:
Really interesting - did your horse show signs of having had a virus or was it just the fatigue that led you to get it checked out? Also, what's interferon? And how long before he was like himself again? Sorry for all the questions :) Always good to have a different perspective.
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:) I didn't even know horses could get this sort of thing so happy to share what I learned!

No virus as far as I could see, so really just lethargy and not seeming "right". That did confuse me when they kept calling it "post-viral" and I kept thinking he hadn't had one, noticeably anyway. He had some lameness issues going on at the same time so he wasn't really in work and that complicated things somewhat. But he just seemed low and a bit unhappy. Very blah even in his stable.

First blood test picked up the really low WBC tried him on a vit, iron tonic which didn't seem to do much. Then he had the interferon which is an immune stimulant (some sort of immune system protein). One of the vets said he wasn't convinced it worked but they gave it because it was cheap. Then we discussed anabolic steroids (basically testosterone) but he was already an opinionated horse so we decided against. I had found a paper of sorts from the mid-1990's on aloe vera by a vet called Peter Green (I'm a scientist so was being geeky) which found 80% of the horses they tried it on returned to normal work. So I did what they did in the paper 240ml a day (with my vet's blessing) and I thought he seemed a little better relatively soon. But anyway to your point yes he did recover his WBC and definitely his energy levels (almost too well, in fact). It was 3 months for the normal blood test, but I thought he was really energetic probably after 1.5-2 months. Another key thing was only doing tiny bits with him and then sort of letting him tell me how much exercise he could take. At one point he was only walking for 10min three times a week.

My horse was really really really low though, so sounds like yours is hopefully starting from a better place (if that is what he has). Happy to share any more details if you have any other Q's. :)
 
HD15 said:
:) But anyway to your point yes he did recover his WBC and definitely his energy levels (almost too well, in fact). It was 3 months for the normal blood test, but I thought he was really energetic probably after 1.5-2 months. Q's. :)
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Thanks so much - that's all incredibly helpful. Totally agree with you about the being just 'not right' - it is a sad reflection on my boy that when he's being very good, I know he's not well :). I think I'd like my naughty version back though and I'll know normal service has been resumed! Just strange as he's never had a day's sickness in his life. I will be careful though with the exercise and let him dictate the pace.
Will get vet back out to take some blood and have a look at aloe vera properties. I've a friend who extols the virtue of aloe for humans but haven't really contemplated the benefits for horses.
Glad your boy made a full recovery and thanks for your help, really appreciate it.
 
I forgot to say, but do ask for a copy of any blood results for your own records and for future reference.

You may think you know nothing about bloods, but it's easy enough to look at your pony's values and compare them to the lab's reference range which will be shown alongside the results.

Some vets don't report things that are only slightly high or low, but they may still be significant, so it's worth you having all the data so you can make informed decisions.

Sarah
 
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