EMS? Should I have him tested? (long)

PucciNPoni

PucciNPoni

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My loan horse is puzzling me to no end. I've had him under a year, and when I got him early last spring, he was obese. Part of the problem then was that he tended to eat his straw bed. Okay, I thought, fair enough, he will be on a shavings bed with me. Also, he'd been out of work for 18 months. Okay, back to slow gentle hacks and then progress his workload when he's able. His fitness came along rather nicely.

As spring came summer, I had to start muzzling him, and reducing his turnout. His weight seemed to go up and down so easily (well, up - no so easy on the down). He was looking pretty good over the summer with the extra work, but his demeanor was so laid back - and he is quite sluggish at times. So on his very high fiber diet (lo cal balancer and lo cal chaff) and restricted diet, he was also getting soaked hay rations. I was feeding like a laminitic...so we introduced some oats to give him some oomph. This was beneficial in two ways - he seemed to get a bit of sparkle back but also seemed to lose weight as he was able to work a bit harder for longer. Great, i thought - on to a winner!

Roll on autumn - we introduced galloping to his work load. So hacking out up/down hills 1 day a week, galloping in the hilly stubble fields 2-3x a week, schooling 2-3x a week. This seemed to help for a bit - and still with same feeding regime. The weight suddenly started piling on again (so much so that my RI, who didn't realise we were galloping suggested we might start as he was looking fat again!).

So the problem seems that a shake up in the routine helps initially, but then his metabolism seems to adjust and then we're back to square one with weight gain. I was taping weekly and taking photos to track our progress - but something's just not right.

Now, due to my work commitments, i've had to give him a bit of a holiday for some time (since mid-November). He was muzzled up til mid-October and then when the work load was restricted his oats were cut off and the chaff/hay rations cut back. Frozen ground and snow have meant a wee bit of hay was in the field (not a whole bale, but maybe a net's worth) during the day, and a measure of hay at night in his stable. On colder nights/days he will get more if he's in as I'm concerned with his mental well being as he has been starved in the past and has a tendancy to weave if left with nothing. And despite double small hole netting, he can empty his net in under an hour. Which concerns me that he will end up with gastric ulcers.

I put him back to work yesterday, and was absolutely horrified to see that he's the same weight as when i got him! He's got these hard fat pockets all over his body (think neck crest, but on his back and bum). He has a distended pot belly (looks wormy, but worm count always nil) and you can feel his ribs.

I've tried exercising the weight off, freezing it off (clipping and light rugging on cold nights), dieting if off. I'm completely at a loss as to what to do.

Spoke to my vet about this some months ago when she was out for jabs and her comment was that testing it is fine, but I'm already feeding correctly. Is she right or is there more i could/should be doing?

And the other issue I have - saddle fitting - his weight keeps yo-yo-ing around so much that it's nearly impossible to keep him fitting in to his saddle long enough. In the 10 months I've had him, he's been seen by saddler twice with changes to be made! ARGGGH!!!!

Can anyone suggest anything or share their experiences with this? I'm going off my head trying to think what to do next?!
 
He sounds exactly like my mare with EMS. We've only had her since last summer, but she's lost some weight with us and she's an ideal weight now, apart from the crest. I don't think the testing is expensive, but you might also consider Cushings.

Diet-wise we are very strict - 1.5% bodyweight in soaked hay split into 2/3 feeds, double netted (not that it slows her down much). She also has two very small feeds of balancer and top chop lite. No grazing, no unsoaked hay and 24 hour turnout. Exercise wise she gets walks up and down steep hills with short bursts of trot. I think this is supposed to be more far-burning than fast work. Not sure if that helps as it sounds like you've got diet quite tightly controlled.
 
Sounds like he may be insulin resistant to me, there is plenty on the net about it, but it can be really serious with laminitis a major risk.

Starch and sugar is the killer, so no hard feed and watch the hay/haylage, and be careful with grass.
 
If there is a link to EMS, from what i'm reading, then it seems to make sense to me why the vet didn't really seem to keen to go for blood work - as there's no one test to say that a horse positively has it or not. However, I may change the diet yet again. Sounds like the re-introduction to speedi-beet might be in order (one of the things I cut from diet as I thought it was contributing to the weight gain over the past six weeks) and cut off all succulents. He wasn't getting many (1 small apple per day, and a few small carrots). He's already on Dengie good doer, but perhaps til i can get the hay analysed, I could increase the chaff and reduce the hay further.

Any thoughts on this? From the research I've done on line, it sounds more and more (frighteningly so) like EMS.
 
I would definitely get him tested. It's just a single fasting blood sample taken first thing then ( I think) it's tested for glucose and insulin.

Dengie Good Dooer is quite high sugar so I would opt for one of the non molassed chaffs (top cop lite or the new hi fi non mollassed). Definitely cut out all succulents. Mine get none.

Sue
 
Thanks for the advice. I will be checking for non-molassed and start looking for other ways too to cut off the sugar. Can you advise me about the grazing though? I'm on a livery yard with no strictly dirt paddock. I highly doubt that I would be allowed a starvation paddock. I muzzled him last year from like May to October (started as late as May when i realised that the grazing was really causing him a problme - he has never had a history of lami etc, but I could see that the weight gain!). So do you need to be completely off any and all grass - all year? Or am I treating this like laminitis?
 
As I'm sure you've read loads by now about EMS and the associated other illnesses, the problem for your horse is very similar to one we have. Around this time last year an acute attack of laminitis brought things to a head and we took what was considered by some to be fairly drastic action.

Our horse, an arab mare, 11 yrs, was barefoot at the time(still is) and I feel that the onset of the lami was caught early due to her feeling it at an early stage.

That said she still suffered severe rotation of the pedal bones in both fore feet.

Basically, we treated the horse as a whole, rather than concentrating on the feet, which are after all only a syptom of the disorder.

The diet which we chose to put her on was soaked hay initially, a very small amount of unmolassed sugar beet and a balancer for vits and mins.

Cut a very long story short, the pedal bones in both feet have undergone a full reversal and she is now sound and being ridden on roads, tracks etc barefoot.

We now feed her unsoaked haylage, she is allowed out to grass most days, but we are aware of the various danger times for high sugar levels in the grass and restrict her turnout accordingly. We feel that the advantages to her mental well being out weigh risks involved in allowing her turnout.

She never gets carrots or apples or anything like that, as it is too risky. She is still on the balancer and unmolassed sugar beet

Like your horse, her weight was in a state of constant flux predominantly upward. Things have now stabilized and she does not carry excess weight.

In dealing with this problem, diet and changes to her management have succeeded in allowing her to live a normal life. It has been fairly inexpensive as we have not used any veterinary drugs in her treatment. As we have excluded all feeds from the mainstream manufacturers we have saved on hard feed costs, and I am convinced that these feeds were instrumental in causing the problem in the first place.
 
Sounds very familiar indeed, similar age and breeding. My boy had a bit of a hard time about 2 1/2 years ago when he was sold, and was subsequently starved. The woman that sold him bought him back and then after 18 months, gave him to me on loan. I don't know whether any of this has contributed to his physical condition, but it sure has mentally! So he's one that will eat everything in his path very quickly and very thoroughly. I do keep him stabled quite a bit just to minimise what he takes in. But then he'll stand and weave. So I got him a muzzle, and that made him cranky at first, but he got over it - and then learned to eat *really* efficiently despite it.

I'm considering getting a bale of straw to mix in to his hay to cut some of that back - but sourcing it seems to be a slight issue. Grazing will be tricky as the yard is really lush grass (so even with the muzzle, he gets loads). Should I be muzzling him thru the winter, too?!

sorry, a bit rambling, but I'm trying to get my head round it all - and am really anxious for the New Year holiday to be over so I can get my vet organised.
 
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I had problems with my stallion last year and we weren't sure if it was EMS, cushings or else. He was put on a diet (similar to Andyspooner) no hard food just grass nuts, molasses free sugar beat, sunflower oil and min/vit supplement. He gets hay three times a day as it is very cold here at the moment, it will be cut down in the spring when the grass comes back. From spring to autumn he will get grass with min/vit supplement only.
We still don't know what is wrong with him but he was starved too for a few months. I would exclude Cushings as his coat is fairly normal, he doesn't drink much, he doesn't sweat and he has no problem with laminitis thank god.
I think it is EMS but it will take a few more months before I will really know.
I found this link very helpful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_polysaccharide_storage_myopathy

Good luck
 
Yes you should definately get him tested, if he is insulin resistant despite your carefull diet then he will need further help with drugs like metformin otherwise is he still at risk of getting laminitis. Usually one fasted blood sample is enough. This can give false negatives so if the results come back as normal one further test called the glucose tollerance test can be done which is more sensitive and still fairly simple to do. Until you know if his insulin is affected you don't know how severe you need to make the management changes. Some ponies with EMS can't have any grass at all and live in bark pens for instance. Once you have one blood result you can also repeat the test in future to make sure you management is successful.
 
Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll have to get tested before I worry too much about management. In the meantime I'll make some small changes...
 
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