EOTRH

[Toby_Zaphod]

One of my horses has EOTRH, This is Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis, also known as EOTRH, it's a syndrome in horses that results in resorptive lesions of the incisors and sometimes canine teeth. which basically is his teeth are being rejected. As a result of this one of my horses had 10 teeth removed. It's been around for a for about 4 years or so but no one knows what causes it. The teeth become very loose and need removing. We had a veterinary dental technician come to check the teeth out on our horses & we were mortified to find out he had this condition that we'd never heard of. He went into the vets where he had 10 teeth removed. Fortunately his gums are healing nicely & are getting to the point where he can graze and eat grass. He still retains his molars. May be there will be a day when the vets will know what causes this & something can be done to prevent it.
It's soul destroying when you find out this & your horse has to have all the dental work done.

 

[milliepops]

i know a couple who have had the surgery to remove their incisors and although it seems awful, they seem to manage well and presumably without the pain from the condition they must feel better.

One of mine is a bit suspect but so far we have adopted a watch and wait position, i think she will meet her maker before it becomes a problem.

 

[Lady Jane]

I firdt heard about this at an RVC lecture. Whilst it is distressing, apparently most horses do adapt and do well. Good luck

 

[AmyMay]

@LadyGascoyne looked after a horse with this and had some success in treating it.

 

[poiuytrewq]

My loan horse had it.
He ended up having all his front teeth removed. Upper and lower. He also had to have lots of broken bits of tooth and root removed from his gums. It wasn’t pleasant and I found it quite hard going. It was ultimately why I ended the loan. The insurance was maxed out and dental issues were then no longer covered. He’s back home, retired but doing well.
His tongue now hangs out as there is nothing to hold it in ?
Regular dentals are bit of an ordeal as he has to see a specialist and had to have a gag made for him as the usual ones rest on their teeth so we’re too painful.
In hindsight the trauma he (and I) went through at first could have been avoided has we gone straight to the dental specialist who was amazing and sorted him out swiftly with far less painful treatment. Simply because they were so accustomed to dealing with it.

 

[PurBee]

@LadyGascoyne on here had a older loan companion horse with this condition. She seemed to keep on top of it and improve the teeth/gums, but i dont know the details of her methods. Hopefully she’ll be notified of this thread now ive tagged her and she may be able to offer advice.

 

[humblepie]

Don‘t know anything about the condition but good luck with your horse.

 

[Goldenstar]

Good luck to both of you as you manage this going forwards .

 

[poiuytrewq]

https://equinedentalclinic.co.uk/
I’ve mentioned them many times on HHO but that’s because they are bloody amazing. My horses surgery was on their website/fb pages.
I don’t live near them but they travel the country.
They are also incredibly good at advice reassurance and just talking it through.

 

[LadyGascoyne]

I’m sorry to hear about your horse’s diagnosis.

When our loan mare was diagnosed, I did quite a bit of reading and came away with some thoughts.

My thought process was that there must be some combination of factors that result in a horse developing the condition. I could find very little in the way of genetic or genomic findings but there are clinical studies, and then there are environmental/ management factors that I thought about too.

The things that stood out to me were inflammation and gut health. There was some tenuous link to protein absorption issues and hypoalbuminemia in one of the studies I read too but I think the sample size was very small and now I can’t find it.

Considering that access to forage may not have been consistent throughout her life -especially in her early life when she was in Spain- I wonder whether there is a link between saliva production, mastication, digestion, gastric ulcers, gut health and protein absorption. And then itching was another issue she struggled with, which I still wonder about being linked in some way.

So what I did with her (not a surgery candidate) was to ensure constant access to forage, improve her protein intake and really feed to improve gut health and to ensure a balance of vitamins and minerals.

She had 24/7 grazing (very varied with access to hedgerows and different grasses and wild flowers) unless the weather was very bad and then in with hay, barley straw and oat straw. She ate soaked sugar beet, micronised linseed, and soaked dengie grass pellets with brewers yeast, nettle, burdock, mint, garlic, chamomile and magnesium. Small feeds so 2-3 a day in summer and 3/4 in winter when the grazing was poorer.



The hypercementosis is thought to be secondary to the reabsorption - it forms in response to the destabilization of the underlying tooth and bone structure. We did not brush it or remove it at all, and were very careful not to disturb it. I did run a finger covered in peppermint oil over the gum when I checked her teeth every few days. It came away on its own over a period of 9-12 months.

The dentist was so pleased with her that we reduced his visits from 3 month to 6 month intervals towards the end of the first year.

I know your horse has had the surgery so is in a different boat but from my experience with it, I personally think that there is something much more metabolic / inflammatory going on underneath the dental symptoms so considering management and diet changes might help to manage whatever the underlying issue is.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7008772/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4502855/

https://aaep.org/sites/default/files/issues/AmbulatoryPearson2.pdf