Supanova
Well-Known Member
I haven't posted on here for a while but as some of you may remember I was having some performance issues with my mare - refusing SJ, but probably more fundamentally a lack of willingness to go forward and a general dislike of work. I posted a video on here where people commented that I needed to get her more forward and in front of the leg, which i totally agreed with but could never seem to achieve no matter how hard i tried and how many lessons I had. Some also felt that she didn't look quite right but it was difficult to identify exactly what was wrong. Over the past few years, I have been to the vets more times than I can remember for lameness work ups, ovaries scanned, scoped for ulcers etc and we have picked up various small niggles that I have thought at the time may be the cause of the poor performance, but we never progressed. She has had physios, osteopaths, acupuncture, behaviourists. Reputable vets and physios have both declared her to be one of the soundest horses they have ever seen..............so for periods I have tried to crack on, before returning to the vets a few months later for some more investigations.
One of the things that has been in the back of my mind for a little while is PSSM after i read about it somewhere. She shows none of the major signs, i.e she has never tied up, nor does she have muscle wastage, but I did wonder if she showed some of the more subtle signs. My dressage instructer has always said " I don't think there is anything physically wrong with this horse", that was until she got on her about a month ago - having ridden her she could feel why i was concerned!! She used to be a nurse and she suggested that maybe it was something metabolic so I immediately jumped on the fact that I had wondered about PSSM!! So encouraged by the support of my instructer i phoned the vet and to cut a very long story short, iwe did a special muscle enzyme test where you take blood pre, post and 4 hrs after exercise. This came back with abnormally raised CK levels 4 hrs after exercise. So we decided to do a muscle biopsy and at this stage i was convinced she had PSSM. Anyway it turns out she hasn't got PSSM but the biopsy does show muscle damage indicative of Recurrent Exertional Rhamdolyosis (RER). This has probably been making her muscles feel very sore!! The professor who interpretated the biopsy states "in my opinion this could well be the cause of this horse's performance issues"!
The management of this condition is based on changing the feed to very low starch, low sugar, high fat diet. It is also recommended that I add something called L-Carnitine. She has been on this diet for 2 weeks and i am slowly bringing her back into work, but I know already that there is a massive improvement. She no longer spooks at the terrifying corner in the arena, she is much happier to be tacked up and groomed and she walks forward with much more purpose.
I feel so relieved to have finally got to the bottom of my poor horse's problems. Half of me feels that i have always tried my best for her but the other half feels guilty and knows that I should have trusted my instincts more and pushed the vets harder sooner. I just feel like we were always looking for the wrong cause i.e. lameness, back etc. I also believe that the vet had begun to think i was something of a hypochondriac and whilst they tried to accommodate my requests they didn't fundamentally think there was anything wrong with her!!
I am really looking forward to bringing her back into full work and hopefully posting some competition reports on here in the near future!
If anyone has any stories to share about RER horses I would be really interested to hear!
One of the things that has been in the back of my mind for a little while is PSSM after i read about it somewhere. She shows none of the major signs, i.e she has never tied up, nor does she have muscle wastage, but I did wonder if she showed some of the more subtle signs. My dressage instructer has always said " I don't think there is anything physically wrong with this horse", that was until she got on her about a month ago - having ridden her she could feel why i was concerned!! She used to be a nurse and she suggested that maybe it was something metabolic so I immediately jumped on the fact that I had wondered about PSSM!! So encouraged by the support of my instructer i phoned the vet and to cut a very long story short, iwe did a special muscle enzyme test where you take blood pre, post and 4 hrs after exercise. This came back with abnormally raised CK levels 4 hrs after exercise. So we decided to do a muscle biopsy and at this stage i was convinced she had PSSM. Anyway it turns out she hasn't got PSSM but the biopsy does show muscle damage indicative of Recurrent Exertional Rhamdolyosis (RER). This has probably been making her muscles feel very sore!! The professor who interpretated the biopsy states "in my opinion this could well be the cause of this horse's performance issues"!
The management of this condition is based on changing the feed to very low starch, low sugar, high fat diet. It is also recommended that I add something called L-Carnitine. She has been on this diet for 2 weeks and i am slowly bringing her back into work, but I know already that there is a massive improvement. She no longer spooks at the terrifying corner in the arena, she is much happier to be tacked up and groomed and she walks forward with much more purpose.
I feel so relieved to have finally got to the bottom of my poor horse's problems. Half of me feels that i have always tried my best for her but the other half feels guilty and knows that I should have trusted my instincts more and pushed the vets harder sooner. I just feel like we were always looking for the wrong cause i.e. lameness, back etc. I also believe that the vet had begun to think i was something of a hypochondriac and whilst they tried to accommodate my requests they didn't fundamentally think there was anything wrong with her!!
I am really looking forward to bringing her back into full work and hopefully posting some competition reports on here in the near future!
If anyone has any stories to share about RER horses I would be really interested to hear!
