Grass Sickness- anyone have experience with it

[sadiegrey]

I am based in Ireland and have recently had to put down my 11 year old mare. Pm results have come back with chronic to acute peritonitis caused by chronic grass sickness.
Background is that the mare coliced badly in february, had surgery found a displaced colon which was rectified nothing removed.
Mare was never right, back to hospital after three days, diagnosed with a liver infection, home again coliced mildly after 6 wks relieved with drugs. Home again good for about three/ four weeks on grass then began to show signs of discomfort- lying down alot not distressed just uncomfortable. This worsened she was back on yard now had low grade impaction that wasnt clearing, went for biopsy came out of it for three days before developing ilium(paralysis of the gut). treated and never came right developed reflux and had to be put down.
My question is has anyone ever seen grass sickness present like this? The mare came out of Scotland which seemed to point vets towards grass sickness but hasnt been in scotland in over four years.
Any info would be welcome

 

[FairyLights]

I'm sorry for your loss, I have lost horses to EGS, as did others on neighbouring yards. Each case was different in some way but the end result being the PTS of the horse. Its a terrible disease.

 

[Mike007]

Certainly a strange case but the artificial designation of GS into Acute,Sub Acute and Chronic has its flaws . There will almost certainly be a fourth class. Those horses that are semi resistant and shrug it off. I do wonder about some of those mysterious colics that occur out of the blue. Very sorry to hear about your horse, possibly she had grass sickness in scotland and recovered but leaving her digestive system compromised. Since we dont even know what causes grass sickness its all purelya guess. But again ,so sorry for your loss.

 

[Doris68]

This is very sad and I'm sorry for your loss. My friend brought over a 2 yo filly from Ireland several years ago and she presented with EGS. They tried everything to help her but nothing worked - it was just dreadful.

I am surprised that this has happened to an older horse, as I thought it was more prevalent in young(er) horses, particularly those that had recently travelled a long distance and were "stressed".

Not too helpful I'm afraid but I think you have been extremely unfortunate...so sorry.

 

[Olliecp77]

Bump

 

[sadiegrey]

Certainly a strange case but the artificial designation of GS into Acute,Sub Acute and Chronic has its flaws . There will almost certainly be a fourth class. Those horses that are semi resistant and shrug it off. I do wonder about some of those mysterious colics that occur out of the blue. Very sorry to hear about your horse, possibly she had grass sickness in scotland and recovered but leaving her digestive system compromised. Since we dont even know what causes grass sickness its all purelya guess. But again ,so sorry for your loss.

You mention the three types and that is exactly what is confusing me, the mare never fell into any of these categories symptom wise - weight loss only occurred at the end but this was because the hospital starved her for two weeks solid due to biopsy and the subsequent ileum and not once was she sweating either. Thank you for your comment much appreciated and to everyone else who has commented thanks