Head shaking - something in ear?

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Pudding01

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Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice or put my mind at rest?

I have had my lovely lovely new horse for two months and all was great until I schooled her on saturday and she was shaking her head side to side, as if there was something in her right ear - particularly doing it on the right rein. It was worse when I picked up the reins after a break. Same on sunday, but just hacking on no contact.

Vet came out on tuesday and examined her - had a look in ears, eyes and mouth. Nothing remarkable and commented that her teeth were excellent - they had just been done about 10 days previously. She prescribed Danilon and anti-biotics for 5 days and if no improvement, bring her into surgery for further investigations.

I lunged today and still shaking. I tried a different bridle - looser round the headpiece and browband, but to no avail, and is the same with or without side reins. She will also give a shake when I put the bridle on, though not necessarily immediately. I have booked her into the vets for monday morning but am beside myself, having had two years of horsey heartbreak previously.

I would love to hear if you have any thoughts or similar experiences.

Thanks.
 
Pudding01 said:
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice or put my mind at rest?

I have had my lovely lovely new horse for two months and all was great until I schooled her on saturday and she was shaking her head side to side, as if there was something in her right ear - particularly doing it on the right rein. It was worse when I picked up the reins after a break. Same on sunday, but just hacking on no contact.

Vet came out on tuesday and examined her - had a look in ears, eyes and mouth. Nothing remarkable and commented that her teeth were excellent - they had just been done about 10 days previously. She prescribed Danilon and anti-biotics for 5 days and if no improvement, bring her into surgery for further investigations.

I lunged today and still shaking. I tried a different bridle - looser round the headpiece and browband, but to no avail, and is the same with or without side reins. She will also give a shake when I put the bridle on, though not necessarily immediately. I have booked her into the vets for monday morning but am beside myself, having had two years of horsey heartbreak previously.

I would love to hear if you have any thoughts or similar experiences.

Thanks.
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How did you get on with this please thanks
 
tedmunster said:
Gotta love vets... Don't know what's wrong? Prescribe painkillers and antibiotics and hope it goes away!
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Yeah mine does it had them checked must admit just get on with
it. There does not seem to be a medical reason or flies i personsly
think they are taking the p**s x
 
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My gelding headshakes - in that he is horrendous in the mouth, if he wears a metal bit. He is also on a fair amount of salt daily, which seems to help.
 
We have a headshaker and quite by chance discovered the cause. He had a slightly weepy eye (just a few little tears every so often). When the vet came for something else, I said could you flush his tear ducts out. Vet did, some gunge came out, and he stopped head shaking.

After six months he started again, had tear duct flushed out, it stopped again. Vet thinks pony has narrow tear ducts and is prone to them filling up and not draining properly.

It may not be the cause of your mare's head shaking, but for the cost of a flush out (around £35 to £70, depending on if she needs sedating to have it done, it 's tricky rather than difficult for vet) it is worth a try if everything else fails.
 
Hi, due to ligament / soft tissue injury on a hind leg our horse has been out of action for 4 months, he is not showing lameness on that leg but still looks stiff behind / not tracking up in walk or trot is this normal after being out of work or should i get vet to look at him again?
 
erum said:
Hi, due to ligament / soft tissue injury on a hind leg our horse has been out of action for 4 months, he is not showing lameness on that leg but still looks stiff behind / not tracking up in walk or trot is this normal after being out of work or should i get vet to look at him again?
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You are on head shakeing love but dont worry. These types of injuries can take ages
dont push the horse.If you are still worried ring the vet and ask
quickly on phone rather than him coming out what he thinks.
Or if you see him on the yard ask him quickly see if any of the
other girls are calling them out.If you are still worried and can afford it
you could have a visit or even a scan to see damage.But i would
just take you time with the horse and give it some time x
 
My freind got a horse with me on my yard, she has owned him for 12 years!!! never head shook until last year which ended up been horendous!!!! twitching ducking his head in water stricking out went nuts had two different vet practices and no luck!! it started in october by Jan he ended up with massive sheath infection so anti biotics cleared that up but the head shacking continued until march then stopped!!!!! the sheath cant self clean so we clean the sheath when we see him start twiching and it usually when it gets a bit dirty, and the twitching stops we have had swabs done on the sheath all came back clear!!! its always going to be larger than normal because of the swelling he had we got through summer no prob then october arrived and guess what it all started happening again headshacking twitching and sheath started to swell vets are baffled so we seem to think he has an allergy but to what?? we dont know?? so we have given him anti histimins and its worked!!!! head shacking a lot less slight twitches but most of all he has not been crazy like he was last year, his sheath keeps swelling but we have increased the cleaning and we hink we have managed him well upto now if we can keep him to this we will be very happy has last year he got that bad she was concidering having him PTS, its hard whn vets cant help anymore xx
 
fuzzle said:
My freind got a horse with me on my yard, she has owned him for 12 years!!! never head shook until last year which ended up been horendous!!!! twitching ducking his head in water stricking out went nuts had two different vet practices and no luck!! it started in october by Jan he ended up with massive sheath infection so anti biotics cleared that up but the head shacking continued until march then stopped!!!!! the sheath cant self clean so we clean the sheath when we see him start twiching and it usually when it gets a bit dirty, and the twitching stops we have had swabs done on the sheath all came back clear!!! its always going to be larger than normal because of the swelling he had we got through summer no prob then october arrived and guess what it all started happening again headshacking twitching and sheath started to swell vets are baffled so we seem to think he has an allergy but to what?? we dont know?? so we have given him anti histimins and its worked!!!! head shacking a lot less slight twitches but most of all he has not been crazy like he was last year, his sheath keeps swelling but we have increased the cleaning and we hink we have managed him well upto now if we can keep him to this we will be very happy has last year he got that bad she was concidering having him PTS, its hard whn vets cant help anymore xx
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Pts is a very drastic option in my opion to a very simple problem.my experiances of this have been a few things.firsty,the sheath and penis become dirtier they call it smegma smelly ,
can become infected.I say can.Also they can get pink patches in sheath called
Papallomas biopseys are done.Can be non malignant or mgliant
but treatment is quiet succesfull.They can get pink patches to due to
vitilgo not much to bother about.They can aslo be so bothered by tiny black flies
biteing the sheath it drives them mad so i used to use a product called baracade.
The fact that he is responing to anti histimins could be a seasonal
thing.If he is elderly to they get problems with there bits.can be good idea to
have tested for chushings.so you could carry on with anti histmins
good fly spray at your seasonal time or barracade.As for cleaning
worm water and cotton wool,5inch strips really get into the folds
of the sheath and clean.Clean the penis aswell when he drops it say
at feed time.Maybe ask vet to sadate drop penis look at penis and sheath
and eliminate any serious problems.He can then take any biopsys he needs to
which is nothing.Dont over clean say once month. I am by no
means a vet i can only go off my own experiances i have given
you some simple things to try and more serious things to check out
mine was fine but was a case of monitoring it.fly spray cleaning
vet checks under sadation one biopsy and was quiet happy.
 
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