heart rate of 16 - any experiences please- told unheard of

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fortheloveofhorses

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Has anyone come across anything similar please - 3 months ago she showed choke signs, after scope found to have miss shaped osgofocas (sorry i know that is spelt wrong) and really poor mobility, went with no hay or hayledge in diet and just lots of sloppy feeds through day and night. was not doing too bad until 2 weeks ago showed slight colic, not been right since, quiet and lying down a lot, on sunday showed colic again but bit more pain than usual so i asked for her to be admitted again, scope showed no blockages, but her mobility was better, cant find any reason for the colics or the 56kilo weight loss in the last 3 month - so all confused. was booked for biopsy of small intestine tomorrow but just got call to say that cant go ahead as her heart rate dropped to 16. they will xray heart in morning and have put tap in so they can get drugs in to keep heart going if drops anymore or stops. sorry about long post i know eveyones doing everything they can for her but she is confusing all the vets and me and just though there might be a chance that someone had a similar experience with her symptoms. thanks in advance, i cant sleep and so worried about her she is only 5.
 
Where abouts are you poppet? Are you sure not grass sickness? Sorry to say this sounds a quality of life issue and may have a poor outcome. Fingers crossed that she either makes a dramatic recovery or you will be brave enough to know when to stop everything xxx
 
What sort of choke signs was your mare showing? Does she eat her feeds okay, in one go? Hope she is doing okay today. Let us know how she is.
Not had low heart rate but 14 months ago my then 17 month filly stopped eating her feeds and was only eating a bit of hay, vet could find nothing wrong with her, although she did have a diastema (gap between molars) which was thought to be the problem at first, but that was made wider and healed well. After month if she tried to eat feed (tiny feeds) then she would leave it after a bit looking colicky, sometimes she was a little colicky other times. She spent a lot of time lying down, 7 or 8 times a day for up to 2 hours sometimes, lost weight very gradually over 3 months, bloods by then showing a bit of inflammation (but fibrinogen was normal). Eventually improved on 4 weeks doxycycline, put weight back on quickly, but when she stopped the doxy it came back again, so then had 8 weeks doxy, seemed really good, eating well. During that time she had an abdomenal scan that showed thickening in her duodenum, but that had gone after the 8 weeks doxy and hasn't been seen on any scans since. Stopped doxy, couldn't eat feeds again but could eat hay ok, would look colicky eating feeds yet could go and eat hay no problem. In June vet found a thickening in her large intestine (doing rectal) which was probably causing all the lying down but can't see how that was causing her eating feed problem. Feed being alfa a and speedi beet, she would eat a few mouthfuls feed, look colicky or sometimes would just walk off and eat hay, then go back for few more mouthfuls feed, then hay then eat few more mouthfuls, then hay and eventually would leave last bit of feed. (also if i took her out and let her eat the 3 inch grass on the drive she couldn't eat that for more than 6 mins without looking colicky), in fact anything short that went down quickly was causing her a problem. Tryed steroids made her worse. So went back on doxy and it took 9 weeks that time for her to be able to finish feeds in one go. Been on doxy 6 months now and just weaning her off it, she is fed 4 times a day and in 18 weeks has had just 3 pain episodes eating her feeds, 4 or 5 weeks apart which do look like choke (which last 40 secs to 2 minutes and then she starts eating hay) but she is having teeth problems now too so that might be from that. Thickening in large intestine is now like scar tissue (which i hope isn't going to cause any more problems) but i still don't know why she couldn't eat and i wonder if she has a narrowing of some sort in her throat/oesophagus but vet wont scope her to see. She had a gastroscope 12 months ago but they put a tube down her throat first to guide the scope down, so wouldn't have seen any narrowing through the tube if there was any, she didn't have ulcers. Just have to hope she will be okay once she has finished the doxy.
 
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No experience of this , certaintly
In dogs becomes dangerous as work in a vets but I am not sure what happens in horses , healing vibes keep us updated x
 
Hi Thanks for you messages and well wishes. Her heart has gone up to 23 (still very low) her eating (of her sloppy dinners) and digestion seems ok and they are not overly worried about that side of things now. Her heart xray and scans of chest show nothing strange so now we have pretty much tested everything. The vets have just called to say to say they have been speaking to a cardyologist in belguim and vets at newmarket and everyone confused. The only part of her body not looking right is her liver and she has very high red blood cells count (could indicate a tumour) they want to take a piece of her liver in the morning. I have said yes but i have till 10am to change my mind i suppose. I am worried about her getting sedated and also i believe there is a risk of internal bleeding , even if she does have a tumor, as the liver is so big in a horse and they are only taking a bit its pot luck as to if they will get a bit which will show anything anyway ! so we could be putting her through it for nothing also if she has - not sure they can do anything anyway! i have been told not to worry about money as she is now a matter of interest to horses but of course i dont want her to go through anything just for research. but at the same time they are trying everything and just might find a way to fix her . im very confused.
p.s what does BOP mean - someone has written in a post above - sorry i am not big on internet lingo.
 
Sorry to hear your mare is poorly and I have no experience to help Im afraid but wanted you yo know that I hope you will get to the bottom of things and your mare makes a good recovery.

Only thing I can add is that my mare had a liver biopsy done last year. Before they did the biopsy they took some blood to make sure she could clot her blood ok before they started.

Let us know how it all goes tomorrow. x
 
Paulineh 16 is an extremely low heart rate for any horse even one fit as a fiddle so the OP is right to be concerned.

I do remember our anesthesia resident mentioning a very low heart rate horse around 14 or 16 beats per minute that they she seen during her training....I cant remember the in's and out's of the case but I believe they thought it was related to the vagal nerve stimulation causing issues and lowering the heart rate. The vagus is a cranial nerve that runs to the heart and can lower the heart rate...and I believe it can be affected by gastrointestinal and some liver issues so it might be worth mentioning to the vets?

In any case I seem to remember he spontaneously recovered and had a near normal heart rate one morning so I have my fingers crossed for your girl to do the same
 
Thanks for your messages, and for thinking of her. Aru you are spot on , they have mentioned that nerve, also fits with her colicky and choke episodes. Apparently as the nerve sends messages around the whole body its quite hard for them to find the part that could be miss firing for want of a better word. but yes they thinking along those lines. They suspect a tumour in liver too so waiting for the phone to ring with results of that. I saw her last night and she seemed bright enough. THey have made her a table from shaving bales to eat from as she cant bend with her drip so i sat on there for ages and she had her head on my lap shes so loving it makes it all worst.
I will keep waiting anyway ! thank you for your interest its odd isnt it but it helps some how talking about it to strangers! x
 
the biopsy showed no signs of anything horrible but of course they could have just got a good bit (as they pointed out). she has been on a drug that raises her heart rate so we now stable at about 23 - they have basically run out of ideas other than opening up to look at her closer which i dont want, so i am bringing her home on monday to see how we get on. plan to treat as normal really but have decided that if she gets ill again we wont put her through anymore tests or treatments as it doesnt look like they can find anything conclusive anyway.
 
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