HELP !!! Frequent urinating, Anemia and colic.

Jade Raleigh

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I’m going to start from the beginning :

I own a 6 year old cob ( never any previous medical issues ).

At the start of January we moved to our own new yard ( it was a big change for him ). The pony we have as a companion really dislikes him so we are on the hunt for another.

About 4 weeks ago we put him on soaked hay after the frost ( he stopped drinking his normal amount of water and he was trying to urinate a bit more than normal ). Then a week later he became very gassy ( he was left out in the nice weather for an extra couple of hours ). Then we rang the vet and he told us to starve him but as a result of him not drinking water he got an impaction. Impaction cleared when we got the vet out 3 times over the 2 days.

Then a week ago he was gassy again but this time I didn’t cut out the sloppy feed and he returned back to normal. Bear in mind he is still not drinking but he is getting four watery feeds and soaked hay a day. We took a full blood count yesterday and everything came back clear apart from the red blood cell count ( RBC 6.04, PCV 29.5 AND hb 10.5 ). Our vet thinks it’s gastric ulcers due to stress so my boy started gastroguard and iron today. And he said he is probably bleeding internally from the ulcers and there is extra protein from the bleeding in the gut so that is why he is gassy. His faeces is slightly darker and smaller balls than normal. We are waiting on the feacal test.

BUT the vet can’t explain the extra peeing over the last few days and I’m so worried ?, our boy is fine in every other way, heart rate, temp. Ect. Is normal but he is a tiny bit lethargic especially when he coliced. I’m not experienced with this sort of thing and I just want my boy to be okay, any thoughts ?
 

southerncomfort

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How worrying for you. I don't have any experience of this I'm afraid.

What I would say is, if their is anything you don't understand, don't be afraid to call your vet and ask him/her to go through it all with you again and ask if their is anything more you can do.

He sounds like a very sensitive soul bless him so it might be a case of just doing everything you can to reduce his stress levels.

Hope he's feeling better very soon.
 

TwyfordM

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I used to look after a pony who became very ill following loosing her companion.
She had ulcers which took forever to get on top of as they were pretty severe, we healed them all in the end through lots of work getting her to eat small feeds regularly, gastro guard and getting her on the nicest grass possible as she refused hay. Was a very long process and she started having a protein loss issue and was anaemic too, she was on tons of steroids etc and was on/off food, peeing tons but not drinking much. We offered super sloppy feeds and she would drink out of those. Was a very full on process, I was out three times a day to feed her and give gastroguard/tablets, her elderly owner was there most of the day just to encourage her to eat anything.

Unfortunately lost her in the end as her immune system was weakened by the protein loss problems. We did get on top of that and get her off the steroids, but she kept getting eye infections, treated them as they appeared but after all that time and given she was on the older side she didn’t make it through.
I think the protein loss problem was a bowel/intestine issue, not absorbing stuff properly, she had diarrhoea almost constantly too so keeping her hydrated was difficult. Had a few points where she had impactions and was very rarely pooing, but most of the time it went the other way, which still wasn’t great but at least things kept moving.

It’s really not an easy thing to deal with but this pony went on fighting for over a year, we got her back up to weight and eating properly so it was heartbreaking to lose her to the eye issues.
 

Jade Raleigh

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I used to look after a pony who became very ill following loosing her companion.
She had ulcers which took forever to get on top of as they were pretty severe, we healed them all in the end through lots of work getting her to eat small feeds regularly, gastro guard and getting her on the nicest grass possible as she refused hay. Was a very long process and she started having a protein loss issue and was anaemic too, she was on tons of steroids etc and was on/off food, peeing tons but not drinking much. We offered super sloppy feeds and she would drink out of those. Was a very full on process, I was out three times a day to feed her and give gastroguard/tablets, her elderly owner was there most of the day just to encourage her to eat anything.

Unfortunately lost her in the end as her immune system was weakened by the protein loss problems. We did get on top of that and get her off the steroids, but she kept getting eye infections, treated them as they appeared but after all that time and given she was on the older side she didn’t make it through.
I think the protein loss problem was a bowel/intestine issue, not absorbing stuff properly, she had diarrhoea almost constantly too so keeping her hydrated was difficult. Had a few points where she had impactions and was very rarely pooing, but most of the time it went the other way, which still wasn’t great but at least things kept moving.

It’s really not an easy thing to deal with but this pony went on fighting for over a year, we got her back up to weight and eating properly so it was heartbreaking to lose her to the eye issues.

Oh god what a devastating story, I’m so sorry to hear. Thank god our boy is obsessed with his hay and his feed, we are going to our local rescue to get another companion this weekend so fingers crossed he might be happier.
 

Jade Raleigh

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How worrying for you. I don't have any experience of this I'm afraid.

What I would say is, if their is anything you don't understand, don't be afraid to call your vet and ask him/her to go through it all with you again and ask if their is anything more you can do.

He sounds like a very sensitive soul bless him so it might be a case of just doing everything you can to reduce his stress levels.

Hope he's feeling better very soon.

He really is so sensitive In every way! He hides everything aswell which makes it really hard for us to tell if he is unhappy.
 
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