Help with diagnosis

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Booboos

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Apologies for the length of this but I'm at my whits end! Can anyone help diagnose the following (rather vague, I agree!) symptoms:

- loss of performance, specifically unwillingness to go forwards, stopping, tucking in against the leg

- tension, tightness through the back and neck and worry about 'ghosts' (i.e. not spooking at anything in particular, but just general worry)

- dull coat, excessive sweating when made to work and slightly tucked in appearance after exercise

These symptoms are intermittent. He will go for a couple of months with no problems, and one day, as if a switch has been thrown, he will be like this. It will then take a few weeks to get him back to normal.

General info: turned out 24/7 over spring, summer and autumn, daily turnout over winter in company. Seems very happy in field and stable. Easy to handle. Fed low energy haylage and small amounts of hard feed (have tried wheat free diet, have tried no carrots, tried no haylage). Tends to get infections easily, but this seems to be getting better. Gets minor skin allergies, e.g. from rolling in something in the grass.

So far we have tried: repeated blood tests for viruses, enzymes, liver function (I think 4 in all over 2 years) - all fine. Scoped for ulcers and did faeces test for ulcers - all clear. Lameness work-up the first time he was really nappy - sound as a pound (also checked back, no evidence of pain). Back checked by physio every 6 months, never found any evidence of pain at all, in general he is putting on muscle and top line. Saddle checked every 6 months, saddle changes do not coincide with problematic periods. Teeth done every 6 months, nothing to write home about apparently. Ridden with no flash and in rubber snaffle to encourage him to go forwards!

Vet and trainer agree that he is on the odd side but can't quite put their finger on what is wrong - is it just nappiness?

The only think I have noticed is that he appears to be worse when the sun is shinning! Not sure whether this is a coincidence or whether it means something or what it means (something to do with the grass when the sun is photosynthesizing more????). We are waiting for an allergy test.

Help please!!!!
 
Thanks guys. I didn't know EPSM, but have googled it and will look into it.

He has no muscle wastage, if anything he has put on a lot of muscle in the last 3 years. He gets better with work, so if you put 30 minutes into working him he does relax and go forwards quite nicely. His breeding has no heavy draft in it, he is Hanoverian. His episodes last for a couple of weeks.

Does this fit in with azoturia or EPSM?
 
I would say your horse doesnt fit in to the classic prone type for azoturia but i have learnt that there are always exceptions. Also, the symptoms dont always have to follow the text book either and there is a huge variation between horses. What hard feed do you actually feed? Is your horse a stressy type? loads of good info here-

http://www.ker.com/library/Equinews/v8n2/v8n23.pdf
http://www.ker.com/library/advances/341.pdf
http://www.ker.com/library/EquineReview/2007/ScienceUpdate/SU38.pdf
http://www.ker.com/library/advances/161.pdf
 
Is there any pattern for the symptoms being seasonal, or during or following periods of particularly firm ground?

I'd guess its most likely to be either a hard to diagnose intermittent multi-limb lameness, or some sort of allergy/intolerance problem.

When symptoms are showing quite strongly, have you tried a bute trial?
 
Thanks teddyt, I will read up on all of that.

He is fed a scoop of Alfa-A oil, half a scoop of Top Spec Feed Balancer, 1/4 of a scoop of Top Spec Cool and Condition and a magnesium-based supplement. Before I bought he had an op to stop him from wind-sucking (not my choice, he came like this). He has not shown any signs of wind-sucking in the 3 years I have had him. He will chew a bit of wood, but all of mine seem to chew their wooden stables a little bit - he does not do it compulsively. He seems chilled in the stable, does not mind being left alone, will hack alone, travels really well, does not lose the plot at shows, is calm stabled away from home. He can go loopy in the field, bucking, rearing, pissing off like crazy, but he has always been like that.
 
In general I would say he is worse in the summer than in the winter, but this winter he's had the worst 'episodes' overall. Can't say I have noticed it being related to firm ground, if anything the last two times have been on wet ground.

I take your point about multi-limb lameness (I had a horse with bilateral hind limb lameness and that took ages to diagnose!). He has very good paces (7 or 8 in his dressage tests) and once you work through the 'episode' he goes very nicely, but of course it may be that the lameness resolves itself. Overall his paces have become bigger and freerer over the last 3 years.

I am hoping the allergy test will show something (I felt the same way about the ulcer testing - at least if you know the problem, you can deal with it!). The vet is trying to book it for the next couple of weeks.

No, thanks, that's a good idea, will ask the vet for a bute test.
 
The tucking up may be pain related?

Others have good thoughts I think ^^^. If he were mine, due to my eight months of wondering what the heck was wrong with my first mare (vet, farrier, back woman all on the case), I would send him to somewhere reputable, during an episode, for a full investigation. Tigs went to Sue Dyson at the AHT for a week.
 
Your diet is low starch too, which is good if there are muscle problems. If he has a period where he shows signs again, blood test straight away- i mean ring the vet immediately. It may not be a muscle disorder but raised enzymes decrease over time, so the quicker you get blood tested the better.

Ive got a mare that had ERS, she wasnt classic either! She lived out, no starch diet, trained carefully, etc yet she had an occasional weird ride where she would sweat and want to roll. Turned out she had raised muscle enzymes (after i had to nag the vet to blood test:rolleyes:). It was very intermittent, she only did it about 4/5 times in total. Like you everything else had been looked at. Ive known another mare that had similar symptoms but that was after she had been bumped by a car, not your usual cause!

It could be something else altogether but worth a quick blood test if symptoms show again.
 
May well be.

I had a lesson on Thursday and my trainer got on him because he was being difficult for me. She had to get after him (insist with her leg and back it up with the whip) but eventually she got him going very nicely. He was (finally) working through his back, long and low, with a really loose and big stride. Then I got back on and he felt really relaxed and easy to ride, so I would swear that the work makes him better not worse (I assume they get worse if they have azoturia and you push them through it, but I may be wrong!).

The physio saw him two hours later. We trotted him on the hard in a straight line and lunged him on a surface. She could not find a single sore muscle, there wasn't much for her to do and I was told I could ride him as normal the next day.
 
I know your frustration. I was told to ride Tigs through everything (I cringe now :( ). There were a couple of times when I refused as it was just so flaming glaringly obvious that Something Was Wrong! The other times though she seemed to work through and was fine.

Finally had enough when she couldn't carry me properly up a tiny incline. Got off and walked home, ringing the vet on the way to arrange the AHT trip.
 
Ok could be way off base but we had a similar horse who was worse in the sun ie stiff and just off.... we eventually had the thought might be linked to Vit D as this is produced by sunlight.

If excessive amounts of vit D are present read below quote:

There can also be problems from grossly excessive supplies of vitamin D. Since it controls calcium absorption, excess vitamin D leads to excessive calcium in the blood (hypercalcaemia). This extra calcium has to be dumped and may be
deposited in the heart or blood vessels, in the bone joints, in the pericardium or in the intestinal walls. This leads to heart failure, or stiffness or intestinal problems. The excess amount necessary to produce such conditions varies with age. Levels greater than ten times the allowances recommended should be avoided.
 
It's all worth considering at this stage!

I am pretty sure about the sun thing because it has been pretty consistent. I've had him since he was rising 5 and because he was so young I was careful trying out new things. I remember being apprehensive about riding him in the rain and then in the wind, but each time he was oblivious. On the other hand, when it's a nice, sunny day and you just want to go on a lovely, relaxed hack, he's at his worst, which struck me as odd from the beginning. He was at his best the first summer and winter I had him, which, coincidentally, were the cloudiest and most overcast times we've had in the last 3 years.

I will ask the vet about hypercalcaemia, thanks!
 
it couldnt be an ulcer could it? with the loss of performance, tucked up against the leg and spooky, this happened to my horse.

hope you get it sorted out.
 
Black_Horse said:
it couldnt be an ulcer could it? with the loss of performance, tucked up against the leg and spooky, this happened to my horse.

hope you get it sorted out.
Click to expand...

He's been scaned for ulcers, there was absolutely no indication of any! Then he had a faeces test as well for a type of ulcers that 'hides' further down but it all came back clear.

Thanks!
 
Sorry this is of no help to your diagnosis of your horse but i just wanted to say that Rhandir your comment under your sig is fantastic.
"Though no one can go back & make a brand new start, anyone can start from now & make a brand new ending"
Its quite inspirational....especially when things are not necessarily going smoothly with a horse as things are not with me and mine....that comment does make you stop and think that the perseverance will one day be worth it.
 
Booboos what type of magnesium supplement do you feed? and why do you feed it? (ie is it for calming or to overcome a magnesium deficiency in the diet?)

Magnesium deficiency can have effects very similar to those you have described and I wonder whether you are either feeding a poor type of supplement (eg magnesium sulphate) or perhaps you are not feeding enough of a good quality one?

If you fertilise your fields with potassium 'potash' or have soft drinking water these could both cause a reduction in magnesium levels, as can the rapid rate that grass grows in the spring and magnesium levels also drop through excessive sweating- so any of these factors would need to be couterbalanced by an increase in the supplement.

...this should have been picked up in bloods though...
 
MuckyMeech said:
Booboos what type of magnesium supplement do you feed? and why do you feed it? (ie is it for calming or to overcome a magnesium deficiency in the diet?)
Click to expand...

He's on Cool, Calm and Collected by Equifeast. Hand on heart, I don't think it makes much of a difference to him either way.

R really needs it and if I stop it I see a difference (within 2 weeks and by 6 weeks there is a big difference), however I am not sure it does anything for F.
 
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