Horses stomach isn't emptying!!!!!

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Ali27

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A horse on our yard was diagnosed pssm 1 in August and has responded well to starvation grass, low NSC diet, high vit E and salt. She doesn't eat much hay soaked or not. However, she became extremely girthy and unwilling to go forward in flat work. She was really grumpy and lost condition. Her bloods are the best they've been. Owner decided to get her scoped and she went in yesterday morning. After 18 hrs starvation, she had a completely full stomach and they couldn't proceed. After a further 7 hours it was still virtually full and they are really concerned. They are rescoping today to check that the block has cleared.

Has anyone heard of this huge delay in gastric emptying before? The vet said from what little they could see, there was some evidence of stomach wall ulceration.
 
I knew a horse that had this they were admitted to Liphook to clear the blockage, as far as I can remember they use coke cola to clear it as the owner joked about the bar bill!.
Then they had a very strict diet of no hay, just grass.
 
Ali27 said:
A horse on our yard was diagnosed pssm 1 in August and has responded well to starvation grass, low NSC diet, high vit E and salt. She doesn't eat much hay soaked or not. However, she became extremely girthy and unwilling to go forward in flat work. She was really grumpy and lost condition. Her bloods are the best they've been. Owner decided to get her scoped and she went in yesterday morning. After 18 hrs starvation, she had a completely full stomach and they couldn't proceed. After a further 7 hours it was still virtually full and they are really concerned. They are rescoping today to check that the block has cleared.

Has anyone heard of this huge delay in gastric emptying before? The vet said from what little they could see, there was some evidence of stomach wall ulceration.
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I've heard of something similar on sandy soil where there was so little grass that the horse picked up sand and got a sand impaction that blocked the gut.
 
How's your friend's horse? Has the blockage cleared?

My PSSM 1 horse got ulcers - I can only diet her over winter when she can be in a big field with lots of grass pickings so she's constantly eating. Withdraw food and she gets stressed, which leads to ulcers. Spring / summer are awful because she has to come off the grass and can only have soaked hay, which she demolishes in record time and then stresses that there isn't any more food. Adding oil to her feed has helped I think.

It doesn't help that she is a very, very good doer.
 
SEL said:
How's your friend's horse? Has the blockage cleared?

My PSSM 1 horse got ulcers - I can only diet her over winter when she can be in a big field with lots of grass pickings so she's constantly eating. Withdraw food and she gets stressed, which leads to ulcers. Spring / summer are awful because she has to come off the grass and can only have soaked hay, which she demolishes in record time and then stresses that there isn't any more food. Adding oil to her feed has helped I think.

It doesn't help that she is a very, very good doer.
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Good news! The blockage has cleared! Think she does have ulcers but not spoken to owner yet. Thanks for all the replies everyone and good wishes!
Sel, I will get her to message you re the PSSM as know that would be helpful for her as pony only diagnosed in August!
 
That's really good news! Very happy to talk to your friend. There's lots of good advice on here & a US based Facebook site which is also good. The US are quite far ahead of the UK in terms of support for the disease.
 
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