Lab Tests - how reliable?

packwood

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I seem to have spent a fortune on lab tests lately for a pony who had slight but persistent laminitis (or did he??) . I am not happy to pay for test which I did not ask the vet to do - nor for tests for which the results seem so impossible that they cannot be right. The pony tested at 1330 pg/ml by one lab for ACTH and absolutely normal with another. The first vet wanted to shoot the pony because he said the result was irrefuteably Cushings and he ahd no furture with levels that high. The second vet is happy that there is no underlying problem. Who is right? How do I trust any lab test now? Should I be parting with thes often huge sums of money for unreliable tests?
 
I don't think your vet should have ordered expensive tests without asking you to start with. Personally i've never had any issues with reliability of tests. I know from having a pony at work tested that as far as cushings goes i know it shows in the test at certain times. It sort of flares up i suppose and at times the test shows negative. I thought it was a specific test for cushings though so your vet must have been specifically looking for it.
 
How very interesting.

I had the similar results with my laminitic pony. My obviously laminitic horse had medium IR results, 2 months later after diet, the horse 100% sound, fit and happy came back with an IR test result so bad it was off the scale.

Won't go into the vet side of thing, but seriously feel that they were more concerned with their drug sales than my horse's welfare.

Just remember, the whole point is to have a happy clinically sound horse - not a horse with a perfect blood results! And whether the vet makes money out of you is NOT the point of the exercise at all! I too would be suspicious and asking many questions.
 
Inyteresting ponuts - thanks. The follow on to this is that the new vet has tested the pony - I asked becasue I was getting aparnoid - and guess what all his blood tests are normal!! He is out in the field as I write and will be starting to be ridden again this week.
 
I've come to the conclusion after many years of experience of blood tests in horses and cats, that blood tests are odd beasts and you can't believe everything you read on them. Yes, they are accurate IF HANDLED CORRECTLY BETWEEN DRAW AND TESTING, but if they're not, they can be wildly inacurate. They are also only a snapshot, and blood test results can fluctuate enormously. A series of blood tests over time gives a better dignostic picture than just one.

So blood tests can be useful, but I've learned you should never lose sight of the horse as presented. Is the horse eating well, looking well, feeling well?

I'd have lost a cat and a horse years ago if I went by blood tests alone. Instead the horse is absolutely fine, nothing wrong with him (and yet more blood tests now back this up!) and cat is still going strong despite the blood test results.

As someone once said to me, you treat the animal, not the numbers!
 
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