Laminitis - Good Out Comes

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vikkic

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It would be good to here from people experience of laminitis that have had good out comes. How did you manage them, feed, xrays, farrier, how long it took to recover etc.

My pony has lami at the moment with rotation in 1 foot. He has been on box rest for 5 months, he is looking better at the moment but with lami you can never tell. He seems happy enough being in, he is not fretting, is eating well and is happy in himself.

We here about the ones that don't make it but what about the ones that do. I need some encouragement!!
 
We took on a pony at 13 with laminitis - classic stance, eyes started to sink, owner still riding :mad:

It did take about 18 months to get his shoes back on, but he was such a cheerful soul that he bore it all well. He made a full recovery and never had a day's lameness for the rest of his life. He left us aged 29.

More recently, a little coloured mare came onto the yard with it - grossly overweight, had it in both front feet. Was on box rest for 3 or 4 months, lost a third of her body weight and recovered completely. She's now competing (jumping and dressage) and winning with her new young owner.

We used to cut willow branches and leave them in her box - gave her something to do/chew at and delivered a pain killer in the for of salicylic acid (aspirin!) at the same time.

Good luck with your boy :)
 
Mine is managed hard, and has had relapses only when "helped" by other people ie letting the poor starved pony out into the hayfield. We know now that if she is kept thin, ribs visible, she can be allowed to graze on very little grass. I do this by putting her on a tiny previously grazed area and increasing the size of it very slowly. She can go through the winter on a larger area living out or can come in and be kept on straw with a minimal feed of chaff and beet when the others are fed and a small amount of haylage. She eats straw to keep her system going.

Her thinness is frowned upon by some people but even with her ribs visible she still has a crest. She has just done three days at pony club camp and I am going to have to remind her loaner that her weight is creeping up and they need to take care. It is generally felt that she looks better but I know that she's getting close to the edge and I'd rather have a pony that looks thin and is laminitis-free than a pony in such pain.

So basically I don't find her a challenge to manage, I do find comments from others about her weight unhelpful though.
 
yep, I know someone whose pony had a horrific attack 2 years ago....pony was down. Vet was going to PTS on the spot. 2 years later after a hellova lot of stabling pony is back in regular work. I have had a small welsh that had a mild attack 3 years ago now....nothing since and currently lives out 24/7 in full work.

It can be done :)
 
My little man has had chronic laminitis for years - at first, he was in so much pain he was quite literallu crippled and it was disgusting and heartbreaking to watch. He was booked in for PTS on three seperate occassions but each time both myself and the vet saw signs of him fighting as hard as he could, and we delayed. After 6 months of box rest and restricted excercise he came sound and returned gradually to freedom and then to work.

He got it aged 4 when he had a rather strange hypocalcaemic attack, he is now nearly 16 and while he still needs very careful management, he is currently out 24/7 with his pals - and watched like a hawk. We still have little episodes and set backs almost out of the blue, but in the main we are trouble free and he has a great quality of life... as displayed by some of his antics. I know he wont last forever, and the damage that has been done will mean he will most likely die fairly young from it, but I consider this a very realistic and good outcome, considering what we were once dealing with! :D

A friends mare once suffered an acute attack (she was very overweight :( ) and suffered a small degree of rotation in both fronts. After having heart bars fitted and the front of her hoof wall opened up to release fluid and pressure, she recovered in leaps and bounds and was back out competing within 8 months of coming sound off bute. She is now in her dotage, leads a very 'normal' life and is still happy hacked by children, having never had another day of laminitis lameness in her life. :D

There definitely can be some good outcomes... if you are prepared for the extra effort!
 
It can be done. Mine had it a few years ago, then got it again and vet called it "concussion lami". Kept sound but eventually got navi & contracted heels and white line seperation (rotation in other words) even though kept on strict t/o diet (so I thought anyway with advice from Trust) but got ill again... even after heart bars, pads and god knows what else. Then last year as a last resort, with permission from vet, took shoes off with help of very experienced trimmer and has been out 24/7 (with muzzle 6-10 hours or so) as best for feet. Needed boots very occasionally but had 6 months off completely on 24/7 t/o. We had one lami attack after a wormer (should have known better) so he came in but only for two weeks, he was sound again after 10days but I kept him in just in case.

Now, so far and long may it last, back doing dressage, jumping 3' in a paddock and local xc & ht's, hacks on road, stones, gallops in stubble fields - basically we are having a life again and I've stopped frowning!

It isn't for everybody, however, many find barefootedness/unshod lives from the "last chance saloon" and find that it was the best thing they did.

Diet is sooooo important though - I think once diet is changed, the recovery is turbocharged from lami. I think it is worth getting a liver function test done as well as blood sugars and urine sample to determine if attack was purely sugar overload, insulin resistance or an underlying problem like liver disease. I'm glad I did after the wormer episode as it turned out he was very toxic from an overload of vits from F4F (be careful with supplements - less is more).

I stopped everything but soaked hay then rang Trinity Consultants and told him liver report and urine sample. He made up a bespoke tonic which we fed in speedibeet and hi-fi (high in calcium) for 10 days then ordered specific herbs as a maintenance to keep his metabolism going. I still feed liver herbs to this day as he will always need a bit of help there now.

I wish your boy a speedy recovery. Lami research has come along in leaps and bounds so some traditions are now outdated (and some still hold true) and you should take into account new findings from America & Australia as they seem to be putting in most of the money into it.
 
I bred a pure bred Arab filly who came down with laminitis at 10 months of age following a bacterial gut infection, which also resulted in a rectal prolapse. A major screw-up from the Large Animal Hospital who treated her resulted in the laminitis becoming worse. I removed her from their care, brought her home and sought a second opinion. That was the best thing I ever did. The second vets pronounced that the outcome was likely to be grave but would throw everything at her. She could only stand for a few minutes at a time and looked like a grass sickness case. The fact that she lay down most of the time is really what saved her, and her fabulous temperament. She was so bad that, not only was there a danger of the pedal bone coming through her sole but also that her front hooves would drop off completely because of the degree of separation. I won't go into all the details of treatment but it was intensive. Gradually things improved and the remedial farrier was called. He wouldn't touch her on the first visit and said she was the worst he had ever seen. Gradually, the improvement continued and he was eventually able to trim her feet on the next two visits and was finally able to fit heart bar shoes. Prior to that we had used Sole Support self hardening putty. At the start of treatment, the vets advised that the best we could hope for was pasture sound. The remedial farrier made three or four visits to change the heart bars. When her hooves had re-grown, she went back to being barefoot again. From beginning to end it took 10 months. The remedial farrier and the vet were both amazed at how well she recovered. On their final visit, they announced that they would never be able to tell that she had ever had laminitis. That was three years ago. Today, she is 100% sound, never been lame since then and gallops about the field with her buddies, usually out-pacing them. She has made a complete recovery and there is no reason why she won't be able to be ridden like any other horse. Hooves look great and she is the picture of health.
 
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My horse had his first attack at the age of 17. It was the end of May last year, I fetched him in from the field and he couldn't walk. The kept lifting up his hinds, we thought he had done something to his pelvis. He was on box rest for 4 weeks, had X Rays done surprisingly no rotation. He was back in work by the end of July, we were only happy hackers. Sadly I lost him in January this year to cancer :-(((
 
My mare had fat laminitis in May '08. She was X-rayed and found to have slight rotation in both fronts. She was very lame for a few weeks. She was box rested then mini-paddock rested for about 5-6 months then very slowly brought back into work. Since then she has been sound and in normal work, including hacking and the odd day's hunting/pleasure ride. I was very lucky as she has flat feet so I fear another episode would finish her off. She hates stony tracks but I think she always did -though I can't really remember. I keep her on a normal routine (in at night, out all day) during the Winter but in Summer she is muzzled or I bring her in at lunchtime after 5 hours max on quite a bare paddock. I too like to keep her so you can just see her ribs but she is a looking a little too well at the moment, which is when I get twitchy! Good luck, most horses with laminitis do recover x
 
Thank you for all your replies. It does give me hope.

Pintoarabian, that is some story. I'm glad your filly made a complete recovery. You must have been so worried.

My pony does have cushings and he is on pergolide. In April when he was first xrayed I also had his cushings levels checked. They came back within normal levels. He had 2 sets of imprint shoes on. With the first set fitted he started to look better, then by the second set looked worse. He then had a set of aluminium heart bars put on. He wasn't getting any better. In June I had him xrayed again and it showed rotation in his off fore. The farrier took his heal down to try to stop the pedal bone going through his soul. He did warn me that this could cause his deep digital flexor tendon to go which if happened he would need an op to cut it. Two weeks after the farrier had been he started looking better, looking sounder in his stable. He is now not on danilon. The last few days he has looked a little lame in his stable. Is this normal that they have bad days? He has had mild lami before but no where near as bad as this, he has always steadily got better not this up and down like he seems to have now.

He is on soaked hay, 5 small haynets a day, formula 4 feet, vitamin E and selenium supplement and a few topspec conditioning cubes in his ball. Jackie Taylor from the metabolic horse recomends the topspec cubles as being safe to feed. The farrier that I have is a remedial farrier. Is there anything else I can do or should be doing? Another thing that does bother me is that I am not sure why he got it in the first place. It was 14th Feb, hardly any grass aroung, he does not get turned out if it is frosty, has a muzzle on if there is any grass (the only reason he did not have a muzzle on was that is kept getting full of mud because there was not much grass). The only thing I did differently was to put him on a gloucosamine supplement. I have read since that it can cause lami.
 
My mare had laminitis last March, she was on complete box rest for 5months only coming out her stable for x-rays and for the farrier. She was given bute and sedalin twice a day, the vet would x-ray every 3weeks then she was seen by my farrier. In that period the farrier put on 4 sets of Imprint Shoes, then a set of heartbars before going back to her normal shoes. Her diet was all weighed, she had 1scoop of Happy Hoof morning and night with magnesium and soaked hay. There were a couple of times when she went right down hill and things were'nt looking good at all but she pulled through, thank goodness. After 30days without pain killers the vet came out to assess her and gave her the big thumbs up.

I have had to completely change her management, she is no longer allowed out 24/7. Her routine at the moment is 1scoop Happy Hoof with a small soaked net whilst I muck out. I then ride her, then she is muzzled and turned out for 5hours. I stable her at night, she has her tea then the rest of her soaked hay.

She is looking really well at the moment. We are competing - I do dressage on her and my daughter jumps her. I never, ever thought I would be doing this with her again.
 
vikkic said:
He wasn't getting any better. In June I had him xrayed again and it showed rotation in his off fore. The farrier took his heal down to try to stop the pedal bone going through his soul. He did warn me that this could cause his deep digital flexor tendon to go which if happened he would need an op to cut it.

He is on soaked hay, 5 small haynets a day, formula 4 feet, vitamin E and selenium supplement and a few topspec conditioning cubes in his ball. Jackie Taylor from the metabolic horse recomends the topspec cubles as being safe to feed. The farrier that I have is a remedial farrier. Is there anything else I can do or should be doing? Another thing that does bother me is that I am not sure why he got it in the first place. It was 14th Feb, hardly any grass aroung, he does not get turned out if it is frosty, has a muzzle on if there is any grass (the only reason he did not have a muzzle on was that is kept getting full of mud because there was not much grass). The only thing I did differently was to put him on a gloucosamine supplement. I have read since that it can cause lami.
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I'm concerned that the tendon-cutting thing is still widely discussed. Once you understand the hoof itself, its easy to see that the bone itself does not rotate... it's still attached at the end of the skeleton - it can't actually move.

What happens is the laminae tear, and the hoof capsule seperates and moves around the bone. This is why it hurts so much!!! Your farrier was absolutely right about lowering the heels and shortening the toe. This takes the tearing action off the toe when pony walks.

So, why then will one need to cut a tendon? What will that do??? The tendon is still there attached to the bones that haven't moved, only the hoof. So cutting the tendon is very unnecessary. Stopping the seperation of the laminae to the pedal bone is what is needed. It's a misconception that the tendon is pulling the pedal bone down. The angle of growth has to be corrected first and foremost and areas of stress on the hoof wall must be removed.

I think conditioning nuts & F4F is a bad thing to give a pony in acute stages. You ought to be testing for deficiencies FIRST because you don't know what caused the lami - it could be to do with the liver and overloading it even more when it is already struggling is delaying recovery and possibly making it worse. Soaked hay & hi-fi lite with speedibeet as a treat is all I would feed at this stage. You have to cut things out, not add things in.
 
My Welsh D got laminitis in 2009. Vet and farrier both thought it was an abscess as it only appeared to affect one fore so we treated it as such and poulticed for 3 weeks but nothing appeared. He then had xrays and we realised he had had laminitis with 12 degress rotation (not sink) in one foot.
He was box rested as usual and fed rationed hay as he needed to loose weight also. He was put in heart bars by the vet and they trimmed his feet correctly as they had been let go a bit by my farrier. He was on 3 bute a day initially and sedalin.
He has never been box rested before and is not good being shut in for long periods so the worst part of his recovery was the stress and torment he went through being shut in. I strongly believe this hampered his recovery as his feet in isolation are strong hooves and took well to medication and support. He got so bad and was box walking cronically that in the end he stopped eating and after a week went by of him eating barely 1 pad of hay a day and him scouring due to lack of fibre, myself and vet agreed that he must be let out of his stable for a time or we were at risk of him getting very poorly.
I sectioned off a small area outside his field stable and he pottered around in there during the day and he turned the corner over night. Started eating again, was barely lame and I was able to cut back his bute gradually. He was so much happier it was un-true.
He then went from strength to strength quickly and was even better when he was put back into normal shoes again.
His spell of recovery was all in all 8 months but that was becuase he did get some abcess problems following recovery from laminitis.
It does take time and it is best to allow that time for recovery. I was very slow bringing him back into work too and really took my time building him up to being ridden again and did no trotting on roads for the following 8 months.
He is back in normal work now and is a lot slimmer and happier. His routine has had to change permanently and he is now stabled at night all year to give his stomach a rest and ensure he does not eat too much green stuff. He is also on a lot less grazing than he was - same space but grazed right down.
Good luck, it can come right, just take your time and listen and monitor your horse.
 
My mare came in slightly lame last May, we had Vets out who prescribed bute and box rest as there were no outward signs of what the cause was. It took about 4 weeks, but eventually after X-rays she was diagnosed with Lami in her offside fore (all 3 other feet absolutely perfect).

She was put onto a deep bed, and box rest (she stayed in for about 4 months), my farrier and vet were fantastic and for the first few shoeings in regular contact with each other. We opted for an imprint shoe on the foot, which made a massive difference to her. She had these on for a number of months, I think it was the second time around of putting the shoes on i really thought she wasnt going to pull through, she was in agony when the old shoe was removed and she was waiting for the new one, we had to use a thick numnah on the floor for her to put her foot on, her foot had gone like a sponge and you could feel the pedal bone just under the surface.

Food wise, I was really strict, 1 small net of soaked haylage (soaked for 12 hours), a large trug of TopSpec TopChop Lite chaff morning and evening, and 1 cup full of TopSpec Antilam split into two feeds am and pm.

Eventually we progressed on to steel shoes, heartbar's, and a couple of hours turn out on a small bare paddock each day. she built up slowly to being out for a whole day, but muzzled the whole time.

Now, she's just about sound (she does had a slightly wonky gait sometimes), slim and turned out over-night, the paddocks are very bare so out without her muzzle at the moment, i'm weigh taping her once a week to moitor her (plus we had spillers come out recently with a weigh bridge to get a better idea of her weight). She's ridden lightly, if the ground is hard we only walk, and she does a little bit in the school, at the age of 20 I'm not going to expect any more from her, but she's happy and so am I.
 
Henry was diagnosed low grade laminitis in July 2008. He was walking a little bit drunk, had puffy fetlocks and high pulses, but not the classic stance. The vet wanted him in 24/7 for 3 weeks, but the stable door is too high and I wasn’t prepared to shut him in a box with little daylight and no view, so I put up a pen around the door (it opens onto the field), with a deep shavings bed and adlib soaked hay. The pen was big enough for his shettie friend, too. Feedwise he just got a handful of Hi-Fi with MagOx. His bute was a paste to begin with, then went into the feed. He was also prescribed Founderguard, which I used, but wasn’t happy giving. I’m not a fan of long term antibiotics if it’s not needed and the science seemed very fluffy. I didn’t buy a repeat tub.
X-rays were done at the field and showed 4 degrees rotation, although I’m skeptical about that, as she did them really badly - not on a block, no marker to highlight the wall angle, not on level ground...The farrier came the next morning and removed the shoes and trimmed them up.
Bute gave an instant improvement pain-wise. The pen was big enough for him and his friend to walk in, but no more. A gamble, given the advice of some to completely immobilise, but I had to consider the damage he would do in frustration – he likes to kick doors when he’s shut in, so who knows what he’d do if shut in 24/7! He was penned in for 3 weeks, then I extended the line gradually until about 3 months later they had 1/2 acre between them, still on soaked hay. He was shod again in October.
Anyway, he made a complete recovery and I was walking him out in hand after 8 weeks. He was ridden again after 3 months, just hacking and showed no signs of relapse at all. By the end of November they were on their usual grazing (he was muzzled, slowly weaning him back onto grass). I put them in the sparcer field next March and kept his weight down. In late July, he developed raised pulses, so he was penned in again as a precaution – my shettie had died in April, so he wasn’t sharing his sparce paddock anymore, then I got my mare and so he wasn’t ridden for two weeks whilst she settled in. I really overdid his weight control that year, so he got quite skinny, but he seemed happy enough. I did stop riding for about 6 weeks, but that was because I was unhappy with his muscle, or lack of it. I stopped soaking the hay and monitored his feet religiously and he was fine.
In 2010 they were both put into the sparce paddock towards the end of April. No signs of insulin resistance, puffiness only after heavy rainful followed by sun. Weight stayed right down and he actually got a bit skinny again, but not enough to worry (much...). This year he’s been in the sparce paddock from mid-May (very dry Spring round here!) and they’ve had 1 slice hay each per day plus their small feed. No muzzle yet, but he’ll need it when they are reintroduced to ‘winter grazing’. Bingo! Finally got it right (I think). So, I’m just waiting for next year when no doubt there’ll be a monsoon in April and a heavy frost in June to bugger it all up!!
The laminitis is the easy part. It’s learning the correct management with your facilities and horse that’s bloody difficult!
 
I can't believe I'm reading some are only giving their ill horses 1 NET of hay A DAY when they have lami!!!!

I firmly believe this is quite bad for a laminitic and so do the laminitis trust. You only need to soak hay/haylage for 20-30 mins to leach out harmful sugars. After that it just steeps in the sugars you have just soaked out.
 
Can't offer any first hand advice, but two websites I've found really useful are the Dodson & Horrell one (especially their laminitis leaflet and fat scoring stuff) and World Horse Welfare's website too.

Sarah
 
tallyho! said:
I can't believe I'm reading some are only giving their ill horses 1 NET of hay A DAY when they have lami!!!!

I firmly believe this is quite bad for a laminitic and so do the laminitis trust. You only need to soak hay/haylage for 20-30 mins to leach out harmful sugars. After that it just steeps in the sugars you have just soaked out.
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While i gave my mare 1 net am and 1 net pm, they were very small and soaked for 12 hours (they were thoroughly rinsed before going into the stable) Connie's main form of forage was chaff - which i think more people should look to rather than continuing to feed hay/haylage in these situations.
 
Hedwards said:
While i gave my mare 1 net am and 1 net pm, they were very small and soaked for 12 hours (they were thoroughly rinsed before going into the stable) Connie's main form of forage was chaff - which i think more people should look to rather than continuing to feed hay/haylage in these situations.
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I do agree with oat/straw/alfalfa chaff as forage, unmollassed of course. With speedibeet for added calcium needed for healthy new hoof growth.

Many lami researchers still say hay is good because it satisfies the need to chew especially in boxrest and even if you soak, it must not be for long periods. The dry sugar dissolves so easily - look at the sugar you put in tea. Even cold it doesn't take long to dissolve.

On cold days it's not so bad, but on hot days, steeping for hours reactivates dried mould/yeast spores and bacteria and starts to break down the sugars - fermenting. If you're into beer/wine/cider-making, you'll see this happens after just a few hours!

What I used to do when he was on rest was to soak for 20mins in the morning while I mucked out and did other things, then lifted and drained while I took him for a walk in boots & pads and by time I got back, it had drained. It was two big nets, doubled-up so it took longer to eat but not left with nothing. I would throw the leftovers away and do fresh at night.
 
Mine had an acute bout in all 4 feet around 6 years ago, took around 10months to fully recover from it - had x-rays, tried various shoes/pads on him and found no comfort, ended up getting a second opinion off a vet and new farrier, after not seeing much progress and not being convinced by their treatments of old vets, farrier put him in styrofoam pads for 4 weeks for comfort, then to shoeless and invested in a pair of GMac boots for him to be ridden and walked out of stable. I do often wonder whether at the time i put him through some unecessary pain and should have ended it for him then, but he was young and still had fight in him.

He is now 18 years old, diagnosed with cushings after a mild Laminitis bout in the winter, more x-rays taken, back to light work within a month.

Wont eat pergolide, refused to eat anything at all, i now have him on herbal alternatives and he is thriving.
 
tallyho! said:
I can't believe I'm reading some are only giving their ill horses 1 NET of hay A DAY when they have lami!!!!

I firmly believe this is quite bad for a laminitic and so do the laminitis trust. You only need to soak hay/haylage for 20-30 mins to leach out harmful sugars. After that it just steeps in the sugars you have just soaked out.
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That is the impression i am under also, i would have thought soaking any longer not only leaves it to sit in the drained sugar - which kind of defies the object of soaking it?
 
tallyho! said:
I'm concerned that the tendon-cutting thing is still widely discussed. Once you understand the hoof itself, its easy to see that the bone itself does not rotate... it's still attached at the end of the skeleton - it can't actually move.

What happens is the laminae tear, and the hoof capsule seperates and moves around the bone. This is why it hurts so much!!! Your farrier was absolutely right about lowering the heels and shortening the toe. This takes the tearing action off the toe when pony walks.

So, why then will one need to cut a tendon? What will that do??? The tendon is still there attached to the bones that haven't moved, only the hoof. So cutting the tendon is very unnecessary. Stopping the seperation of the laminae to the pedal bone is what is needed. It's a misconception that the tendon is pulling the pedal bone down. The angle of growth has to be corrected first and foremost and areas of stress on the hoof wall must be removed.

I think conditioning nuts & F4F is a bad thing to give a pony in acute stages. You ought to be testing for deficiencies FIRST because you don't know what caused the lami - it could be to do with the liver and overloading it even more when it is already struggling is delaying recovery and possibly making it worse. Soaked hay & hi-fi lite with speedibeet as a treat is all I would feed at this stage. You have to cut things out, not add things in.
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My farrier said about the tendon cutting as he said what could happen is that my pony could go really lame as he has took the heels down and that could cause the tendon to pull the pedal bone down. He hasn't happended yet and I hope it doesn't! This was only a suggestion and was letting me know in his experience what could happen. My pony won't eat hifi lite and is not too keen on speedy beet. He would loose weight on just soaked hay alone. The reason why he is on f4f is that is what the lamimitis trust feed their horses. I thought it would be safe for him. Surely he would need a vit and min supplement if he is not getting enough hard feed (he only has a few handfuls of top spec nuts).

With regards to soaking hay. I have always wondered what is the correct amount of time to soak it. If it is soaked for too long it goes horrible and smelly especially in this warm weather. And the horses don't like it too much. Does anyone know of any research that has been done as to how long it should be soaked for to remove the sugars?

Thanks for everyones storys and advise. It is really helpfull. Keep them coming. I'm sure we can all learn a lot from each other.
 
You only have to google soaking hay and lots will come up. Try safergrass.org.

Well, I can only go by experience of F4F.... because you don't know for sure what triggered your boys lami, it may not be metabolic or sugar related, it could be toxicosis (in our case). F4F is not recommended to be used in acute cases, only as a balancer.

Like I say, farriery will help but is tip of iceberg... get a blood test done and find out what is going on. The lami is only the symptom. Mostly it is what is fed that is to blame.

The tendon cant pull the pedal bone down. Down to where exactly? When standing, that particular tendon doesn't have enough tension to do that. Only the hoof can move under the weight of the body when it is weakened by the swelling of the laminae itself. You need to stop the swelling and tearing of the laminae and allow the hoof capsule and pedal bone to knit back together from the top down. So the heels down strategy will work - but only if you stop the trigger - diet, stress, toxins etc that is causing the swelling in the first place.

I honestly think that owners should ask for a liver function test and blood test when this awful disease strikes. It will tell you many things you can only guess otherwise and will help with the recovery because you will then know what is causing it.
 
tallyho! said:
You only have to google soaking hay and lots will come up. Try safergrass.org.

Well, I can only go by experience of F4F.... because you don't know for sure what triggered your boys lami, it may not be metabolic or sugar related, it could be toxicosis (in our case). F4F is not recommended to be used in acute cases, only as a balancer.

Like I say, farriery will help but is tip of iceberg... get a blood test done and find out what is going on. The lami is only the symptom. Mostly it is what is fed that is to blame.

The tendon cant pull the pedal bone down. Down to where exactly? When standing, that particular tendon doesn't have enough tension to do that. Only the hoof can move under the weight of the body when it is weakened by the swelling of the laminae itself. You need to stop the swelling and tearing of the laminae and allow the hoof capsule and pedal bone to knit back together from the top down. So the heels down strategy will work - but only if you stop the trigger - diet, stress, toxins etc that is causing the swelling in the first place.


I honestly think that owners should ask for a liver function test and blood test when this awful disease strikes. It will tell you many things you can only guess otherwise and will help with the recovery because you will then know what is causing it.
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Thanks for your advise Tallyho. I don't know anything about the tendon cutting, I have not looked into it, it was just something that the farrier mentioned. Sorry to be ignorant about this but what will it show in a blood test that is causing the lami? When he got first got lami he was not on f4f, he was on pink powder. My vet said she didn't think this was suitable so I changed it. Do you think I should not give him a vit and min supplement at all? I'll have a chat with my vet about a blood test and liver function test.

Thanks again.
 
A lft will show how the liver is functioning i.e. processing toxins well enough. One way to tell is if your horse or pony is prone to swelling, enlarged areas of fat deposits, water retention (legs, face), cloudy urine and the blood test will show you what is deficient and what is building up and if there are fluctuations, i.e. high levels of potassium, or vit a. and if he has high blood sugar. All will help pinpoint cause. High blood sugar may mean he is insulin resistant, or has EMS - in which case this can be managed better by either metformin or no sugar diet at all! Including that in balancers. If high in minerals, then liver is struggling and that's what caused the initial founder. It would then be a case of cleansing the liver, detoxing, and letting it recover. To do that you literally have to feed bland items with nothing in it for a while - literally chaff & speedi. If won't eat, try adding herbs or apple cider vinegar but not fruit or veg. It is important to detox first. But, you won't know til you get results and your vet will work with you to determine where to go from there :)
 
Removing WSC from hay works by osmosis. Plenty of water is required. The 'sitting in sugars' comment is a bit misleading in that if there is plenty of water WSC will continue to leach out of the hay for many hours until such time as the water reaches saturation.

The yeast from the hay will ferment the sugars creating 'hay beer'. So when hay has been soaked for any length of time it is important to further rinse it with clean water to remove the 'beer'.

Soaking for short periods in an insufficient volume of water has allowed laminitis to continue to advance in some cases. If you have a very sensitive equine you will need to soak in lots of water for a long period of time and then rinse thoroughly with clean water.
 
My ID x TB had laminitis two and a half years ago at the age of 7 even though the vet said she wasn't overweight and didn't "look" laminitic.

Fortunately I caught it in time to avoid any rotation or permanent damage. She was on box rest for 3 weeks and then confined turnout for several months afterwards.

She is now in natural balance shoes and down to careful management of grass/feed has not had any relapses. I check her digital pulse 365 days a year.

At no time during the acute phase of laminitis or since have I starved her. I am strongly in favour of maintaining a healthy, active gut. She is fed several small meals of Hi Fi Lite and Top Spec Anti-Lam with Speedibeet added in the winter and plenty of good quality hay.

ETA: I people in general (not just those of you with laminitics) monitored their horse's digital pulse, maybe this dreadful condition would be caught earlier.
 
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Martha I completely agree. The year after Henry had his attack, it was monitoring his pulse that meant I could act before further damage was done.

I meant to put in my last post that I bulked out hay with oat straw. Worth considering for those who only want to feed one net of hay for weight loss? I remember buying a few bales from a friend.
 
Its also worth pointing out then, that certain types of grasses/hays leach out a certain amount faster than others and some leach out hardly any at all according to the Kathyrn Watts study. Also, according to Clare Barfoot (WALTHAM), regardless of time (9 samples each between 20mins & 16hours), only 10% WSC is ever removed and then goes on to say: soaking wasn't the best solution. Even more to chew over.... sorry :D bad pun!

Oat straw is a good idea but contains just as much sugar as grass... so you'd have to soak that too...

There's a lot to it and actually, the ONLY way to KNOW what you're feeding is to analyse each hay batch and find the batch with the lowest sugars possible in the first place. This isn't costly, time consuming... yes. But were it to be common practice it would be much easier as local merchants could do it routinely whereas now, they only really do it for business.
 
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My ponnie Minnie had lami when i was little she was kept in her stable and we hung some things up for her to play with. I drawed her a picture for her to look at but that was silly it was only because i was really young. It took ages for her to get better and i couldn't ride her or anything. At one point she got a bit of colic and might have died but luckily she got through it and is still alive as i am writing this. I am now eight years old ans she is eighteen and i am cantering around and jumping really high jumps i am really pleased that she got through it:):):) and hope your ponie gets through it to because it is a really horrible thought of your pony dieing :(:(and even them just getting it. GOOD LUCK and please tell me how your pony is doing soon?
minnierosie
GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK again
and one more GOOD LUCK
 
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