Liver issue :(

Michen

Michen

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Trying not to panic. Had vaguely routine bloods run on Bog, I do them twice or once a year. He’s had them done in October when moving to the USA. I now have this, combined with peeing more than normal which I put down to eating more dry hay as no grass in Colorado.

The vet wants to retest in a week and I’ve forwarded to my UK vet. Liver issues fill me with horror. He is well in himself otherwise.

A6A13795-93D9-478B-A9F8-0F6539E91545.jpeg
 
Sorry I have no advice but didn't want to read and run. I hope your vets can give you some answers and hope everything gets sorted and resolved for you soon.

Could it still be related to the move, I was once told by a vet that the counts eoukd be affected by a recent move. I know you moved him last year but just hoping that as it was such a big move he could still be readjusting.

They're such a worry aren't they.
 
Do you know if anyone else in your barn is running bloods? That'll give an indication as to whether it's environmental.

A week isn't a long time to see a turnaround in liver markers but if they've shot up in the next test then that's the time to panic. Took me 9 months and a yard move to get the Appy's down to normal. I suspected environment with her and the move proved it.

Otherwise milk thistle, vitamin E and fingers crossed it's just a blip
 
Caveat*** I’m not a vet**** just someone with a lot of history researching liver issues for my horses.

I don’t think I would panic much looking at those. For GGT my vet uses a reference range of up to 50 as being normal (same units), so boggle would be within normal range if tested by my vets. BBPs was at 600+ and that was about 9 years ago.

AST is slightly elevated but this is not solely a marker for liver but also for any muscle or red blood cell injury (so you might expect a rise in a horse that has had an injury or a heavy exercise session, or one that has tied up).

LDH is also not tissue specific so will also be elevated in a horse with damage to muscle cells.

The markers specific to the liver look ok to me. If it was me I think I’d wait maybe 3-4 weeks to retest as I think AST takes a while to come down after any kind of elevation. Not sure about LDH. But I think retesting in a week mig stress you out as you might get high results from the same one off incident.
 
cauda equina said:
Don't panic yet, your vet obviously thinks things may be different in a week.
Livers are fantastic at mending themselves
Fingers crossed for Bog
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I agree, I’d start feeding milk thistle and vitamin E (could try Mycosorb) and retest. Hopefully it’s a blip and improves. Is that his first set of bloods since moving abroad/being there for a period of time?

My mares just got over all her liver issues starting last Oct but her figures were over double Bogs. My vet retested at 2 weeks when she was at her worse (and we did see an improvement!) Turned out all the horses had it on the yard, environmental. 🙁 - but definitely don’t panic yet. His are just over the markers.
 
Thanks everyone. I emailed them to my UK vet straight away and he’s not worried yet. He said to reduce protein and fat in diet plus add b vits, milk thistle etc

This makes sense to me as he’s on a sugary compound feed which I’ve allowed as he’s a fussy eater and had a big move and I wanted him to keep the weight on. But that combined with the higher protein hay may just be too much? So I guess I need to strip it back.

He looks great though, and it’s nice not to have to convince him to eat hard feed but so be it!

Makes me more convinced than ever of the benefits of running at least yearly bloods.
 
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Michen said:
Trying not to panic. Had vaguely routine bloods run on Bog, I do them twice or once a year. He’s had them done in October when moving to the USA. I now have this, combined with peeing more than normal which I put down to eating more dry hay as no grass in Colorado.

The vet wants to retest in a week and I’ve forwarded to my UK vet. Liver issues fill me with horror. He is well in himself otherwise.

View attachment 109580
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I gave mine Legaphyton and Milk thistle when she had liver issues.
 
Michen - one of my gremlins isn't on good form at the moment, and his bloods came back with AST 446, LDH 1072, and GGT 125. Vet described his liver as "a bit annoyed" rather than compromised, and is confident that 6 weeks of Legaphyton and careful attention to diet will have him back on the right track. 4 weeks in, and he's a much happier small person
 
Auslander said:
Michen - one of my gremlins isn't on good form at the moment, and his bloods came back with AST 446, LDH 1072, and GGT 125. Vet described his liver as "a bit annoyed" rather than compromised, and is confident that 6 weeks of Legaphyton and careful attention to diet will have him back on the right track. 4 weeks in, and he's a much happier small person
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Did vet have any idea why his liver was playing up? My littlest mare has had a course of L94 from trinity and really perked up. 2 weeks after finishing she's flat again so I'm going to run bloods but I can't think what could be aggravating her liver (minor GGT, AST rise)
 
SEL said:
Did vet have any idea why his liver was playing up? My littlest mare has had a course of L94 from trinity and really perked up. 2 weeks after finishing she's flat again so I'm going to run bloods but I can't think what could be aggravating her liver (minor GGT, AST rise)
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He's a bit of a fragile little soul, and has some issues from his bad start in life, including leaky gut, most likely related to worm damage, and a sensitive liver, probably from eating whatever he could in order to survive. He doesn't do well on hay, for some reason, so winters are tough on him. Legaphyton and Protexin 15+ seems to keep him in reasonably good order, and i hand graze him as much as possible, so he doesn't need to eat as much hay.
 
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SEL said:
Did vet have any idea why his liver was playing up? My littlest mare has had a course of L94 from trinity and really perked up. 2 weeks after finishing she's flat again so I'm going to run bloods but I can't think what could be aggravating her liver (minor GGT, AST rise)
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It could be the hay as some bacteria comes in on hay, we had an episodes here when 5 horses went down with liver issues, and one had brick red wee.
 
ILuvCowparsely said:
It could be the hay as some bacteria comes in on hay, we had an episodes here when 5 horses went down with liver issues, and one had brick red wee.
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I was worried about that but the other two seem fine. Hope not - shortage after last year's drought. I'll see what her next bloods show & if they get worse I'll test all 3
 
BBP said:
Caveat*** I’m not a vet**** just someone with a lot of history researching liver issues for my horses.

I don’t think I would panic much looking at those. For GGT my vet uses a reference range of up to 50 as being normal (same units), so boggle would be within normal range if tested by my vets. BBPs was at 600+ and that was about 9 years ago.

AST is slightly elevated but this is not solely a marker for liver but also for any muscle or red blood cell injury (so you might expect a rise in a horse that has had an injury or a heavy exercise session, or one that has tied up).

LDH is also not tissue specific so will also be elevated in a horse with damage to muscle cells.

The markers specific to the liver look ok to me. If it was me I think I’d wait maybe 3-4 weeks to retest as I think AST takes a while to come down after any kind of elevation. Not sure about LDH. But I think retesting in a week mig stress you out as you might get high results from the same one off incident.
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Hi BBP.
In your experience (knowing you are not a vet) could you cast your eye on this recent blood report and decipher into a language I understand?

“This identified elevations in liver
parameters consistent with hepatopathy (liver disease); AST 818 iu/L (rr. <375 iu/L), GGT 234
iu/L (rr 8–55 iu/L), GLDH 331 iu/L (rr 1–16 iu/L). There was no evidence of liver failure (bile
acids 7.5 µmol/L; rr <15 µmol/L).”
 
sanjo said:
AST 818 iu/L (rr. <375 iu/L), GGT 234
iu/L (rr 8–55 iu/L), GLDH 331 iu/L (rr 1–16 iu/L)
Click to expand...

I'm no vet, and not meaning to take the limelight off BBP. My mare had liver issues last year, turned out to be a entire yard thing.

This website is great for decoding bloods - https://southmountainequine.com/medicine/blood-tests-explained/

GLDH shows ongoing disease so I'd your horse could be digesting something toxic. Could be hay, haylage, something in the field.. once I took my mare off the grass and stopped feeding their hay, only feeding Country Haylage her GLDH went down quickly (from over 200 to under 50 in a couple of weeks) but other markers took longer to improve.
 
I'd completely forgotten I'd posted about the microcob. I've a sneaking suspicion I need to get them off their winter field before the mare's tail even threatens to poke it's head up next year.

We've fenced off the worst bit after annihilating it with weed killer so hopefully they won't be accidentally eating it when it starts to poke through.

Pony currently "not flat" and in desperate need of more work because getting tanked with by a 13h native is embarrassing.
 
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