Looking back how and what factors led your horse to laminitis

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Daisy2

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We all hear how to prevent laminitis but I would like to hear
your stories of how looking back you feel your horse got laminitis. I think it would be useful to hear other peoples lessons painfully learnt. Oh and at what stage of it you became aware something was wrong.
 
My horse arrived with laminitis; I knew she had it (quite badly) and was prepared to manage it.

Subsequent bouts of LGL have been invoked by:

- kind, but unhelpful person letting her out of her grass free paddock on to lush spring grass
- wormers (a particular brand)
- a feed designed specifically for laminitics
- unsoaked hay

We avoid all of the above as much as is possible on a livery yard
 
Mine was induced by steroid administered due to a bad reaction to flies :(.

He was given an initial dose and then was given tablets (crushed) into his feed. He was lame in a back leg after about 10 days. Steroids stopped immediately.

He ended up rotating in all 4 feet, worse on the fronts but not all at the same time, so although treatment was drawn out, he tolerated it quite well as he had good feet to stand on (if that makes sense).

I eventually lost him to lymphoma which the vet believes was probably not helped by the amount of drugs he was on for his lami.

I did get him back to being ridden though and he had a lovely, gentle 2 years before he was pts. He was 17 and I had owned him since he was 2. My special, special pony :(.
 
When one of our horses got an attack of laminitis earlier this year, we were dumbfounded, we had never had a horse with laminitis before and have always been careful to avoid all the usual triggers for a lamanitic attack.

Our mare is insulin resistant and therefore really vunerable to laminitis.

We believe that lack of exercise due to not being able to get out through ice and snow triggered the attack.

We were horrified by the lack of understanding about laminitis in the UK equestrian world particulaly by the professionals.

The number of horses that survived laminitis and returned to a full and active life is poor compaired to the USA and Canada, where equine vetinary science is far more advanced.

Our mare had suffered massive rotation of the pedal bone in both front feet. That was in February this year.

Through the adoption of a wide ranging regieme we now have a fully sound horse and complete reversal of the pedal bone rotation. We used little drugs apart from some pain killers when the mare was flat out and groaning in pain.
 
Absolutely no idea. It was from a toxin, of some sort underlying somewhere. To this day day we still don't know what exactly but was none of the 'normal' causes.
He had an absess to start with and was lame on that, sorted that and was still lame for about a week. Couldn't find anything wrong with him. Kept him in for half a day extra and came down to find all 4 legs were blown up with cellulitis badly and were told to put him out asap.
So put him out overnight and got a phone call at 6am from landlady saying he had been down for an hour or so. Ran up there and he couldn't stand. Got vet. Was acute laminitis. Nerve blocked all 4 feet and took back to stable after about 40 minutes.
Then kept going for about 5-6 weeks with him,imprint shoes, metformin, and god knows how much other meds, etc. The amount he had to have to keep him stable was kill or cure.
Organs started failing in the end. Stopped eating. Kidneys/Liver damaged. Didn't have a choice what happened next with him.
Walked out soundest he'd been when we had him PTS.

His xrays, scariest sets we'd seen.
Worst foot
5960_1188674111716_1074211092_593796_6145346_n.jpg


'Better' foot
5960_1188674151717_1074211092_593797_4178368_n.jpg


He was 18.3hh 3/4 TB also.
 
AndySpooner said:
We were horrified by the lack of understanding about laminitis in the UK equestrian world particulaly by the professionals.

The number of horses that survived laminitis and returned to a full and active life is poor compaired to the USA and Canada, where equine vetinary science is far more advanced.
Click to expand...

This is interesting - what is the standard US treatment for laminitis now?
My mare got laminitis immediately following surgery under GA for septic pedal osteitis. Apparantly this is not unheard of, and major surgery in humans can lead to problems with insulin too. She was treated initially in a traditional manner - heart bars, box rest and loads of drugs for the first month. During that time I read a lot about barefoot rehab (she had been barefoot for about 8 years prior to the illness) and decided to follow that route, so she went out with no medication and bare feet. She is now back in work and pretty much back to normal - just waiting for the last of the 'old' hoof to grow out.
 
We used to have a Welsh Section A on loan that arrived with laminitis after being turned out in an orchard full of windfall apples. Despite restricted grazing she still got attacks when with us, and eventually turned out she had Cushings. I found that one trigger for her laminitis was when rain followed a dry spell of weather.
 
Looking back causes...
Too much grass, over weight and probable mineral imbalances.
Un soaked hay has been the most likely cause (straw that broke...) of another bout two years later.
 
A fit and slender horse probably just on the "wrong" grass despite there not being very much of it.

Unfortunately we've never been able to pinpoint the reason. If I only knew, it would be easier to avoid it in future. Now I'm just plain paranoid. :(
 
Good question Daisy and interesting replies. Our Welsh sec A got lami last winter from frost in her soaked haynet knew almost straight away. Had to move her this Summer and after a week of very restricted grazing half an hour each day got lami think it was also due to the stress of being moved from home. Box rested straight away deep bed etc sound again within two weeks. Always on the lookout for first signs.
 
12h sec A that we'd had for 4yrs on good grass with no problems got it last year. Combination of growing up - used to charge around the field a lot when younger, rider outgrew her, and another child that loaned her broke a leg at school, so didn't ride. More than anything, it was a batch of very good haylage. We'd had cheap nasty stuff for the previous years, which had worried me loads, ironically it was the good stuff that did. Looking back, even my fit, eventing ISH had very slight laminitus (slight footiness on stoney tracks and stopped once or twice when it never normally refused anything). Once we changed to hay, and put grazing muzzles on by day, they were all fine. Sec A now sold to a good home where she is working hard (as she needs) and no problems at all now.
 
Subsequent bouts of LGL have been invoked by:

- kind, but unhelpful person letting her out of her grass free paddock on to lush spring grass
- wormers (a particular brand)
- a feed designed specifically for laminitics
- unsoaked hay
Click to expand...

All of these and more.

The feed designed specifically for laminitics makes me angry beucase people will buy it thinking it will prevent laminitis and is "safe" and won't take any of the other measures to prevent laminitis. It's purely a marketing badge that companies can licence on an annual basis.

I have very much revised my opinion of "what is laminitis" and buy wholeheartedly in to the LGL philosophy. It is a spectrum, and I think many horses in this country are somewhere along that spectrum.

You look at many horses closely and you'll see at certain times of the year many of them are compromised to a certain extent - it may be something as subtle as a preference for a partular rein, or just a change in habitual stance. It may only be behavioural changes - pre-occupied, grumpy, or simply withdrawn.

We have a laminitic driving pony - he's sound and drives many miles, unbooted on tarmac. He was very serious at one point. He got that way on minimal amounts of grass - he's just very sensitive.

But he is one of these types that even though he has been off grass for 3 years, he can go footy in the spring and autumn. Bob Bowker explained this was due to the seasonal changes in the ACTH levels - and the spells of compromised health tend to come around the times his coat starts to change.

To think about laminitis as simply a problem with the hoof is, in my opinion, a huge mistake. Laminitis is an end event in a whole chain of things gone wrong for the pony, and I have now gotten pretty keyed into the early warning signs for my horses but it's taken some time.

We call it "itchy, bitchy, lumpy and grumpy"
 
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Combination of many things...being out 24/7, being overweight at the time, having had just over a week off work due to me going away on hols and the vet believes that a large contributor was mechanical as his feet had not been given proper attention by my farrier and had been allowed to get too long.
But who really knows?
My lad was barely lame when I knew something was 'not quite right' but unfortunately we were all convinced it was a foot abscess - vet and farrier thought this. So we treated it as such and wasted 3 weeks when in actual fact he had laminitis and the 'abscess foot' was rotation by 12 degrees! He may well have had no rotation if we had treated it as laminitis straight away instead of poulticing and allowing him to wander about on it instead of being on box rest...but we have come through it and I know how my horses feet should look now from a farrier point of view, he has lost the excess weight and is in every night off the grass on soaked hay. I am also using my holidays to have a half day on a friday to ride him for a third day in the week instead of two...now that it is too dark before and after work in the week.
 
I believe that most horses in the UK are on the cusp of a lamanitic attack, and it takes something slight to trigger a full blown attack, either an acute dramatic attack or a less severe condition of footiness, slight lameness that wont go away.

The underlying problem in the UK is, I feel, the grazing which is available to our horses. The term 'good grazing' if it refers to lush improved sward is wrong. This type of pasture is poison to horses.

Most grasses in the UK available to our horses are improved strains of grass, developed to produce large quantities of milk or fatten animals like sheep and cattle.

Where farmers diversify into livery, in many instances they continue to treat their fields as they would for any domesticated animal being farmed, and treat their grassland in the traditional way. Indeed, many in an effort to preserve the quality of the pasture restrict turnout to their livery clients.

Basically, our grassland, particularly if it is ryegrass based as most are, and the hay and haylage derived from it is the wrong feed.

Hard feed also contributes to the attack on the horse's system by overloading the sugar intake of the horse. If molasses are added , which improves the palatability of the feed,is another massive sugar overload.

Not many horses today do any sort of work where the levels of hard feed given is justified.
 
Because the basic feeding of horses is so wrong, it takes only one thing to trigger an attack of laminitis. The last straw. This could be an injury, the time of year, weather conditions, a vetinary treatment, worming, a slight change in diet anything at all really even a slight trauma which may go un noticed by the owner or keeper.

Insulin resistant horses, hardly recognised until recently, are at greater risk.

When an attack does occur, the treatment of the horse is also flawed. To make any attempt to treat the feet is a mistake. The destruction of the foot is a syptom of the attack not the main problem. To treat the syptom rather than the illness in this case leads to horses being given massive doses of pain relief, encouraging them to get up. Then through simple mechanics sever rotation of the pedal bone and even founder are the result.

When an attack happens the horse should be allowed to go down and stay down. No food other than well soaked hay or haylage should be available to it. The body is trying to purge itself of excess sugars and no improvement will be seen until this has happened. To mask the situation with pain killers will not help and can be detrimental. To give hard feed at this stage is prolonging the attack or even making it worse.
 
brucea said:
I have very much revised my opinion of "what is laminitis" and buy wholeheartedly in to the LGL philosophy. It is a spectrum, and I think many horses in this country are somewhere along that spectrum.
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Me too and I'm sure my girl was 'brewing' (had LGL) for a good while before her first acute episode. Now I'm more tuned in I make changes much sooner and I've learned that I mustn't be complacent and think, "oh one day unsoaked will be alright". I've made that mistake and she paid the price.
 
I've had my girl 16.1hh warmblood x for 7 years and she got laminitis in March this year, it took 5months of box rest. Even though she didn't show all the signs I caght it early but she was in a bad way. I've never fed her any more than a handful of good doer.

Causes I think were:
24/7 Good grazing in the summer
Ad-lib hay during winter months - I should have weighed the hay
We had a batch of hay that was very, very rich

I am paranoid now and weigh everything. She is on 4-5hours of grazing with a muzzle depending on the day and if it has rained. I check her feet every night and I weigh her every 2weeks.
 
I agree that laminitis is not a foot issue but more of a metabolic one, my mare first developed laminitis after drinking from a trough that had been repaired and had glue dropped into it - when I cleaned it out afterwards it smelt very strongly of chemicals; It was also the day after a long hack with lots of trotting on roads and hard ground, she was shod at the time and I'm pretty sure that the concussion contributed to the attack. She has always been an extremely good doer, and was slightly overweight at the time, so all things combined it was a bit of a time bomb waiting to go off!
 
Lotty said:
I've had my girl 16.1hh warmblood x for 7 years and she got laminitis in March this year, it took 5months of box rest. Even though she didn't show all the signs I caght it early but she was in a bad way. I've never fed her any more than a handful of good doer.

Causes I think were:
24/7 Good grazing in the summer
Ad-lib hay during winter months - I should have weighed the hay
We had a batch of hay that was very, very rich

I am paranoid now and weigh everything. She is on 4-5hours of grazing with a muzzle depending on the day and if it has rained. I check her feet every night and I weigh her every 2weeks.
Click to expand...

Personally I am not in favour of restricting availability of hay/haylage, I believe that bulk feed should be fed ad lib, especially if the horse is kept in a box with restricted turn out.

My reason for thinking this is because the horse is a browzer not a grazer and spends at least 20 hrs in its natural state eating. Also the digestive tract of the horse is designed to process large quanitities of low feed value roughage, it is not a ruminant so does not chew the cud, and so does not cope with high levels of rich grass.

By limiting its access to hay, stable vices can be encouraged and colic or torsion of the gut be allowed to happen if the intestine becomes empty.

Hay or haylage believed to be 'rich' should be soaked for at least an hour to remove the soluble sugars, and bring it down to a more acceptable feed value to the horse.

Allowing the lamanitic horse to rest is right, though walking it out several times a day for a few minutes encourages the regeneration of the lamina, if your horse is not in a position to wander in and out of the stable at will.

I believe that the shoes should be taken off a lamanitic horse and the toe trimmed very very slightly every few days and the heal lowered, this prevents the mechanical separation of the lamina from between the hoof wall and pedal bone.

The hoof should be as tight in whole of the hoof as it is in the top inch of new growth, there should be no flare in the hoof as it grows down and the hoof wall should never be filed as this weakens it and allows it to flare.

The whole process of growing a new hoof after a lamanitic attack takes between 9 months and 2 years depending on how good your management is, but full reversal of any rotation is achievable, but constant vigilance with the diet is always required to prevent another attack.
 
I do find with mine though that ad-lib hay quickly leads to an obese horse, in my case at least. In winter I can manage to feed ad lib when it is really cold, but most of the time she will put weight on, although I do agree that in principal they should have access to forage 24 hrs.

Mine can guzzle what she should theoretically have over a day in a matter of hours if allowed, but I do my best to slow down her eating so that it lasts longer, although I've found that very small holed haynets wear her teeth down unevenly, so I'll have to go back to the drawing board with that one!
 
touchstone said:
I do find with mine though that ad-lib hay quickly leads to an obese horse, in my case at least. In winter I can manage to feed ad lib when it is really cold, but most of the time she will put weight on, although I do agree that in principal they should have access to forage 24 hrs.

Mine can guzzle what she should theoretically have over a day in a matter of hours if allowed, but I do my best to slow down her eating so that it lasts longer, although I've found that very small holed haynets wear her teeth down unevenly, so I'll have to go back to the drawing board with that one!
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I remember when I was a kid people used to say that horses should only have hay that was a year old. The feed value of that was very low and safe to feed ad lib, I used to wonder why but now realize what it was all about.

If she's kept out small piles of hay all round the field works, but if they are just stood in a box eating it is difficult.
 
In-experience, I allowed my boy to get too fat as a 5 yr old. Had to watch carefully eversince. Now I control it by watching his weight & keeping him worked. However, he's been left with a 10% rotation in 1 front foot & sensitive soles - he wears leather pads to help. We've had the odd minor relapse usually from hard ground & a major acute attack this year after all the dry weather & no grass when he was eating the grass roots & picking up sugars that way.
 
Unrestricted soaked hay doesn't seem to make my horses gain weight but it does some of them if it's unsoaked.
I'm hoping to have a big bath installed before this winter sets in that's easy to fill and empty as it's such a chore soaking for all of them. Soaking for the Shetlands is easy but the quantities involved for the other big horses is hard to manage with bins!
 
I hate the hay soaking too, I do wonder why one of the feed companies can't come up with a pre-soaked forage for the folks who own horses with metabolic issues or weight problems. It would probably cost a fortune to buy though!
 
touchstone said:
I hate the hay soaking too, I do wonder why one of the feed companies can't come up with a pre-soaked forage for the folks who own horses with metabolic issues or weight problems. It would probably cost a fortune to buy though!
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Personally, I have very little faith in feed companies, remember it was feed companies that fed cheap protien in the form of rendered and ground up sheep to cattle and poisoned the UK cattle herd, by way of BSE.

I worked for a major feed company once and how it works is, you buy the straights as cheaply as you can, mix it together add molasses and salt to make it palatable, add some fancy packaging and a few platatudes, ie. good doer, working horse, young horse, veteran etc. then sell it for as much as you can.
 
AndySpooner said:
Personally, I have very little faith in feed companies, remember it was feed companies that fed cheap protien in the form of rendered and ground up sheep to cattle and poisoned the UK cattle herd, by way of BSE.

I worked for a major feed company once and how it works is, you buy the straights as cheaply as you can, mix it together add molasses and salt to make it palatable, add some fancy packaging and a few platatudes, ie. good doer, working horse, young horse, veteran etc. then sell it for as much as you can.
Click to expand...

Yep, that sounds about right!
 
New yard, had steriod injections and tildren so was a mixture of reasons. One thing that wasnt a issue was weight she is ideal weight and was very fit at the time.
 
Hard, prolonged frost, combined with a trigger (we know now) of alfalfa based feed, and her hooves being softened then worn down due to the hay being fed in the boggy wet corner of the field so they were too low really. Treatment was box rest with a companion, low-sugar forage, and that was it. She was lame even in boots at the point when she was box rested, and it seems to have flipped a switch in her metabolic system, as now she's too sensitive to be on any grass. Timothy horsehage is fab, and she loves straw too (and can eat quantities of it without problems). She gets the ERS hard feed which she's fine on, as it's hard finding a lami ok feed for a poor doer! Since we took her off grass, only wobbly bits have been feeding mistakes by other liveries, and that not for years now. You'd never know there was anything wrong with her - she's shiny, healthy, happy and competing.
 
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