Mare rushed to the vets..

[Lotty]

Quickly: I have posted before - My mare was diagnosed laminitic at the end of March, she's had regular x-rays, medication and was wearing her 4th set of Imprints.

When I went to feed my mare her haynet yesterday afternoon she was lying down and found it very hard to get up. When she got up she could not weight bear on her right fore. I called vet & farrier, they came very quickly and was advised to take her to the vets.

Her feet are very good (no cracks) and she has new hoof growth at the coronet band. On x-raying there was no movement or rotation but she has serum in her hoof. They have put metal heart bars on to avoid alot of sole pressure. They are also tubbing her feet in epson salt.

Has anyone else had this? Is this a usual setback?

 

[quirky]

Laminitis is a roller coaster ride with many ups and downs. My lad had abscesses quite regularly that were heart breaking to see.

I hope your mare is more comfortable with heart bars on.

 

[Nari]

Lots of good vibes for you & your mare x.

 

[DDL]

Hi, sorry to hear about your mare and thought my experience may help. My pony also suffered from severe laminitis in front feet and moderate laminitis in hind 2 years ago and it was only after changing vets that she began to improve and subsequently made a full recovery. Every case is different but my mare had normal treatment of box rest, imprint shoes and bute but after 2 months there was no real improvement just a very grumpy bad tempered pony! The new vet trimmed her toes as far back as he could, the farrier then was called a few days later after x-rays were taken and between them they agreed on treatment of aluminum race plates on front with rubber type material injected over mesh to protect the sole (the back feet were left unshod). The bute was gradually reduced and within about a week she was allowed out for 10 min walks inhand and within another 3 weeks I was back riding her for short hacks in walk 2-3 times a week with at this point turnout of around 2 hours allowed with muzzle on bare paddock. It was another 3 months before she returned to normal work and all day turnout with muzzle but a final xray was taken (I insisted for my peace of mind) and she had made a full recovery. She is now stabled at night all year round and goes out during the Spring to Autumn with a Greenguard muzzle and since the laminitis has maintained a weight loss of around 100kg. Good luck and I hope your mare recovers soon.

 

[Kellys Heroes]

Hi, I thought my experience may help you..
My mare is 14.2hh x breed (she is a rescue so we have no idea what of) and she is 16 y/o. We have always known she is lami prone.
She first suffered a bout of it with us at the age of 7, when she was on box rest for 9 months - she came sound and we heard nothing of it until 2 summers ago - we are very careful about feeding, riding, turn out etc and take every possible precaution.

2 summers ago she had very mild lami but was back in work within 2 weeks (so you can see how mild it was!)
However, back in April (its coming up to 5 months now) she got diagnosed with lami after a continuous on off lameness which they put down to arthritis first of all - she then suffered 2 seizures (cause unknown) and the vets reckoned this brought the lami on, quite severely.

Like your mare, Kelly wasn't eating and stood in her stable, listless, depressed and lacking any sort of character which was so unlike her. After so many hard weeks of box rest and bute, we changed her shoes to heart bars and she started to come sound. After a week or so, she was coming out of her stable dog lame and unable to coordinate her legs - we called the vet out as an emergency and he padded her up and recommended we kept a treat ball in her stable to keep her moving and we kept her on bute. Even on bute she was still very lame but the vet insisted it would take time for the lami to settle. Sure enough 3 - 4 weeks later, she started to come sound very slowly - we started to walk her and insisted we had x rays done - the x rays both confirmed very slight rotation in both front feet as the vet had suspected. (However, no arthritis so that's one thing!)
We had her feet trimmed right back and the heel dropped to try and even out the rotation and apparently the farrier said it can be corrected if only slight, as long as the feet are kept on top of.

She has still been lame in trot but not walk, canter, gallop (we have been turning her out as per for an hour in a muzzle as the vet said we need to keep to a routine for her to prevent any further seizures - touch wood we've been lucky) and she has been bombing round the field like an idiot - we've been walking her out, and riding her bareback for a few steps here and there and are due to get back on her this Thursday.
The vet has said we could have got back on her a few weeks back (she's very difficult in hand and much easier and safer ridden!) but we wanted her to come sound fully in all paces to reduce the chances of her going downhill again.
It will take so much time and the chances are you'll be up and down with her its just patience and taking it very slowly I think..feel free to PM me if you want to, it sounds like you're going through what we just came out of and I hope things start to look better for you soon too!