New Member - Looking for Help with Liver Damage

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mad-horse-lady

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Good afternoon all, im a new member and would appreciate any advice. I have an 8 year old WB x 16,2hh mare, thought she was in very good health, is a really nice weight and no outward issues (except) some lumps and bumps on her white parts. After much investigations by my vet and treating for several incorrect things we have eventually found that she has some liver damage, most of her blood readings are borderline but one of them is high so im informed. I've been given very limited help to be honest from my vet, they simply want to put her on steroids and keep monitoring the enzyme counts. I am reluctant to just put her on drugs which I understand (through my own investigations) can have quite nasty side effects. I have done countless googling but some information is conflicting. Does anyone have any experience/advice they can offer me. I have overhauled her feeding regime as I am aware that she needs a very high fibre but low protein/sugar diet and so she is now having Allen & Page Fibrebeet, Spillers Happy Hoof and Hi-Fi Cubes, she is also having Milk Thistle supplement and a multi-vitamin / mineral supplement, although now i'm reading maybe this is not good since it has copper in and she should not be having additional copper in her diet. She grazes approx 6-8 hours a day and has ad-lib hay when stabled. Thanks for any help.
 
There has been a lot of post on this. My own 6 year old ISH had very high liver enzymes and was put on steroids and a strong liver supplement that they use for dogs. ( cant remember the name but could find out) He also had a biopsy to check for liver damage but thankfully it was normal. Don't worry about the side effects of steroids as my vet said they are only used for a short time and most horse owners over worry about them. Used correctly they are fine and will help the liver to recover. I would ask your vet about doing a biopsy so you know haw bad the damage is.
 
Words of encouragement...my dog had very high liver count and a very gloomy biopsy in October, with a poor prognosis. With a special diet and daily doses of Doxion (a dog liver supplement) he's on cracking form.

Three things:

PLEASE don't be shy about steroids, we're very hung up about them in the UK. In France, they dole them out if you have a runny nose! They can have side effects, but they work.

The diet may be hard work but needs to be gotten right.

May be worth speaking to the guys at Sogeval who make Doxion, their technical rep is a vet and I found him extremely helpful.

Good luck.
 
My 34 yo suffered with compromised liver function at 31
A couple of months on milk thistle supplement (herbal not liquid form on instruction from my vet) and she was good as new, came off the supplement and retained good liver function with no negative impact.
 
My friends pony had raised levels in liver after going down in the field years ago. He was given tablets from vet, put on milk thistle and from what i remember vet said to give him Marmite and raw eggs!!!!! Something to do with protein.
 
Just worth adding, I think - repeat think - modern wisdom has it that higher levels of good quality protein are a good thing. The whole area is complex and perhaps a second vet opinion may be worthwhile?
 
Milk thistle as many have mentioned, yea sacc to help with hind gut and hepatosyl. The latter is expensive but it got my mares enzyme levels down in 6 weeks. As regards feed, keep it simple if you can - good quality grazing and hay. If you need to feed low but good quality protein. My vet was very good and I was told that despite her high enzyme results, the key was to maintain her appetite.
 
When you guys talk about high enzyme levels, what sort of numbers are you looking at? My ponys GGT spiked at 700 last year, dropped to 67 in October, now back up to 107. Permanently on milk thistle. Just wondered how that compared with those of you who have had high readings?
 
I can't remember numbers but ggt was 3 times the normal. She looked good though and had a good appetite which vet told me was a big positive as it can spike for so many reasons. I resisted the temptation to test too quickly again and with hepatosyl it had gone down, lower than normal.
 
Do you know which results are high? We have been having high GGT level issues as KatPT, but liver function tests are normal. Vet is thinking mycotoxins so we are currently trying Mycosorb but bloods not being re-done until March/April so will know if it's working then. So far we definitely have reduced GGT levels in the summer. We are on old pasture which has some crown rust which we think may be the issue, especially when it's wet. There seems to be a lot more awareness/issues with mycotoxins in NZ from everything that I can find on the internet.
Sorry if this isn't your issue but good luck finding something that helps.
 
Normal GGT is less than 50 so at a guess yours is at about 150. Three at my yard were 700-900 so hopefully that helps put it in perspective (not to say it isn't a concern, mine is at 107 now and I'm worried as it's been nearly 2years since I first found out). Mine also has normal liver function (normal bile) and has done throughout. We also believed it was micotoxins from hay cut in a very wet year which is why I'm disappointed the levels continue to fluctuate even on the third batch of hay so perhaps it is in the soil itself. Vet said very difficult and expensive to test for this. I rested him after his initial diagnosis spring 2013 then by autumn he was in full work despite levels being high as he was so full of it. He has been in full work ever since and not once shown a sorry or sick day. I haven't biopsied him as he isn't a good patient so I just make sure I listen to him. If bile was high I might reconsider. If he feels at all lacking in energy (almost never!) I just take it easy that day. He has never lost his appetite or got a dull coat or lethargy so I'm hoping I'm not hurting him by doing what I'm doing.
 
Been through this with one of my horses a few years ago, he ended up on steroids for 10 months, luckily he he came right and continues to be absolutely fine. The only side effect from the steroids was strangely good, they appear to have cured his sweetitch. The vet suspected the initial cause of the liver damage was mycotoxins, this was 4 years ago, the vet said they had been seeing a lot more cases of horses affected by it than in the past.

Re the soil test for mycotoxins, technology has improved and the test is much cheaper now. I found this link if it helps.

http://archive.hgca.com/publications/documents/cropresearch/FusariumGuide-Testing.pdf
 
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