Not really CR, but worrying myself sick... and you guys know about comp horses..

Had one with a very similar array of odd symptoms, turned out he had perforated an ear drum and it made him excetionally noise sensitive. He had to go to the clinic as he colicked and the vet eventually noticed a weird hissing noise coming from his ears and, after more investigation and much consulting experts, declared the diagnosis as very rare!
Horse was very distressed for a week or so then settled but was always noise sensitive afterwards and wore ear muffs in comps as vet wrote him a note
 
Ali16 said:
You're excused! Made me giggle too!

Yes - everything checked, eyes, ears etc. He has started eating again and is relatively quiet this evening, so slight improvement on last night. Phew!
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fingers crossed its road to recovery may have been a single incident that sparked this and finally getting over it would highly recommend the nuumed ear plugs, saving grace on a foul tb i used to ride!
 
Is he in work ( I have not read the whole thread) I only ask as my dressage monster was weird during his layoff due to a minor problem while turned out fine came in daily with everyone else would paw if he saw you carrying tack but otherwise normal.
When we started stabling at night as he would have been left on his own in the field as everyone else was in it all went badly pear shaped kicked the stable to bits all bedding out every day bedding all dragged back and up back wall acting like he had never been handled crazy stuff my groom and I exhausted and stressed .
Brought him back to light work early ,over a few days he went back to normal.Really strange behaviour .
 
A friend of mines horse has displayed similar symptoms for the past 2 1/2 weeks. In fact she has been hopitalised at an equine clinic for 2 weeks now as they try to find out what is wrong. Location of clinic and home are too far apart to bring her home, But at least they can watch the progress on a daily basis.

She is sensitive to noise, jumping and nervous. At this point they are waiting on blood results from the USA, and today I believe a consultant from one of the Vet schools came to examine her.

If they have any news I'll let you know.
 
Gosh that Sounds worrying - Could it have any thing to do with the high winds we have been having over the last few days? It certainly upsets my big older fella - he goes off his food and shouts a lot and can be quite tricky to ride and handle.

Good luck it gets sorted .


S xxx
 
Oh god Ali poor you! :( Sounds horrible, will keep my fingers crossed for you guys that it's nothing serious. But it does sound like he might be starting to settle again now a bit?

xxx
 
Thanks everyone for your replies...

He was a bit more settled last night, but a total nightmare this morning again. He definately drank last night and ate a small amount (for his size). Still waiting for bloods to come back. It is so uncharacteristic of this horse to be so rude and bargy (usually he's a gem to handle) that I'm totally convinced that there MUST be some kind of chemical imbalance in his blood.

We have started to slowly strip his food right back to see if one or more of the straights that he's on is causing this odd behaviour and are taking advice from our nutritionist, so hopefully we can rule out his hard feed. Luckily his food isn't particularly complicated (basically oats, barley and chaff. The only suppliments he gets is MSM & glucosamine, Gastrguard and electrolytes) so it shouldn't take too long to see.

Hopefully the bloods will come back this morning...
 
Feel so sorry for you and your horse what a horrible time you are having, hope the blood results can shed some light on what is going on and he settles very soon x
 
A really worrying time for you. I hope the blood results come back soon.

Just a thought, but how long as your horse been on Gastroguard?
 
bounce said:
A really worrying time for you. I hope the blood results come back soon.

Just a thought, but how long as your horse been on Gastroguard?
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Thanks. About 2.5 years now on and off as prescribed by the vet. When he is on his hols and not travelling anywhere he obviosuly comes off it, his feed is cut down and his forage goes up. We also use Ulcergard in conjunction, but since he was ill in summer 2009 we have been so careful about ulcers and gastric condidtions with him. He showed a massively decreased white blood cell count and high levels of acid in his bowels and they couldn't give us a reason for that at the time so it has always been a worry . My poor vet must rue the day he gave us his private mobile number...

Bloods still not back.. can't understand why they are taking so long!
 
It seems to me as if your horse is extremely worried about something. Have you had high winds in the last few days i.e. just before he started this behaviour?

A few years ago we had high winds and the telegraph wires along the road adajacent to the field my two are in were loosened by the wind and kept touching tree branches and giving off loud cracking noises and sparks. My stressy idiot old TB wasn't affected, but my other "normal" horse went through electric fencing and wasn't himself for days afterwards. It really worried him.

Do you think something like this could have happened?

I do hope you get to the bottom of it!
 
Just a really random stab in the dark, is he excessively sweating/weeing/drinking? It MIGHT be cushings as the disease causes high levels of cortisol and adrenaline which therefor causes stress/fear in a sufferer. Has he been blood tested for this? Its probably not but worth checking into as they can show symptoms of sudden behaviour change and not eating.

I really hope you get it sorted! x
 
Hi just a thought but saw you mentioned he was fed oats if your having him in full time at the moment due to problems I personally would want to take these out completely straight away as the amount of energy these produce could be making the situation worse to diagnose if he is doing no work.

Hope he feels better soon :-(
 
Rueysmum - Thanks for the suggestion.. It has been quite windy around us, but we have had worse in the past year and it has not bothered him. Like I say, he is usually the most horizontal horse on the yard. A real pro at keeping new horses calm etc and not rattled by much at all. There are some wires overhead going to our hourse, but not near his box. He also behaves the same in other boxes and outside his box.

shortstuff99 - Thanks. We are waiting for bloods to come back as I type.. Hopefully any time soon. He's not drinking any more/less than usual, but he does sweat when he's throwing himself around. In ridden (Tuesday last exercised) he was not sweating any more than normal.
 
First Time Mum said:
Hi just a thought but saw you mentioned he was fed oats if your having him in full time at the moment due to problems I personally would want to take these out completely straight away as the amount of energy these produce could be making the situation worse to diagnose if he is doing no work.

Hope he feels better soon :-(
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Thanks for your reply - He is not in full time at the moment, if he was he would be stuck half way over his stable door! We are still trying to stick to his routine as far as possible, the vet even said to continue with ridden work if we can get a bridle on him. He is still going out in his large stallion pen (although he's a gelding - not a stallion - he has a tendency to trash electric fences and try to play with other horses constantly), where he is still a twit but at least he's having a change of scenery, and going on the walker, which he is fine about as he doesn't have a choice but to keep moving! He still whinnies wherever he is though...

We are going on our nutritionist's advice re the feed, who knows the horse well.
 
I remembered yesterday about someone on here's bob (the cob) going a bit odd at one point, was still fine to ride but kept staring at things in the distance and not eating, bas being in a high alert state.

I can't remember why but am sure it was resolved, her old username doesn't seem to be valid though (was bob_rob_and_tiff or similar) so I can't find the thread atm.

eta found them, doesn't sound as similar as I remembered the threads are

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=329584
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=327648
 
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Well, bloods came back.....


Completely negative for anything at all. They ran every test they could and the pathologist said he looked 'the picture of health' from his bloods.

Funnily enough he has been much better since he was worked late morning. Vet and nutritionist have advised to carry on stripping his feed back to see if that makes a difference so will carry on down that route for now but keep adding electolytes where possible to ensure he's drinking.

Will keep everyone posted on progress with this... Thanks for all your comments and suggestions :)
 
I haven't used it myself, but I know ElleJS has, have a look at Equi Feast's products - that could help even if it doesn't bring you any closer to finding a cause?
 
Good luck with finding a solution. I bet you wish there'd been something on the bloods cause at least you'd have an answer ... I really hope he gets better soon. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
 
Is he on haulage ? I have a mare who is similar at the moment I upped her haylage (she was getting half and half till about a month ago) and she has been an absolute nightmare since Monday , the farrier couldn't put her back shoes on she was really kicking out and completely sweated up , she won't stand still while I tack up and even after work while standing in wash box to be untacked is just so wired and hyper it's not like her . She had an episode like this at the beginning of the year so put her on regumate and normal hay and she has been ok till now .I stopped haylage yesterday and she is a bit better today she also has had uvietis for 2 years so not sure how much this affects her but I think it's the haylage so I hope over the next week she will go back to normal. So I do really know what you are going through it's extremely stressful not knowing what is upsetting your horse . Hope you find out what is going on.
 
He looks just like mine!

He's on glucosamine/MSM/omeprazole just like mine. He behaves just like mine. It sounds to me like he may be in pain somewhere and he can ignore it when he is ridden but not when left to his own devices. Mine's like that too.

If he was mine I would be scoping him for reoccurrence of the ulcers. If you've already done that, sorry, I haven't read all 9 pages.

I hope you sort it soon for both your sakes.
 
Oh hun! How scary and horrible.

This is going to sound barking mad, so apologies in advance... There a James Herriot book, when a cow (I think) was acting in a startled and stressed manner. If I remember right, it turned out to be lead poisoning.

As I said, barking mad and probably totally stupid, but maybe worth a question to the vet (blame mad person on forum!).

Hope you find get to the root/a fix very, very soon.
 
Quick update...

He is a little better - eating his haylage like normal, however, still just picking at his feed, even though his feed is now tiny.

TPR are still fluctuating when he is stressing but were normal when he was resting last night and gums normal colour, so no real signs of pain at the moment.

SpottedCat - Thank you, will look into it.

meerkat 2 - Yes, he is on haylage, always has been since he we bought him at 2yrs, so in 11 yrs we have not had an issue with it, but are not discounting it...

Santa Paws - Thanks, yes, this is a concern, even though he did not actually have ulcers in the first place, it was more of a precautionary measure than anything, as prescribed by the vet due to his travel and competition schedule. We are going to see if the diet change works at all and then if not, in a couple of weeks we will go back to the vets for him to be scoped. Vet is not convinced that he is in pain though.

MrsMozartletoe - Thanks, poisoning was definately a concern, but now that the bloods have come back clear, we can rule it out.

He is slowly changing over to a low sugar diet and from haylage to soaked hay. He is not exactly lacking in condition at the moment and is generally a good doer so I think he'll be OK to carry on working through it. The vet has told us to try and keep him to his routine as far as possible.
 
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