peritonitis in young horses/ Any advice

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NELSON11

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My rising 4 yo has been poorly for the last 3 weeks. presented with what I originally thought was colic but had a temp of 41, stretching to urinate, weight shifting, lethargic/poor appetite.

Vets diagnosed peritonitis, had two weeks of i/v Antib's and finadyne plus two blood samples which showed high white blood cells and muscle enzymes. Also went onto gastroguard as grinding teeth/looked bit tucked up then swollen belly.

Came off the drugs 7 days ago and has appeared ok, then had another relapse last night, he is booked in to be scoped next week and have stomach tap done.

Any ideas/experiences

Thanks x
 
I'd never heard of peritonitis in horses until the end of last summer when I was out hacking my Advanced horse. At first he just felt a bit off the boil but after about half an hour he went downhill very quickly, showing all the colic symptoms. Having had a colic op 4 years ago Iwas obviously very concerned. I got off him and took his saddle off him and walked him the mile or so back to the road. As we were walking he kept stopping. stretching and it was obvious he was really uncomfortable.. I met my mum who had brought the lorry to meet us, loaded him and trundled down to liphook equine hosp. They did all the usual checks and a peritoneal tap which shows the white cell count in the lining (I think his count was 150 odd and should have been under 10 but my memory could be wrong on exact figures!) He stayed in for 10days on the IV antibiotics and picked up in about 3 days. When we got him home he was on reduced work for a bit (which was annoying as he was due to go to Blenheim which because of the reduced work he couldn't go to because of loss of fitness). Since then he's been fine (TOUCH WOOD). I guess that because this is an infection, like any other, if the antibiotics don't kill it in the first course that the horse can relapse. The Vet said to us that she didn't know what had caused it, could be from a splinter injested or externally, we'll never know. I was lucky as I had caught it early. This is my experience, sorry not a lot of tips, just fingers crossed...
 
I have a horse in at the moment who is recovering from a double colic surgery. He has suffered from 3 bouts of peritonitis during his recovery.

The first bout started off with weight shifting and then he had tremors going through his whole body. His temperature rocketed and we had the vet out straight away. I can't remember the exact treatment but he had IV drugs for the first few days followed by a 5 day course of IM drugs. Pretty sure it was Baytril. He was also on Danilon. After the Baytril I think he went down to a weeks course of Norodine.

The second bout was set off by him having a buck and a fart in the stable. We think he must have had a pocket of pus left from the colic surgery which had then burst. Again started with teh weight shifting and then went into the tremors. Again temp rose. As with the first occasion he chose a Saturday for it to happen on so we had the vet out straight away. Again he had some IV, some IM and then some Norodine with the Danilon. He was also put onto Potassium Iodide.

The third bout was very minor and we caught it before he got to the tremors.

He has been on the Iodide since January and will remain on it for the forseeable future, touch wood, we have not had any further issues with peritonitis.

I'm sure you are aware that it can be very serious BUT the vet we were dealing with said there were quite a few options left that we had yet to try but that he had had previous success with the Iodide where more traditional treatments had failed.
 
I nearly lost my gelding to peritonitis about 18 months ago and so I understand what you are going through. Baz was in hospital for 8 days and had what seemed like every test going - full body scans, stomach taps, scoping etc etc. Like your horse, it initially presented as colic but didn't clear and he was also scoped and treated with Gastrogard for low grade ulcers. Here's some links to the posts I did about it:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=211021&highlight=peritonitis
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=218489&highlight=peritonitis

With respect to the apparent re-presentation of symptoms I would be asking your vet to scope and do the stomach tap asap to rule out ongoing peritonitis. Thinking about it, Baz was on IV antibiotics for about a week and then had another 2 weeks on AB liquid in his feed to make sure it had gone fully so your vet may well look at this route. Did your vet scope last time before administering the Gastrogard so they could see the severity of the ulcers and tailor treatment?

Also, some horses don't react well to antibiotics and so I put Baz on a high dose of NAF Pink Powder for a couple of weeks to help settle his stomach - if you haven't done this already then I would certainly recommend this.

Hope your boy is OK - feel free to PM me or update the post if I can be of anymore help :)
 
A stomach tap should show up if there is ongoing peritonitis. I nearly lost my old mare to it. She responded well to IV antibiotics and was then on Noridine for two weeks, though after just a few does she started presenting symptoms again. The Noridine was then changed for Baytril and it worked a treat Good luck!!
 
On new years day I found my lad displaying the same symptoms, at first I thought it was an impaction colic or even grass sickness (lost a mare to that & the early symptoms were very similar)

He was rushed to Liphook & the blood tests showed his count to be 850 and it should be 4 or below!!

He also had a stomach tap which showed signs of inflammation & blood in the fluid, he was treated with IV antibiotics & Metacam (I originally thought it was used just for dogs). He was there for 10 days but made a full recovery & (fingers crossed) hasn't lapsed since.

They told me they would never know what caused it but were quite confident that he wouldn't get it again!! I can't quite understand that if they didn't know what caused it but so far so good.

I would ask for a stomach tap & blood tests urgently to see whats going on.

Good luck keep us posted
 
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