peritonitis strikes :-(

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Cgd

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My horse can been in horse hosp with peritonitis :-( It started out as what we thought was mild colic on the Monday and by the Friday evening she was in a critical condition. Vet had visited 3 times in that week before deciding to admit her on the Friday. Vets have been amazing and she is recovering day by day. Main treatment is IV AB which she stops tomm, followed by oral AB.

To say i have had bad luck would be an understatement! We were 3 months into box rest for PSD.

Vet is hopeful she can can home this Friday which i am thrilled about !!

Has anyone had any experience with peritonitis ? What can i expect once i bring her home in terms of rest period? any idea when can resume any form of work ? We were in the middle of rehab work for her PSD and it was going really well! What is most important is that she recovers from this first ... be glad to be moaning about her leg again to be honest !

Vet will obv talk me thru everything prior to bringing her home but also wanted to get others experiences too !
 
Sorry to hear about your poor horse, that is very frightening for you. Do they know what caused the peritonitis. My horse had it and the vets said it was most probably due to a trauma to the gut from eating a bramble or prickle of some sort. I found that he had stripped the hawthorn under a hedge which had some very large thorns in it and felt that this had probably caused it.

I do hope she recovers quickly, keep us posted.
 
We are not sure what cause was. She was on a bute trial and then we had a few with bad tummies at yard inc her after a new bale of haylage . It all seems to have snowballed from there !
 
Interesting about the haylage. I personally don't feed it I only feed hay. But when my horse was in the clinic I was talking to a vet and the conversation got on to botulism and she said that can be found in haylage. My horse had E coli and they think that he ate something prickly and it pricked the gut wall which is full of capillaries and this let the E coli from the stomach into the blood stream. This cannot be confirmed obviously but that it what several of the vets felt was the cause.

Do hope your horse makes a full recovery and keep us posted.
 
Hi there....My Dales was rushed to Leahurst with Peritonitis 2 years ago. He was there for 10 days on IV ABs followed by a month at home of oral ABs.
It took a day or so to diagnose followed by scans to try to find the cause and countless blood tests and stomach taps to monitor infection levels.
It was a few very worrying days before he started to respond to the ABs, and a good few days before he started to eat ( he refused haylage and hay and was finally tempted into nibbling dried chopped grass on about day 3). For a very greedy Dales this is NOT good at all !
He had about 6 weeks without any work and then gently back out hacking.
After ruling everything else out, the vets said it was probably something sharp that he had ingested which punctured a small hole in the intestine allowing the yucky contents to leak into the peritonial sack.
Good Luck with your pony.
 
My horse had it when she was 16 - she's nearly 24 now.

She made a full recovery :)

It was a horrendous experience - she initially just looked off with a dull coat and refused treats (for a horse that loves titbits was very unusual). That was lunch time. Tea time she refused to eat so I called the vet (don't hang around with my girl, she's too precious, plus she lives to eat).
Treated as colic but got no better so next day she went to hospital. The vet was amazing and I credit him for saving her life - spotted what it was almost straight away. She was in hospital for a week and it was awful - she was so ill, lost tonnes of weight, lethargic, miserable. Came home with ab's.
Gradually returned to full work. Never found out the cause.

Well done for spotting it early, the quicker it's diagnosed and treated the better.
 
Thanks for all your kind thoughts. Rosie has been on box rest so deffo hasnt eaten any hedges but possibly it was something in the haylage ? 5 Other at yard had diaorrhea as well, and as she was also on a bute trial maybe it tipped her over the edge ? Amazingly after being on deaths dooe, once on the IV AB she picked up reasonably quickly and was eating again within a day . Only small amounts but was deffo hungry. Hoping she can return home this friday which means she has been in a hosp a week. Her leg was due a scan for her PSD which they did yesterday and has shown improvement. I will be discussing turnout as she has been in for 14 weeks now with regard to the PSD and it think she now needs to get back to normal. Be glad to be back to just worrying about her suspensory !
 
Hi, glad to hear your horse is recovering. The only time I've had anything to do with peritinitis was when our (where I was working) TB stallion died and was PM'd. We had leased him to another TB stud so can only go on what they told us regarding him having a temperature then died. Great eh a £40,000 horse but such is life.

I've had one do a suspensory too who made a full recovery and was back competing within a year. Good luck, you sound like you need a bit!!!
 
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