please help -unexplained illness in a tb

[aregona]

Please help, any ideas welcome.

My 8yr old TB collapsed in august. He was turned out 24 7 but bought in on a sunday with a foot absess. Farrier opened the absess on Monday, Tuesday morning he had collapsed on the floor.
Whenever he tried to stand, his back legs shock and within about 10 secs he would collapse back on the floor. Vet took bloods which showed raised muscle enzymes but nothing else.
No temperature. Raised heart rate and a lot of sweating and trembling muscles.
If food and water was placed in front of him he took them.

At 11pm I decided to have him pts but the vet said no as his sweating had atopped, he was still on the floor but looking happy and eating. By 6am Wednesday he was on his feet and stayed there.

He has been fine ever since but the vets are at a loss as to what is wrong. They have questioned tumors, wobblers, laminitis and tying up and said probably wobblers.
After he got to his feet he just kept straining to urinate.

He has started acting odd again today. He is quiet, off his food and laying down a lot. He is not sweating and not In any discomfort. I have contacted the vet who has told me to monitor him.

Has anyone come across anything like this before? Any help very gratefully received

 

[Birker2020]

Please help, any ideas welcome.

My 8yr old TB collapsed in august. He was turned out 24 7 but bought in on a sunday with a foot absess. Farrier opened the absess on Monday, Tuesday morning he had collapsed on the floor.
Whenever he tried to stand, his back legs shock and within about 10 secs he would collapse back on the floor. Vet took bloods which showed raised muscle enzymes but nothing else.
No temperature. Raised heart rate and a lot of sweating and trembling muscles.
If food and water was placed in front of him he took them.

At 11pm I decided to have him pts but the vet said no as his sweating had atopped, he was still on the floor but looking happy and eating. By 6am Wednesday he was on his feet and stayed there.

He has been fine ever since but the vets are at a loss as to what is wrong. They have questioned tumors, wobblers, laminitis and tying up and said probably wobblers.
After he got to his feet he just kept straining to urinate.

He has started acting odd again today. He is quiet, off his food and laying down a lot. He is not sweating and not In any discomfort. I have contacted the vet who has told me to monitor him.

Has anyone come across anything like this before? Any help very gratefully received

I had my ten year old WB put down with wobblers syndrome. I can tell you now that what your horse has IS NOT wobblers, or I would be very very surprised if it was. Wobblers horses develop episodes of ataxia (confusion over where to place limbs and general drunken like behaviour) but they dont have sweating, trembling and strange urination, although my horse did have trembling knees where it looked as if his front limbs wouldn't lock at the knee. Look I am not a vet, I must stress that, but if they think it is wobblers then the horse needs referring to a horse hospital for xrays on his neck. My horse went to Liverpool (Philip Leverhulme hospital). my horse was previously misdiagnosed by my vets who said they thought he had EHV (Equine herpes virus). Do not rely on xrays from a portable xray machine. My horse had these and my vets said he was fine. When he went to Liverpool and had stand up xrays they said he had wobblers and showed me the damage. he had to be pts as his was untreatable. Wobblers shows as neurological damage to the spine due to compression of the spinal cord and associated nerves. There are various tests that can be performed to rule wobblers out, mainly the sway test and limb placement tests. If you are in any doubt get your vet to refer and get a PROFESSIONAL transport company to take him, Nick Sarson is highly recommended. Tell him the horse may need to lie down so he knows this before he arrives. You will most likely get this cost back from your insurance. My horse had to go on a short course of finadyne to get him stable enough to travel, this is an anti inflammatory I believe. Even if the answer is not what you wish to hear it sounds like you need a diagnosis not a stab in the dark which is what your vet seems to be making. Please, please, please don't give up on your boy. Get another opinion. I know in my heart it is not wobblers.

As I say, I am not a vet, but wobblers does NOT present like this from what I know of the disease. Good luck and keep us updated hun x

 

[misst]

Not sure if this is helpful but if you search on Aces High posts her boy had something very similar I think. He is now on the mend but they never really got to the bottom of it. Sorry no other suggestions but this just rang a bell.
Hope your horse picks up soon.

 

[aregona]

thanks for your replies. misst - anychance you could point me in the right direction where to find the other thread???? i haven't had any luck searching it.

applecart14 - sorry about your WB i don't believe it is wobblers. I have had this horse 4 years and the episode came on so quickly and so acutly (spell?) and then went away almost as quick as it came and up until last night he has been fine. He has always been cold backed to ride but hasn't been ridden at all this year.

He seems ok this morning, he is now eating again and has taken himself outside for a little wonder (he has sort of become the yard pet after his near death experience )

I have noticed though that ever since the first attack in august he goes for his salt lick like no tomorrow, none of my other horses do but he has gone through 3 since april.

The vets advise in august was to see ho he went and then once he was strong enough bring him back into work, but he did say if he had another attack he would advise him to be PTS. i just wish we new what we were dealing with.
If i new wha it was i would have some idea where to go from here but at the minute he only has to cough and im worried he may have another attack.

 

[misst]

I do not know how to link directly but if you search Aces_High on advanced search the thread is on page 5 at the top. I am really sorry I cannot do a proper link but I hope you can find it. I may be way off mark but it just sounded familiar.

 

[ImogenBurrows]

He has been fine ever since but the vets are at a loss as to what is wrong. They have questioned tumors, wobblers, laminitis and tying up and said probably wobblers.
After he got to his feet he just kept straining to urinate.

He has started acting odd again today. He is quiet, off his food and laying down a lot. He is not sweating and not In any discomfort. I have contacted the vet who has told me to monitor him.

I fist read your post yesterday shortly after you put it up and didn't reply because I wasn't sure I had much to add, but after thinking about this a bit, Iive decided to add my 2p.

The presenting signs sound unusual to say the least. Did the vets run any further tests on the bloods for example for ehv to rule this out? I think this is unlikely anyway, but just wondered?

I agree from that information available that wobbler's syndrome (cervical vertebral malformation) is unlikely too and I'm sure your vets would be unlikely to diagnose this without xrays.

Wobblers (CVM) is as I said, usually a malformation of the vertebral bodies. This malformation allow "pinching" of the spinal cord to a degree and therefore interrupts the normal nerve pathways, resulting in ataxia (generally hindlimb) or a "wobbly" horse. This present in two ways, static malformation which is where the spinal cord is pinched continuously so signs are always present - clearly not this; or dynamic wobblers. This is where the malformation causes pinching depending on what position the relevant area of the head/neck is in. This can be malformation from birth, or acquired as a result of new changes, e.g. abnormal bone growth during development, as a consequence of trauma (fractures) or bone spurs from arthritic changes (pretty rare I'd think) or even rarer may be compression from a mass. This is the more possible of the options but still unusual.

The head and neck are often manipulated in examination by the vets and the horse moved around to try and replicate symptoms, and then obviously if you are suspicious of this being the problem, xrays are recommended to confirm the diagnosis.

Ideally, as is more common in dogs, contrast xrays are useful, myelograhy, but this is not without risk in the horse, is done under GA and often plain xrays are done first and can support the diagnosis well enough. I agree that field xrays will not be adequate in most cases.

Mind you, all that aside, there is one other suggestion I did think about. Obviously it is impossible to pass judgement without examination in full, but I have had a case of a saddle thrombus (aortoiliac thrombosis). The aorta at the top of the hindlimbs branches left and right into the iliac arteries, supplying blood to the legs. If a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis style) gets lodged into this area this temporarily or permanently cuts off or reduces blood flow to the hindlegs. This is much more common in cats.

The horse presents as acutely painful and may collapse. The case I saw had only one leg affected and was not weightbearing and only responded to painkillers once the clot started to breakup. Clots can be treated with aspirin.

I stress that this is rare IMO and unlikely too, but maybe a possible explanation. If that's the case, once cleared the horse will return to normal with no lasting conditions. This could tie in with mild increases in muscle enzymes from being down/pain.

It would however mean the current lethargy/depression is likely to be totally unrelated.

I'd probably see how the horse goes for a bit and if you're not happy run some more bloods to rule out other disease - could be respiratory bug brewing for instance

If you are worried re future riding, survery neck xrays are sensible for safety purposes. Your vets will not be happy giving you the all clear until they can rule this in or out and it's not worth the risk to you.

Hope that's some use?
Imogen

 

[Aces_High]

I do not know how to link directly but if you search Aces_High on advanced search the thread is on page 5 at the top. I am really sorry I cannot do a proper link but I hope you can find it. I may be way off mark but it just sounded familiar.

Hey sorry to hear about your horse - it does sound sort of similar to what I went through in Sept/Oct with my horse. I've just had a 3K vets bill in (I don't insure!) so please go through my thread and I am happy to give you any input I can. Unfortunatly we didn't get to the bottom of it and had a HUGE time of top equine vets on the case (again not much help) nut it might just give you pointers in another direction which you haven't looked at. My horse also always strains to pee when he's colicky and he's a bit of a colic nightmare (this is before the illness he had in Sept/Oct. I posted it almost like a blog so there is masses of information and it would be interesting to see if anything tallies with what my horse had. On a fantastic note, I've had reports today that he's galloping around the paddock like a 2yr old and I'll be getting him shod when I return from Aus! Post was in N_L as I wanted some support and no one looked at it in Vets! I will post on it how well he's doing to bring it to the front for you to find at ease.
A_H