Possible faecal water syndrome

[Hackback]

Not sure yet that this is what we're dealing with, but my older horse (rising 18) is passing yukky watery stuff along with his rather sloppy poos ATM. He was diagnosed with Cushing's when he was only 9 and has been on Prascend since, but his latest check in October showed that his ACTH levels have increased and his dose has been upped to two tablets a day. He then developed the watery stuff which the vet thought could be due to the increased Prascend, but reducing the dosage back down didn't make a lot of difference. He has had a couple of episodes like this in the past few years though, although not quite so extreme.

Anyway, the vet is coming out in a week or two to do his annual health check and flu/tet jabs so I'll discuss it then, but in the meantime ...

The horse looks and feels fabulous (he did before they increased his Prascend to be fair). I rode him today and his trot felt like we were flying over the bridle path. But ... the wind, and the squits!! Disgusting mess to clean off his bum and legs when we got home.

Thing is, normally we would be hunting now and he feels like he wants to go hunting, but I don't know if I should. I don't know if the constant emptying of the bowels would lead to colic or some other issue like ulcers.

What do others do in this situation? Do you carry on as normal or have you retired your horse from active exercise?

TIA

 

[saddlesore]

Can’t help with anything else but protexin gut sponge is really good for FWL

 

[meleeka]

It sounds like digestive upset with sloppier than normal dung. Is there anything different he could have been eating? If not my next stop would be teeth.

 

[PurBee]

Because prascend is a dopamine receptor agonist, and considering the recent upped dose, it wouldnt surprise me if its that causing the squits.

I watched a youtube health talk years ago from an old professor which always stuck with me, who said “we cant just do 1 thing” - meaning, whatever we give to the body, the body will, using it’s innate health-balancing homeostasis capacity, adjust something else to ‘accomodate’ whatever we’ve given it.

When it comes to drugs that are directed at receptors, especially hormones and neurotransmitters - the body often adjusts itself to these drugs over time and with agonists, can cause less receptor growth/activity, or with antagonists, grow more receptors to overcome the antagonists. We usually have to increase dose or try a different biochemical pathway altogether, once the body has ‘cottoned on’ to what we’re doing and overcome our efforts.

As dopamine is a relaxing neurotransmitter, a ‘satiating/calming’ effect is the usual result. While the drug is working and producing this effect, when it comes to having sharp alert energy, and being physically active, especially for a horse being ridden, adrenaline would be released to pump blood and fuel to the muscles. Due to the prascend giving dopamine effect 24/7 - the adrenaline system is likely going in over-drive to maintain high physical energy, and overcome the dopamine effects of the drug.
High adrenaline side-effect is to ‘sh*t oneself’ uncontrollably. Hence the term ‘i was so scared i sh*t myself’ - a huge burst of adrenaline will automatically empty bowels, at any point of digestion, so loose watery stools are highly possible.

If a horse wasnt on prascend then the loose stools wont be linked, but im just explaining a possible pathway of how it could manifest in a horse on this drug. As his symptom is timewise linked with change in dose of the drug, by increasing it especially, it has me considering the bodies own biochemical tools available to IT, to overcome the higher dose.

Loose stools is a side-effect of the drug listed in humans on it too, as the adrenaline system is the body’s innate ‘energy upper’ system it has fast control of to counteract any ‘sedating/calming’ type drug effects.
This is why we commonly hear of drug paradoxical effects - the opposite reaction happens to what's expected. I recently took Nytol for insomnia and had the worst night of insomnia ever as i was soooo wired and awake as my body ‘fought’ with the ‘relaxing’ drug. Just like we hear how some horses commonly fight and over-react with sedation. The adrenaline system is useful for the body to quickly give the body high alert energy, but there are some side effects to this happening, and overly loose bowels can happen when adrenaline is involved.

Because receptors take a while to alter, to accomodate and overcome a new receptor drug - they’ll equally take a while to revert back to ‘normal’ - so usually when we give or stop these types of drugs we start low dose building slowly and tapering-off them slowly is done. With him having a 2nd prascend in october, a 4-8 week adjustment to the new dose is more likely to render true results - which youve noticed is a lot more diarrhoea. Having tried reverting back to just 1 pill, i’d personally wait another 4-8-12 weeks to see if there’s any different in stools.

If youre noticing vastly more mess while riding, than him at rest, the adrenaline counteracting the prascend effect is likely at play.

There’s a lot more adrenaline released in a healthy horse when running/being ridden, than at rest - so with a horse thats got dopamine receptors drug-induced lit-up, it would have to release a shed-load of adrenaline to get it willing to want to be very physically active. The side effect would be a very willing pony as adrenaline will burn through fat/muscle to produce energy.

I wouldnt retire completely, but if he’s hyper long after being ridden, appears stressed, then i’d ease-up on high-octane ridden sports, as the yo-yo of adrenaline and dopamine would be mega exhausting on his metabolism - as perpetual high adrenaline states can cause rapid weight loss, cachexic-type conditions, which needs to be managed with extra proteins/carbs/fats for the body to rebuild tissue. But this is the extreme end of this biochemical yo-yo effect - if you were wanting to hunt regularly it could cause an exhaustion you wouldnt want for your ponies system to go through, at his age too, but if youre talking one-off events of hunting, and be watching his exhaustion levels closely, there’s no reason why not.
But while the loose stools are very very frequent, i’d hold off from very high energy activities. Purely because diarrhoea causes a very sore anus and guts that are perpetually peristaltic. The adrenaline, despite causing them, will pain-relieve these effects while flowing through the system, but once its worn off after the ride, there could be a level of sensitivity and discomfort felt in those regions.

There’s a chance the watery stools are caused by other things/gut dysbiosis - but you’d only know that by reverting to his previous dose of prascend for a couple of months and allow the system to slowly adjust back.

RELATED TANGENT INFO:

As an aside, management-wise, for any endocrine imbalanced equine, i’d suggest not feeding straw thats likely to have been sprayed with glyphosate (high % of wheat/barley grown is), and try to feed hay not doused in herbicides annually, as the studies on these agro-chemicals and endocrine disorders are plenty, but this thread isnt the place for that discussion. We have to consider the link of the vast rise in endocrine gland disorders in humans/livestock/equines coinciding with the ever increasing use of agro-chemicals in feed and crop fields. Its the elephant in the room the agri-industry will NEVER publicly talk about, yet the ever growing number of independent studies show there’s a huge problem.
Whether sourcing organic forage can reverse PPID/EMS conditions in equines hasnt been studied, yet it’s one management aspect we have control of, and helps at least not to keep dousing the disorder with chemicals highly likely at play in causing it.
I stopped feeding soy hulls due to them being a highly doused glyphosate crop globally. Soy hulls are used so often in ‘low sugar’ horse feeds. Bi-product fibre of the soybean industry. Its the hulls that directly receive the spray! Thats ok - we’ll feed these hulls to animals as they’re deadly for humans to consume.
Glyphosate has been found at over the recommended trace levels in human grain products. It’s a travesty happening behind the scenes that those who develop the agri-chemicals won’t acknowledge and change, because….sadly…as usual, there’s $billions$ to be made.

My personal concern with endocrine disorders in humans, then developed into equine interest when i got horses, has caused over a decade of research and every avenue i research for study-proof causation i am lead to the same place - proof of multi-industry-wide use, primarily agricultural, of endocrine disrupting chemicals, developed mainly so we dont grow weeds amongst our crops, and prevent pests ruining our crops, and so we can dry those crops quickly. These reasons have killed-off soil bacteria, vast insects, bees, butterflies, and causing health disasters across the board to anything alive on earth that needs to eat food.

I promote organic food for these reasons, because its a serious issue affecting all.
We as equine lovers can help our animals have healthy longevity by asking for organic forage - then farmers know thats what we want. They DO listen to their customers. I have asked several companies for mixed species forage instead of just ryegrass, and 3 yrs later find theyre doing it. It’s US who govern what we get, by asking - otherwise we just accept what we’re given. They’re always thinking of how to make more money and so the voice of the woman requesting mixed organic forage chimes in their ears, and they take the idea further.
There needs to be a choir of requests for organic mixed forage from the equine industry - then they’ll listen! I’m going hoarse yelling at them alone
Demand dictates supply, not the other way around. If we keep buying it, they keep farming it that way. If we buy/ask for organic food, they get the message and transfer their acres over to organic. There’s more and more acres in the british isles transferring over to organic annually.

The money is in our pockets that they want - so we tell them what to do to get it. (Marketing 101 for customers )

 

[Dam1]

Thank you so much @PurpleSantaBee for this and all your other informative science based posts. My mare also had loose/wet poos when she first went onto prascend which has now mostly gone back to normal but the other info on prascend/feeding is massively informative - as they say 'knowledge is power' lol - the vets generally only do testing and say give these tablets without much in depth explanation but I think with giving your animals powerful drugs you need as much info as possible so really appreciate you taking the time to explain in understandable terms for concerned but not necessarily scientifically minded owners (I'm talking mainly me here). X

 

[Highmileagecob]

My old boy has suffered for years with FWS. Borderline EMS, but negative for Cushings. Teeth played a big part, and also he is a greedy feeder. Forage is pulled out of the net in chunks and eaten as fast as possible. Age and teeth mean I now use forage replacers to supplement the haylage. This results in a fair proportion of his diet reaching the foregut in a state able to be easily processed by hind gut fermentation, instead of being expelled quickly, and has made a noticeable difference to the amount of water being expelled. Last winter I actually got him dry for the first winter in years. There seems to be many different causes of FWS, and what helps one has no effect for another. Good luck, I hope you can work something out.

 

[Hackback]

Thank you everyone, some useful suggestions of things to try. Teeth were checked in October, some sharp edges filed but nothing else of note. He's not a greedy horse, in fact he's a very dainty eater and very fussy too. I'm currently trying the Trinity Consultants L94 after seeing it recommended on here.

@PurpleSantaBee thank you so much for that extremely interesting insight. That is exactly the information I needed in order to make an informed decision. It fits with everything that is happening to him too - I couldn't understand the swings between his apparent exuberance when doing something like hunting and the tiredness he seemed to experience afterwards. I put it down to needing to increase his fitness levels (which is why I couldn't do hunting as a 'one off') but it seems it isn't so simple, and indeed your explanation makes more sense. Particularly so as the loose stools are far worse when he's ridden.

Armed with this information I can be at peace with a decision to take a step back with him. I think I was kind of pushing things because I didn't want him to get old and unfit and lose all his muscle tone - 18 is no age for an Arab - but I understand the effects the disease and the drug are having on his body now.

The other thing you talk about - glysophates - is scarily fascinating. I am going to look further into that, thank you.