Pssm

[Jumbo]

Hi I have a 10 Yr old andalusian who is rehabbing after a suspensory ligament injury front leg. I have been hacking her at walk since April. She has always struggled going up hills but this has got a lot worse over the past three weeks. She stops for a 10 secs or so and then carries on. It is now happening on the flat and when I get off. Leaving and coming back home. Her breathing seems OK and she isn't sweating. Could this still be pssm? Vet booked but worrying what it could be.

 

[Exasperated]

Hi I have a 10 Yr old andalusian who is rehabbing after a suspensory ligament injury front leg. I have been hacking her at walk since April. She has always struggled going up hills but this has got a lot worse over the past three weeks. She stops for a 10 secs or so and then carries on. It is now happening on the flat and when I get off. Leaving and coming back home. Her breathing seems OK and she isn't sweating. Could this still be pssm? Vet booked but worrying what it could be.

There are usually other symptoms with PSSM too, and what you’ve described could be symptomatic of something else entirely - but you could send a clutch of hairs to test for Type 1 PSSM anyway. Don’t need a vet for that.
Since the vet’s visiting, other causes can also be professionally considered.
If your vet does want to test for Type 2 - you’ll have to have a deep think, because BEVA / RCVS UK vets typically do the biopsies (with all attendant pitfalls / unreliabilities); rather than the genetic testing available from German labs - which UK professional body does not think is a ‘proven’ method of testing.
Having said which, there are UK vets who advise sending hair or tissue sample to Germany....
Hopefully will prove something easily manageable for you both, good luck!

 

[SEL]

Don't usually find type 1 in the breed. Many on the pssm forums needed similar management though - minimal grass, v low sugar / starch diet and seemed particularly responsive to natural vitamin E. We have odd grass growth this year so it wouldn't surprise me if E levels were low.

Vet visit a good idea. Could easily be a virus of some sort and bloods would pick up any anomalies including muscle enzymes.

 

[khalswitz]

If your vet does want to test for Type 2 - you’ll have to have a deep think, because BEVA / RCVS UK vets typically do the biopsies (with all attendant pitfalls / unreliabilities); rather than the genetic testing available from German labs - which UK professional body does not think is a ‘proven’ method of testing.
Having said which, there are UK vets who advise sending hair or tissue sample to Germany....
Hopefully will prove something easily manageable for you both, good luck!

That’s because it’s not scientifically validated. There is absolutely no published evidence that the variants those tests test for have any association with disease rather than being normal variations in sequence. Anyone can sell a veterinary genetic test, they don’t have to have proof the variant is actually causal for the disease - and those variants have no evidence behind them despite being on sale for at least 8 years now. If anything, there is some published evidence suggesting they are *not* associated with disease.