Quality of life for a laminitic...

clydeviewequestrian

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Where are you OP?

If you are in my area then I use avondale and find them great. They came gave me my options and left me to decide. Kia’s favourite vet came out and it was all done in 20mins then grayshill picked him up and took him away. The whole process was 30mins from vet arriving to grayshill leaving. I was numb but thankful it was quick and easy. He just went down.

I lost my boy after fighting cushings for 2years. It was an abcess and subsequent infection that took him. He also wasn’t gaining weight and his teeth were done as well. I battled the abcess for a while as it kept coming and going before we had to call it a day as we couldn’t manage his pain and to get out the infection we would have had to respect most of his frog and hook wall on one side. I wasn’t willing to put him through it or me either.

Sorry to hear about your horse i'm near Motherwell, I'm glad you have had a good experience with Avondale as I only here negative things but that doesn't mean they are true! Managed to get it organised this morning thankfully so hopefully it goes as smoothly as your experience, fingers crossed he will be comfortable enough to go out with his buddy's for some grass before hand, thank you to everyone for your support I really appreciate it 😊
 

ILuvCowparsely

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Hi everyone,

My Welsh Sec A suffered laminitis around four years ago and recovered well, he was then diagnosed with cushings and we tried to treat him with prascend but he went very depressed and wouldn't eat so we had no option but to stop it and the vet agreed as he wasn't showing any other symptoms and he was doing well with the usual restricted diet.

Three months ago he suffered laminitis again, we did the blood tests and tried him again on the prascend and he had no issues with it this time and his levels came down considerably. My horses are in at night in winter and turned out on a hardstanding during the day, he was sound but looked uncomfortable being on the hard standing so I turned him out for an hour in his small paddock that has very little grass in it.

The next day he had laminitis so he is now back in 24/7 on a deep bed and danilon again. I have contacted my vet and she has suggested brining him in for x rays which I completely understand is a sensible thing to do but my worry is if we take him for x rays and work with the farrier until his feet have improved, won't he most likely just continually suffer laminitis anytime he gets a bit of grass if he can't even go out for an hour anymore? To me i don't mind restricting his diet and turnout but I don't think spending his life inside on pain killers is fair...

Sorry for rambling on but what would you do?

Paige
My welsh A has been ridiculously sensitive to grass to the point of 1 hr grazing then in for a few hours would make her feet heat and pulses rise. I have had to keep her in for a few says and gradually increase turnout, with off days when they went warm. She is now coping with longer out and she is now on 2 1/2 hrs grazing then in then out 2 hrs, on a restricted grazing. Its a pain and its defeating on your health to consciously watch them- I have little choice

The points on a strip graze regime and watching and checking pulses daily, this year is an abnormally year with my welsh A as she has never been this sensitive. I won't turnout before 9 and don't on frosty days, its a case of turnout then in then out so the time out is timed then in on timothy haylage then out again. It seems to work with mine having a break in the middle of the day when they are in,
 
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tristar

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my old pony 21 would get lami if on grass, i keep her in a bare paddock by the house and near the road, in view of other horses, 3 x week she does `gym` with another horse, they get loose lunged together, in walk trot and canter and then socialize, she is fed 3 - 4 times a day on hay and twice daily fast fibre oats alpha blue salt oil vits, she gets handled groomed and fussed, walked on the road sometimes to test her feet out, she is bright and sparky, so it is possible to live without grass and once in a routine its only a few moments here and there although is may seem a daunting prospect i find it rewarding
 

Boulty

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I think it's a case of what is & isn't realistic to do. In the short term you could perhaps look into putting something conformable such as pea gravel, woodchip or sand on top of the hardstanding so that the horse does not have to walk on a surface that it may find uncomfortable & so that maximum support is provided.

However in the long term you still have a horse that appears poorly able to cope with grass. It may be that once stable on prascend the horse might be able to cope with grass in the depths of winter or for periods overnight in Summer ( eg when turned out very late ie 8 or 9pm & brought in very early ie 6 or 7am) possibly wearing a muzzle or maybe only on unfertilised grass that is neither too short too long when the laminitis risk is low. (I may be using my own horse as an example here!)

However life lived mostly alone mostly in the stable or a grass free pen (even if you can get the horse to a stage where they're totally pain free again) is not a life worth living to a lot of horses. I moved my horse an hours drive away to a track livery where he gets some grazing time in winter (It may all prove to be for nought as he has other issues that we're figuring out whether we can fix at the moment) but that is a compromise most people are not willing or able to make.

If the horse is uncomfortable now and the management needed to keep him comfortable is either just not possible to do, does not seem to exist or is likely to make him miserable mentally then I think PTS would be a perfectly reasonable & humane path to go down. (I made a similar decision for another horse who was very arthritic & I just couldn't provide the ideal setup for him with the finances, contacts & knowledge I had at the time & I couldn't get him pain free either as a field ornament or in light work)
 

holeymoley

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OP could you try Equine Vet Clinic, they are really good and have a portable x ray machine for laminitis. I personally would see what the x rays show.
 
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