Recurrent spasmodic colic

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LauraJo

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Hello!

My horse fractured his jaw back in October - thankfully he is now all fixed. However, potentially due to all of the medication he was on, he keeps suffering from spasmodic colic every 1-2 weeks. He has had his teeth done, and has probiotics and vegetable oil in his feed. Although the episodes aren't particularly bad (he always passes faeces and it passes quite quickly) it's still not nice for him to go through & shouldn't be happening so often.
Unfortunately due to the insurance being aware he has had colic before in his life (as most horses do?!) they will not cover me for any tests etc that I have done. Therefore, before I go down the road of scans I was wondering if anyone had had any similar experiences & had managed to resolve it with other remedies? I'm willing to try anything - I just want my poor boy better, he's been through so much & is still suffering :(

Thank you in advance!

Laura-Jo & Storm xxx
 
My horse had always suffered recurring colic due to the ex dairy farm he was stabled at. In the end I managed to control it really well, and probably would again if I had the chance, with the use of strip grazing.

Pink powder has worked for several years, also when he had the gassy colic the vet said instead of calling him out every five mins I could if I wanted to give him 2-4 bute in a feed and put him on the walked returning him to his stable after 20 mins and watching his reaction. he said the colic would override the bute if it was bad enough and I did this for many years.

We never got the bottom of the colics but he was regularly wormed and fed according to work done, etc. We just put it down to the rich dairy farming grass. He has also had splenic entrapment twice now.
 
Thank you for your reply! I have read a few good things about pink powder!
Its just all since he fractured his jaw so I'm pretty sure its some kind of hindgut acidosis due to the amount of medication he was on. It's just such a shame for them isn't it - I feel so useless.
Will have another read on pink powder, thank you :)
 
Yes but since his ordeal with oral drugs & surgery on his jaw he wont let me near him to issue it directly into his mouth so he has to have his wormer in his feed. Perhaps I should do a worm count to rule that out.. Thank you!
 
LauraJo said:
Yes but since his ordeal with oral drugs & surgery on his jaw he wont let me near him to issue it directly into his mouth so he has to have his wormer in his feed. Perhaps I should do a worm count to rule that out.. Thank you!
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Worm counts won't rule out tapeworm, though will give an indication of status of most other worm types (but not all). Tapes shed intermittently, so if found in a worm count there will be tapes but can still be tapes if no eggs found (hope that makes sense). The best test for tapes it the Equisal saliva test though poss with the probs he's had due to the jaw you might find the blood test easier.
 
wkiwi said:
Worm counts won't rule out tapeworm, though will give an indication of status of most other worm types (but not all). Tapes shed intermittently, so if found in a worm count there will be tapes but can still be tapes if no eggs found (hope that makes sense). The best test for tapes it the Equisal saliva test though poss with the probs he's had due to the jaw you might find the blood test easier.
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Oh that's good to know - thanks for that! :)
 
LauraJo said:
Oh that's good to know - thanks for that! :)
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No worries - i had one mare that had absolutely no natural resistance to tapeworms and needed much more regular treatment than others on same pasture, otherwise she regularly got gas-colic. The other worms not covered by FEC/WECs are mentioned in here: http://equinefreelance.com/free-articles/deworm1/

Just had a thought - one of the most common causes of colic is dehydration, and straw can increase the risk of colic. May be worth checking if anything you are feeding has high straw levels (some of the fibre products are high in this) and monitor his water levels too.
But unfortunately there are many things that can trigger colic.
Good luck for your boy.
 
wkiwi said:
Worm counts won't rule out tapeworm, though will give an indication of status of most other worm types (but not all). Tapes shed intermittently, so if found in a worm count there will be tapes but can still be tapes if no eggs found (hope that makes sense). The best test for tapes it the Equisal saliva test though poss with the probs he's had due to the jaw you might find the blood test easier.
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I had one once who had minor colic repeatedly until I did him for tapeworm. I did the saliva test on two horses which graze together last year. One, who has a low immune system and gets multiple sarcoids, came back positive and the other was negative. Very interesting!
 
My friend used Pink Powder for her horse and it seemed to work for him. The only thing is you never know what they would have been like without!
 
I had success with pink powder with my oldie too, she suffered from spasmodic colic but not as frequently as your boy. People kept telling me there were better supplements but it worked well for my girl, reduced hers considerably. I could never identify the triggers with her, my suspicions were that it was stress related as she was quite a fizzy type. I bought her as a 10 year old (and had her till she was 30 :) ) and I know that before I bought her she stood in during the day with very little forage because of her weight. I always wondered if this ha triggered her problem. Anyway, pink powder did the trick, as did keeping her with sufficient forage with soaked hay. Another thing I noticed was that she got it sometimes after eating carrots which I wondered if she didn't chew them properly. Hope your boy comes right soon.
 
Is there a chance yours might not be chewing properly, does he have anything which might be difficult to digest if not chewed thoroughly?
 
Do you know what the primary cause of the spasmodic colic is i,e, is it a gassy type reaction or a slight impaction, there are relatively cheap products Global Herbs do that could help, Fennel for gas and Clear Out if slight impaction. Might be worth having a chat with the vet again if things don't settle down with Pink Powder to see if they can do a rectal biopsy. Results are quite quick to come through and can highlight how the gut is functioning and if there is the presence of something like IBD (Irritable Bowel Disease). Probably would cost around the £100 mark to do, but at least may help with identifying a possible cause and what would be best to give to help him. Good luck.
 
My youngster has suffered on and off with colic type symptoms for a few months. Gastroscope showed nothing so the next step was scan and rectal biopsy. He was found to have mild inflammation in the wall of the small intestine but we don't really know what has caused this. He is just being weaned off 2 weeks of steroids and so far so good.
He lives out and is in a small bare paddock with hay during the day, and on a track with a muzzle at night.
As he is a small greedy cob this seems to work both for keeping his weight down and managing the problem as thinks he has to eat and eat and eat till nothing else can fit in !
Could medication he has been on have caused ulcers or inflammation somewhere ?
 
Vegetable oil is not really good for horses as it is made using a heat process and it contains chemicals ,if I. have to use oil I use olive oil as it is cold pressed straight from the olives. If you have sandy soil or live in a coastal area ,or not sure of the horses history Google how to test a horse for sand and how to treat it , easy d i y . A horse local to me had frequent bouts of colic when he was admitted into the equine hospital as an emergency he had 3 stone of sand in his guts.
 
Hi everyone, thank you so much for all of your replies! I have spoken to the vet and we have 2 routes apparently - go straight for treatment for the most likely cause, or scan him and then treat for whatever it is we find. I have also asked him whether we can test for tapeworm.
The vegetable oil was actually recommended by the vet. Also I'm pretty positive this has all been caused by the amount of medication he was on after his accident as this never happened prior to it. So it probably is some kind of hind gut acidosis - hopefully hasn't got as far as ulcers just yet. But just generally he is very windy & his droppings are rather smelly!
Thank you so much for all of your help and suggestions, I'll keep you updated on how he gets on & what the outcome is!
 
join this group on fb

https://www.facebook.com/groups/horseswithulcers/?ref=bookmarks

my mare has had recurrent gassy colic for the last 2 years, since march i have overhauled her feed to help her hind gut and i have seen a real improvement in her in so many ways (I am holding my breath about whether she'll colic again). anyway, there are lots of really experienced people on that group that could help you with her management.
 
wkiwi said:
Worm counts won't rule out tapeworm, though will give an indication of status of most other worm types (but not all). Tapes shed intermittently, so if found in a worm count there will be tapes but can still be tapes if no eggs found (hope that makes sense). The best test for tapes it the Equisal saliva test though poss with the probs he's had due to the jaw you might find the blood test easier.
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My vet did suggest my horse may have had a red worm burden but that theory was blown out of the water after he had more colics after worming for it!
 
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