steroid induced laminitis

J

Janette

Well-Known Member
Joined
26 January 2002
Messages
2,294
Location
West Yorks
Visit site
My girl had a copd attack aprox 2 weeks ago, and was treated with turnout, ventipulmin and a 5 day course of steroids, administered orally.
Aproximately a week later, she became lame in both front feet, and they were warm to the touch. This was dicovered when she was brought in from the field and the vet was there at 10am the next morning.

She was blood tested for Cushings, insulin resistance and metabolic disorder. She is not overweight and has no fat pads or crest. Steroid induced laminitis was the diagnosis.
She is barefoot, on a thick shavings bed and eating 7kg of soaked hay a day, plus 600g of Alfa A Lite/Top Spec Lami-lite.
She is on the last day of Danilon.

One of her front feet is still warm, though not as warm as it was, and she is still slightly lame on that foot.

i have been doing some readin, and have found an article that says steroid induced lami case quickly founder or become 'sinkers'.

I am now really worried. Does anybody have any experiences of this?

I am trying to juggle the needs of the COPD against the management of the lami.
 
I would manage the COPD without using steroids in future I think the risk is too great for your horse, I have a laminitic prone horse with COPD he lives out generally and if he does need some help I have found management and ventipulmin to be enough, I have never needed steroids and would not use them unless absolutely essential.
I would ask your vet whether you should xray so you know how the pedal bones are now just in case she needs further help or remedial shoeing before you start to go back to turnout, which she will need for her breathing issues.
 
The only experience I have is of my neighbours Icelandic pony who had steroid injections and came down with such bad lami she was PTS :-((( so in her case it was as serious as it could be :-((
 
Mine had steroid induced laminitis a few years ago again for treatment of COPD. I'm pleased to say he is fine, we do still get the odd laminitis bout but he's recovered so well he tanked off with me yesterday out hacking and I still compete him occasionally, so there is hope :D
 
I would manage the COPD without using steroids in future I think the risk is too great for your horse
Click to expand...

I've already discussed this with the vet, and this is the course we will be taking in future. No more steroids.
 
My pony had steroid induced lami, like yours administered orally.
He started off in his back feet and unfortunately went to his front feet and yes, he did founder.
Without my fantastic farrier and my wonderful vet, I would have lost him. It took many, many weeks of box rest before he was well enough to leave his stable. He had imprint shoes, at great cost and one foot had a dorsal wall resection and he was on acp.
My boy recovered and I had another 18 months before I lost him to lymphoma, which was probably due to the drugs he had when poorly :(
 
My horse had steroid induced lami 5 years ago. Once he was over it although of course I was careful at first he was fine. I don't even consider restricting grazing or what I feed him anymore so I'm not too helpful but wanted to say not too worry overly many horses don't become prone and continue as normal after x
 
My pony has always been prone to lami and also has cushings. She has recently been diagnosed with copd. She is fine with local steroids like joint injections for her arthritis but I would never give her systemic ones such as tablets. It's just ventapulmin and management for her.
Interestingly, steroids for copd are much more common in the us and many horses stay on them long term often in place of dust free management (I was reading COTH when mine was diagnosed).
 
Hi, sorry to hear about your horsey and try not to read stuff on the internet as you will scare yourself silly...I have been there! Keep speaking to your vet with any questions or concerns you have.
I would make sure you have some more bute / danilon in stock and if your horse is still not sound yet, they may need some more to keep going until everything has settled down.
My lad has had lami and has COPD, this got really bad when he was on box rest for laminitis, to the point where I had no choice but to turf him out of his stable one night as I was not convinced he could continue to breath if left in.
The best thing to do there is to get the best and most dust free bedding you can - I use Bliss with eucalyptus - expensive though it is. Keep your stable cob web clear, dont brush your horse in the stable ever and feed soaked hay at all times or steamed.
I use Feedmarks clarity just to help a bit to keep things clear in terms of mucus and when your horse is free of laminitis, loads of turnout.
The main thing with laminitis is to remove the source asap and you have done this already by stopping the steroids...now just focus on getting them to the point of being sound, but I would speak to your vet about more danilon.
 
when my horse was in horse hospital they wanted to give him steroids and were amazed (and miffed) when I refused. I had already had one get foot problems after a steroid injection. They had to accept my decision but their comment was "I suppose yours could be the one in a million that got laminitis".

If this is the case from the number of people on this thread who have had problems this site must have an awful lot of members!! Alternatively it affects a lot more than the horse hospitals "one in a million".
 
paddy555 said:
when my horse was in horse hospital they wanted to give him steroids and were amazed (and miffed) when I refused. I had already had one get foot problems after a steroid injection. They had to accept my decision but their comment was "I suppose yours could be the one in a million that got laminitis".

If this is the case from the number of people on this thread who have had problems this site must have an awful lot of members!! Alternatively it affects a lot more than the horse hospitals "one in a million".
Click to expand...

Well, to counter that, I had one horse on steroids for 6 years for summer pasture associated COPD (not much that management could do to protect her from that) and one on steroids for over two years now for an auto-immune disease, without a hint of side-effects. If you look at the link posted, you will see it is rare. Own vet has never seen a case in 30 years of practice.
 
paddy555 said:
If this is the case from the number of people on this thread who have had problems this site must have an awful lot of members!! Alternatively it affects a lot more than the horse hospitals "one in a million".
Click to expand...

This forum currently has 61879 members. 4 people so far have first hand experience of steroid induced laminitis. Taking into account those who haven't replied and lapsed members we are looking at about 1 in 10000, which is similar to the amount of people who will have serious anaphylactic reactions to penicillin. So no, not one in a million, we all exagerrate sometimes, but not common.
 
ruth83 said:
. So no, not one in a million, we all exagerrate sometimes, but not common.
Click to expand...

no not common but as it had already happened to one of mine after a steroid injection I wasn't taking even the slightest chance on my other horse unless it was a matter of life or death.
 
I go both ways :rolleyes: One had tablet steroids preds for COPD on a regular basis with no problems. He was a 17.3 HW hunter who always looked very well.

My other horse went to Rossdales with foot problems. They injected his joints and did say there was a risk of lami. However as he was a horse that never ever carried excess weight and always looked like he he could do with more weight on I thought there would be no risk. WRONG!! He got mild lami.

So I would not have jabs but would have preds.
 
My vet will only give steroids as a last resortbecause of the risk of lami. OP I hope your sweet horse recovers well - sounds like things are moving in the right direction.
 
Sorry to hear about your horse. When mine had steroids for a pollen allergy several years ago he lost most of his beautiful mane.

While your vet did a good job of diagnosing the problem I wonder if the reaction was reported to the national database?

http://www.vmd.defra.gov.uk/adversereactionreporting/

The vast majority of reactions to drugs never get reported, or get shrugged off as insignificant. As a consequence, an accurate list of contra-indications and side effects is not actually possible. Potentially dangerous reactions may never be publicly known unless people report them.

As the horse's owner you can fill out the form yourself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top