Stress Laminitis

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djedgley

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My 28 year old horse recently got spooked on the road whilst out hacking and had a fall. At the time, apart from a few scratches he seemed ok. The following week he was a little quiet, perhaps in shock as he is a sensitive chap. 10 days after the accident he has come down with stress laminitis and is so poorly. He is on Finedine and ACP with pads on the front feet, and stabled 24/7. I wonder whether the accident had something to do with his laminitis, he has never ever had it before. He has not been tested for cushings yet but does not show any of the characteristics. Can anyone help please?
 
Did he do that spook in thee air and slam his feet down thing my geldoing does - if so he may well have jarred his feet.

It might just be the straw theat roke the camel's back - the rush of cortisones and adrenaline from the fright may have tripped him overt the edge - he may have been borderline laminitis anyway.

My pony had his biggest laminitis event not long fter his little lady friend died so they can be affected by stress yes.
 
Many thanks for your reply. It all happened so fast, one minute we were upright, the next on the floor. He did get away from me and cantered off down the road where he was caught about 1/4 mile away by a kind motorist.
 
An oldie (32) on our yard has been diagnosed with stressed lami too, similar to yours, he seemed a bit down and stiff over a few days, owner thought he'd tweaked his back larking around in the field. Apart from box rest and some anti inflammatory drugs I think its just a question of time now to get better.
 
Jarring of healthy feet won't cause laminitis - laminitis doesn't start at the feet, it starts with the stomach, or rather with the stomach increasing in acidity. The acidity in the stomach reacts with the bacteria in the stomach to create toxins and it's those toxins which leach through the stomach wall, migrate to the feet and attack the sensitive tissues in the hooves causing laminitis. So something caused your horse's stomach become acidic enough to produce these toxins. Stress can do this but it tends to be a cumulative thing. Rather than one day the horse having zero risk of laminitis and the next day coming down with it, the causal factors of laminitis build up over the course of many years. Just like in humans where colesterol builds up in the arteries of someone eating an unhealthy diet until one day something tips them over the edge into a heart attack it is the same with laminitis.

It's important going fowards to manage his diet very carefully, avoiding sugary foods, molasses and rich grazing. I would also highly recommend a course of Happy Tummy (Fine Fettle Feeds) - which will remove all toxins from his stomach and give him a much better chance of balancing his body systems and getting better. Pain remains in the feet as long as the inflammation remains. If you eliminate the inflammation (feeding extremely low sugar diet/soaking hay etc) then the pain goes and though the hooves will be in a state of recovery for a while he will at least be sound and happy.
 
Many thanks for your reply - really helpful. I'll certainly get some Happy Tummy. Having owned a healthly fit boy for 20 odd years this has come as a bit of a shock - or perhaps I have just been lucky up until now!!
 
You learn to live with it. My boy had it very badly, but is still going strong. It came as a terrible shock to me. Grass induced in his case though. Hopefully he will be fine and it will soon be a thing of the past.
 
It could be stress lami or could be concussive lami!

Yes jarring of feet can cause lami. Vets at newmarket have been studying British Team endurance horses for some while now to explain the laminitus in fit endurance horses to find its concussive - both in shod and UNSHOD horses.

Do get tested for cushings although not conclusive even though signs aren't shown. My 10 year old showed no signs of cushings apart from very high insulin. But has got it.

I do hope that you can get your old boy well on the mend.
 
foraday said:
Yes jarring of feet can cause lami. Vets at newmarket have been studying British Team endurance horses for some while now to explain the laminitus in fit endurance horses to find its concussive - both in shod and UNSHOD horses.
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Can you point me in the direction of the published research please? Being a member of EGB and an advanced endurance rider I'm not aware of any research being conducted on any of the team horses. Never heard of any team horses coming down with lami either!
 
ok - very interesting. need tight definition of laminitis to keep on the straight and narrow.

as i understand it, and following various discussions, for some reason the vet profession tends to define laminitis as 'rotation of pedal bone'. Many will not accept the possibility of low grade or sub clinical laminitis, or signs/symptoms of.

this has already proven a problem with previous lami research.

so if this is the case with any current or new research then it isn't any good to me personally.

because in a bare horse signs of inflammation of the lamella can be spotted long before rotation occurs and steps taken to resolve.

unfortunately I have found that there are a number of bare horses out there with these symptoms, but they are being ignored.

so I wonder how many cases of 'concussive' laminitis are not already predisposed to problems because low grade or sub clinical signs have not been noted and acted upon?

just a thought

sorry no caps today.
 
so I wonder how many cases of 'concussive' laminitis are not already predisposed to problems because low grade or sub clinical signs have not been noted and acted upon?
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Which is the way I see it too - concussion aggravating an underlying problem that was sub clinical and making it acute. If there is any compromise in the laminar connection to walls or sole then concussion just has to aggravate the problem. Which raises questions around shoeing suspected laminitics, or riding them out without boots and pads on hard surfaces.

Certainly this is the reason that I always boot and pad our laminitic driving pony. Cut the concussion, cut the risk.

I do wonder how often this happens.
 
With MrD on this. My vets have been inundated with laminitis cases over the last few weeks. Bearing in mind that common illnesses are the most common, it's probable that OP's horse would have developed laminitis even if he hadn't had a fright out on a hack. At 28, hope he makes a full recovery but worth testing for Cushings.
 
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