Vitamin E withdrawal

[planete]

I have had Woody on 3000 iu of PE ' s natural vitamin E for a few months and his sluggishness and other odd symptoms improved a lot. My vet is not convinced. I stopped giving it to him and after a week he started being sluggish again and objecting to being ridden. I thought this seemed conclusive but it would seem that E levels would not go down significantly after just one week. Has anybody got any evidence to prove or disprove this, anecdotal or scientific, please?

 

[Tiddlypom]

My mare will revert to being tense, unwilling and cross with rock hard bum muscles within two or three days of me running out of vit E. So I've learned not to run out!

She's been on 8000iu natural vit E per day for nearly 5 years, with vet's approval.

 

[SEL]

Anecdotally my friends little cob needs 2000iU per day to be forward going and chirpy rather than a slug.

 

[ycbm]

Sounds like your horse hasn't read the book. That happens quite often, so I'd listen to the horse.
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[planete]

Sounds like your horse hasn't read the book. That happens quite often, so I'd listen to the horse.
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Definitely what I am going to do. The poor chap spent two days in horsepital being nerve blocked, ECGed and scoped with no diagnosis forthcoming and seems very glad to be back home, bless him.

 

[Leah3horses]

PSSM horses vitamin E levels can definitely plummet in a week. Source: am vet nurse, very interested in PSSM as 2 of my 5 horses have been PSSM , my first one long before PSSM could be easily tested for. If you need any information on PSSM and how to test for all varieties of, please see PSSM and MFM Awareness on Facebook and You Tube. It's scandalous that so many vets are still not even aware of the basic symptoms of this, actually fairly common, myopathy, and it's getting more common by the year, due to indiscriminate and unaware breeding .

 

[Mynstrel]

Google EMND as well, that gives odd symptoms and can respond well to vitamin E.

 

[lynz88]

Mine will lose muscle and look very sad and withdrawn if his vit e levels drop. It happens relatively quickly depending on the time of year.

 

[planete]

He is now on 2000 iu as he had seemed a bit too well on 3000 of late and is back to normal. Vet wants to do a pain killer trial but no point doing it on a symptomless pony. So waiting to see which way he goes. I cannot believe his new self is going to last after battling 18 months of lethargy, intermittent ataxia, exercise intolerance, aggression and obvious unhappiness. All gone right now.

 

[Fransurrey]

Vitamin E is almost exclusively stored in adipocytes (fat cells), so it would take a while to completely deplete. That said, if you have a slim horse, I would certainly expect to see a difference in a week.

 

[ycbm]

Vitamin E is almost exclusively stored in adipocytes (fat cells), so it would take a while to completely deplete. That said, if you have a slim horse, I would certainly expect to see a difference in a week.

But is that excess vitamin E over the current immediate need that gets stored, or does it have to be stored first before it can be used?

Because if it's more difficult for some horses, or all horses, to access vitamin E by extracting it from fat cells than it is by using it direct from the bloodstream from the gut, then it would be easy to see how dropping the amount in the feed could affect a vit E sensitive horse very quickly.
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