When will this end? Vibes needed?

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happyhacking:)

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My mare was diagnosed sleuth an autoimmune disorder back in April after being extremely itchy for a period of time. Due (we thought) to her spending a lot of time itching and not much eating she dropped a lot of weight. We think we have stablized the disease but her weight isn't improving :(
I tried changing her feed to sugar beet (I had never met a horse who refused sugar beet) this worked well for about 3 weeks but she has now stopped eating it. She now has barely touched her food for 5 days and is not longer gaining any weight and only just maintaining weight. I just don't know what else to do with her. She is eating hay and grass but can't have too
Much grass as it triggers her immune system off! She has as much hay ad lib. She is believed to be allergic to alfalfa do I have to be extreemly carefully about what I feed her and she also does not tolerate molasses or high sugar feeds.

The vets want to do more tests to see if something is going wrong internally I manages to hold them off because when we last spoke to tj she was doing ok. I even managed to get a ride in earlier this week!

The real issue is the money. She is insured but there is a £5000 limit on vets fees and we are approaching that amount on this claim already ( she is on expensive steroids). I don't wanna give up on her but I can't afford more expensive bets bills for her right now.

As the weight problem isn't or probably isn't as a result of the disease will I be able to make a separate claim for this and therefore get her the tests done?
 
healing vibes for you and your girlie, try A&P fast fibre, my mare is going through hell at the moment too, when she refused her normal alfalfa oil and sugar beet i started to dispair, she wolfs up fast fibre... 3 meals a day and its soaked and good on their tummies. I think I read something about a correlation between a deficiency and allergies, (ill have a look for the literature) may be worth chatting with your vet about, if you can boost her immune system a bit by adding this it may help.

Out of interest, how did they diagnose this, and what was the onset like? If its anything like my mares Id love to know. Have a peek at my recent threads it describes what we've been going through. Interestingly my mare has always had a slight allergy to grass.

Will search for the info and post it in a bit
 
in mid feb she started to itch like mad and broke a couple of fences scratching. it was way to early for midges ect (was still barely in plus figures during the day let alone at night) .
put them out in the field (had been in sand school) and it disappeared but then came back with a vengeance at the beginning of march. vets did all the usual bloods skin scrapes and biopsies but all came back inconclusive. we were then referred on to a specialist at rossdales at newmarket who did yet more biopsies of a huge number of sites and deeper than vets at my practice did. came back as a diagnosis of pemphigus foliaceous.

to cut a long story short her immune system is in overdrive. something has happened to cause her immune system to start attacking her own body. in her case its layers 3&4 of her skin. it causes like blisters to form under the skin which then become very itchy and they then are burst open leaving wounds. the moor she itches the worse it becomes.

she is already on spillers high fire cubes as well as kwick beet and timothy chop and supplements. she just has no interest in any food even her hay she isnt that fussed over.
 
I really cant help that much but with regards to the food, my mare was exactly the same, she went off her food that she had loved to eat for over two years, she might put her head down, have a small mouthful and then ignore it. About a week before she was eating 2 scoops per meal, then over a couple of days I couldnt get her to eat more than a piddly mouthful... it was breaking my heart!

I added protein pellets, this helped for a day or two, but she still was leaving about 2/3 of her meal.

I bit the bullet and went and got a bag of ff, she went through the bag in a week, polishing off every meal put down for her. Im assuming you are using unmolassed sugar beet as opposed to the original stuff? x

I know exactly how frustrating it is though, as I said ebony is going through a bag a week (well, less than a week) eating grass and still this is only maintaining her at about 400- 410kg :( it just doesnt seem possible does it that all that food and energy is going in and nothing is coming of it! My mare is normally closer to the 500kg mark. Have a look into whether Autoimmune deficiency can cause any knock on disorders, that may have contributed to this inability to gain weight.
 
Queenbee said:
Have a look into whether Autoimmune deficiency can cause any knock on disorders, that may have contributed to this inability to gain weight.
Click to expand...

i think its more likely to be the reverse! the specialist is concerned that she has some internal disease going on. she also thinks that this was a potential cause of the pemphigus.

will have a look at fast fibre though :)
 
so how soon did the weight loss happen, what came first... the itching i assume? x

The fast fibre is an absolute godsend, how far into stomach/gut function have the vets looked? could eating be making her uncomfortable due to dammage in there? Someone on here reccomended to me a combination of slippery elm and aloe juice, if gut function is being compromised (and it sounds like there is some malabsorption going on there somewhere) this may help? I am in no way a specialist and am stumbling in the dark like you but just a thought x
 
she has not had any internal examinations done. They wanted to do some about a month ago but i decided not to go ahead as at that moment in time she was really making progress and she had put on some weight. i didnt want to take her back because she traveled so badly and got so distressed whilst we were there and i didnt see the point in going back if she was doing well.

she dropped weight at the same time that she really got itchy in march. we assumed that the reason for this was that she was spending so much time itching she didnt have time to eat.
 
So sorry to hear about your mare and the fact she's not eating. I've not heard of the condition so can't offer any help - sorry
 
Ah im so sorry and hope things improve very soon. I would also recommend fast fibre but add linseed to it for weight gain. If she doesn't seem bothered by it then add warm water to it. It worked with my fussy mare.
 
Try her on NAF D-Tox, I have found it a great help with immune problems.
If she is not eating well, put it in a syringe and squirt it down her throat and give a high dose three times a day for at least a week.
 
Thanks guys. Was on a bit of a downer last night. Have managed to get plenty of food into her today as well as lots of hay even though it did require me sitting in the field hand feeding it to her a points.
Going to give it to the weekend and see where we are then. If she stops eating again I think I'm going to have to get the vets involved again.

Where do you thin I stand insurance wise ?
 
So have now spoken to the vets and we gotta go back to them for more tests :( . Have just had enough now. Want the world to p*ss off and give me some peace.
 
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