I can’t find anything that really addresses my question via google. My BO lost a horse yesterday to colic. US of the intestine showed a ‘dead spot’ in one area, later on this ‘dead spot’ appeared to have grown in size.
What might have happened? Horse was not impacted.
Necrosis - where muscle tissue dies & ability to move gut contents along fails.
As it progresses, resection by surgery might save the horse.
Or not.
Could it have been some form of Intussusception?
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Blood flow was compromised, and the gut died because of that loss of flow. Torsion, intussusception–even things like tumors or infection–can all cause that loss of flow.
Very sorry for you and your barn owner 
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There was no torsion. I had to look up intussusception, that was not mentioned. Vet did a stomach tap (?), said gas colic.
Surgery was not an option. Horse was 19, had a heart murmur, owner couldn’t afford it anyway and horse likely would not have made it off the table.
My BO is really struggling with this one, she lost another horse only a couple mos ago in a freak pasture accident. I just thought I’d throw it out here and see what might have caused a portion of the intestine to start dying. There was no indication of a lipoma.
Any which way, it sucks.
Yeah, unfortunately, the answer there really is that blood flow to that piece of the gut was compromised, and there are just a lot of ways that can happen, especially in an older horse Imaging isn’t going to tell you everything, so it’s awfully tough to say with any certainty without a necropsy, and even then you might not get firm answers.
But, if it helps any, these things do just happen and there’s usually pretty much nothing that can be done to prevent it, or treat it other than surgery. Once the intestine is dead it’s dead, and unless you go in and remove the necrotic section (which of course also comes with no guarantees) the only option is to euthanize.
Super sucky, I’m so sorry
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I’m sorry, too. I will share it’s my understanding the only way to rule out a strangulating lipoma is to go in and look.
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Not sure if you can rule out a strangulating lipoma with an ultrasound. They’re not that uncommon in older geldings, less common in older mares, and less common still in younger horses. Strangulating lipoma is probably the most likely cause, without anything pointing to something else
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I’m going to ask my BO if I can see the clinical notes. In the meantime, to me when we say ‘strangulating’ that means ‘cut off from’, but this horse did not have an obstruction. I did some googling, didn’t find a definitive answer, but reading between the lines - assuming it was a lipoma - it seems likely that a lipoma could have been pressing on part of the intestine, causing the necrosis, and causing necrosis to spread.
I appreciate all of you… thanks. Anything I can present to my BO to help her understand, and to know that this was not her fault, is helpful.
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Strangulating refers to the vessels. Blood flow was interrupted to the tissue. All the tissue in the body needs blood flow to survive, and if there’s no flow…tissue dies.
You know how some animals are castrated with elastic bands? THAT is strangulation.
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A strangulating lipoma is a lipoma that was long enough, and moved enough, to wrap around a section of the intestine and strangulate it, therefore cutting off the blood supply, which causes that section of intestine to die
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I understand… I guess there’s a nuance here in that poop was still getting thru the intestine even tho vessels were constricted….Do I have that right?
There could have been fecal matter further into the system, past the strangulation spot, that was still coming out.
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Yep. If enough intestine is dead, there would maybe be an ilius (where material stops moving through the gut) because that dead section wouldn’t be capable of peristalsis. But a short section? Stuff would probably keep moving enough just from peristalsis above. This isn’t an internal to the gut problem, it’s an external to the gut problem. The support network for the gut has been cut off somehow, so the gut fails. It’s like…if the power gets cut off to an assembly line? The line itself is fine, but isn’t going to function because it needs power.
Dead anything in the body is bad news, but dead gut is just super bad. There’s so much bacteria in there that you don’t want loose.
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it’s like any impaction colic - the closer to the stomach the blockage is, whether impaction or strangulation or twist, the more fecal matter there is to keep moving out, which is why a horse still pooping it not a reliable indicator of “not an impaction”
It takes a long time for food to become manure to exist the horse, from the time the horse eats it. It’s not a few hours, it’s many, many hours
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