Back to Work after low vitamin E

[piccolopony]

For those of you whose horse was diagnosed with VEM or extremely low vitamin E how did you bring your horse back into work and when did you start? My mare is just about a week into getting 10,000iu Elevtate WS. I had given her some time off up until the vet visit and since the vet visit haven’t done much more than 5-10 minutes of hand walk and some hand grazing. She lives out 24/7 in a large paddock with two other horses but I don’t think she’s moving a ton. I’m working with a fantastic and well respected sport horse vet but she doesn’t see a lot of this so hoping the hive mind might have some helpful thoughts or suggestions on returning to work.

Since she’s living out is it worth doing any structured rehab such as more hand walking, long lining, etc now or should I give the high levels of vitamin e more time to work? She’s clearly still looking weak, even though she’s improving day to day, so I’m not super comfortable tack walking or riding at this point but want to make sure I have an effective plan to get back to work. We were working at training level dressage so she’s not starting from a super strong base.

[Laurierace]

We didn’t give my horse any time off after her VEM diagnosis.

[TWH_Girl]

If you’re not comfortable riding until she is stronger, you could do some isometric exercises like tail pulls, as well as pole exercises and walking hills.

Jec Ballou has a few books (can find on Amazon) that outline some helpful exercises. I would think those would be perfect for your mare .

[piccolopony]

Great idea, I have a couple of those books. She’s looking SO MUCH BETTER, so I’ve added a little bit of lunging at the trot and hope to work her up to tack walking in the next week. Thank you so much for the suggestion, I’ll add in some of these exercises as I go.