My beautiful turning 5 yr old TWH started going down on his knees. Gait is changing and showing subtle hind end lameness. Left flank showing atrophy. My vet is saying its either EPM, Wobblers or VitEselinium deficiency. I’m not encouraged with “curing” any of it. Vet said wobblers can not be fixed and i’m learning EPM is very expensive to treat and the meds only “improve” the conditon not cure it. I don’t have the finances to provide long term treatment. What to do? So depressing. Anyone out there willing to be totally honest with me on this?
You need a definitive diagnosis before you can make a decision. Vitamin E/Selenium deficiency is very treatable. If you don’t want to do the testing for EPM, treat for the Vitamin E/Selenium deficiency. If the horse doesn’t respond to the treatment, and it’s likely you’re dealing with Wobbler’s or EPM, then you’ll have to make the decision to retire or put down.
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Coming 5 isn’t out of the ballpark for Wobblers to develop, unfortunately. There are other neuro issues besides EPM and Wobblers, as well.
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I’d do a blood test/treat for Vit E/Selenium and see if there’s any progress.
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For EPM, while Marquis is quite expensive, Oroquin is much less so. I’d try that if there’s not improvement from Vit E/Selenium supplements.
If there’s still no improvement, that’s when you might be looking at hard decisions. My Wobblers horse had hind end weakness/ataxia, but that’s not to say that it can’t present with front end issues too. Mild wobblers can sometimes be addressed. Mostly you hear about surgical options, but I know a farm in KY that has ‘fixed’ mild wobblers with very targeted fitness/PT work.
It might not be a bad idea to have a good body-work professional take a look at him.
Good luck.
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Work with the horse you have today…Warwick Schiller
You don’t know enough yet to have an opinion. Vitamin E/Selenium deficiency is easy. Run the blood test now. EPM is also very treatable. I know several horses that have had it who have returned to the upper levels of dressage and not had recurrences. Don’t assume the worst. Do the good blood test and see what the horses level comes back at. There are more affordable treatments if you can’t swing a month of Marquis.
Wobblers isn’t good - but try not to assume the worst.
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Read the Pathogenes.com website. Their EPM blood test is inexpensive, as is their treatment. If your vet draws and spins the blood, and completes the lab slip, you can offer to mail it, saving staff time. You will have results the day they receive the blood. Their vet will consult with your vet as needed, to find ways to keep costs down. If the horse is negative for EPM, and has Wobblers, I would consider euthanasia.
i would figure out your plan of action now. I know several horses who have done well after EPM, but the owners treated quickly.
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Agree Wobblers cannot be fixed.
EPM can be treated. Marquis is the “go to treatment” around here. It runs about $1,000 a month. Usually a 30-day treatment is sufficient. Although a second month isn’t unheard of. If the disease is left unmanaged, it can cause irreversible damage.
Vitamin E/Selenium deficiencies are easy to address.
Your best bet is to get a diagnosis. Once you have that, you can make informed an decision about how best to proceed.
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Thanks for the support everyone. Waiting on blood test results.
Been here, done this. I did have insurance which really, really helped for extensive testing. Gold standard test for EPM and Lyme is Spinal Tap, not hard to do at clinic and I don’t think it is horribly expensive. If clear for vitamin deficiencies and EPM diagnosis gets more difficult. Neck x-rays may or may not show compression and the gold standard here is a myleogram, which is expensive. Years ago had a 4yr old that showed enough wobblers compression on myelogram to be humanely euthanized . I never regretted the decisions, even if insurance didn’t cover it the instructions were if compression severe do not wake up. I was not going to wait until he fell in pasture and couldn’t get up!! he was already that bad.
1 1/2 yrs ago went down the road again, this time it was none of those diagnoses, but the clinic vet was sure my horse had Equine degenerative myopathy “DM” in dogs. He was already in bad shape so we did not wake him up and sent to New Bolton for necropsy…He had it in his Brain Stem! Yes, then insurance had to pay, but this was a year long horror show of trying to figure out what was wrong and watching him suddenly go down hill fast. DM, especially in brain stem = Lou Gerig disease in humans.
So my best advise is do whatever you can afford of diagnostics . I am not rich and without insurance could never have done it all.
Good luck and any questions just private message me. I feel your pain.
Adriane
A spinal tap is not at all recommended anymore. It’s too easy to get a false positive with a contaminated sample, though if you get a reading high enough, along with clinical signs, you can assume EPM. But there’s just no reason to do a very painful poke into the spine when you can pull blood and do definitive testing for active infection
www.epmhorse.org
I’m so, so sorry you head to deal with 2 spinal cord issues 
We have a dog with DM and that’s hard enough
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The one who had the spinal tap was many years ago, but it is still the way to go with Lyme for neurological lyme. My human Doctor who travels all over the world speaking on Lyme Disease says the Equine Multi-plex test isn’t enough either, they are getting false results because it is just an antibody test. A trainer we know got a negative multi-plex test on her horse but he was positive on Spinal Fluid. No easy answers.
Yes, my vets do the blood work for EPM also, but if its in the equivocal area then Spinal is needed. Even the site you sent me says spinal so I am confused by your statement.
May I add, also, that even though wobblers is called a disease of young horses, horses can injure their neck anytime and get compression that over time gets worse and worse.
My horse I lost 1 1/2 years ago…it was devastating to see hime go downhill slowly not knowing the cause, then the last few weeks were awful ! Vets at the clinic said more horses have DM than we owners know, most are “slight” and may stay that way for longer, many people sell the horse before they even know.
He was my heart horse. So sorry you are dealing with it in your dog! I fostered many years for cavalier rescue use and one of the dogs I places it showed 3 years after they adopted him and they were wonderful…he got his “wheels” for awhile and then had to be humanely euthanized. So heartbreaking!
Yes, sorry, I was referring only to EPM 
" the author no longer recommends testing CSF." because “Statistically, test results of CSF and serum are the same”, and you have so much risk, relatively speaking, with sticking that big needle into the spine
The gold standard now is SAG 1,5,6 testing, which can be done on CSF for an additional cost, but just do it via blood.
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Just plain x-rays can show defects in the spine. Some cases of wobblers aren’t due to narrowing around the spinal cord. They are due to instability in the spine due to defects.
”‹ You might even be able to see evidence of fractures which might imply narrowing at the injury site
The key is to have a very who is great with imaging.
Someone I know who lost a horse to EPM was told by the vet that all the cases that Vet had seen that were definitively diagnosed as EPM all started with some kind of paralysis in the face.
I just lost my horse to EPM two weeks ago. The treatment isn’t expensive at all, about $30/tube for ten days. Unfortunately he had such a high titer result and was put down three days into treatment (he was going down, unable to get up. Was also 34 yrs. old). He had no facial paralysis, just a change in proprioception. He didn’t seem to know how to move his hind feet and would have trouble keeping his balance. They’ll show symptoms in the front end or hind end.
I’m so sorry for your loss pony baloney…may I ask what treatment you used for just $30 per tube?? I’ve not seen anything at that price. Unfortunately my horse has had 2 seizures within the last couple of days. Still waiting on blood results.
We used Decoquinate/Levamisole. I believe you have to test positive before the vet can get the drugs; she had a few tubes on hand from another (presumably unsuccessful) client so we started right away. She also did IV DMSO for three treatments after the first emergency call when he went down.
With your horse having seizures, he may have something else going on. Best of luck to you.
Wobblers is not a definitive diagnosis, either. Wobblers could mean anything from cervical arthritis to CVM. Both of which can be treated by surgery or injections.
If you are having seizures, and the horse is falling, I would think it might be something else and would think it could be sleep deprivation or narcolepsy - two different disorders that sometimes share symptoms.
Jingling for a good outcome for you.
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