Gas Colic, what to do when the vet can't get there....

[rcloisonne]

[QUOTE=EqTrainer;3389392]
Please, please edit this post…

20cc of Dermosedan would lay your horse down. I can only imagine, but it might kill it. You use 1/2 to 1 cc of Dermosedan to render a horse almost unable to move. If you gave a horse that much, there’s no way in creation you would be handwalking it in a few minutes…

I’d be laughing but it’s too scary.[/QUOTE]
^^^^^
Ditto this. No way could you give a horse 20cc of Dormosedan :dead: and still have a standing horse. You’d probably kill it. The expense would also be phenomenal (>$500).

[QHJockee]

If you are comfortable giving IV injections, talk to your vet about using Buscopan. It is an antispasmoidic and muscle relaxant that will help quiet the tremoring gut.

I have used it, in conjunction with IV banamine, successfully with gas colics. $50 for a 50 ml bottle but worth it.

[Oakstable]

There is risk in deciding the horse has gas colic and not something more serious like an impaction. I just lost a young mare a few days ago to a blockage. Tragic.

[Cat_Tap]

What has worked for me was adding oil to the grain ration in the morning. I had two horses that would have a gas colic each year when first going out on grass. My vet explained to me that the hay moves a lot slower through the system than grass. The hay is moving slowly, grass followes moving much quicker and you end up with a gas pocke. By feeding the oil it allows the hay to move more quickly. Since I have been doing this I have not had any more colic. Once horses are completely on grass and no hay I stop the oil. I resume feeding the oil again in the winter.[/B]

[msj]

Ok, me bad as I haven’t read all the responses but I have a gelding that gets gas colic several times/yr, mostly with fresh, lush green grass. Besides a dose of Banamine PO, I also throw him on the lunge line and do some walk and a lot of trot to try to get the gas moving out. Most of the time it works and he’s fine within 30-50 minutes. Unfortunately about a week+ ago, he seemed OK after about 45-50 minutes so I went in and had my dinner. Came out about 3 hrs later (since I didn’t hear any ruckus over the inter com) and he’s still uncomfortable. By now we’re talking a good 4+ hrs that I know he’s got problems and I call the vet. She came out and tubed him with oil and pulled out about 2 piles of manure and he seemed OK, just a little dull afterwards for about a day.

We’ve had nothing but rain for about the last 6 weeks so I guess I’m lucky that I’ve only had one incidence.

Anyway, try asking your horse to do a good bit of trot and even some canter work to help get rid of the gas.

When I have some time later, I’m coming back to read ALL the responses to see if I can glean some ideas to help my guy.

[pines4equines]

Hay 2

You know another thing is probiotics. I have a cribber who tends to bloat due to the windsucking. He tends to bloat more if he doesn’t get a dose of probiotics.

He has gotten quite fat so I had to reduce his grain ration which has probiotics in it and I noticed he got bloated again. I added probiotics and he is less bloated. I used the Probios brand, seemed to work well. This might also help with any recurring gassiness as well as the accupressure I mentioned in a previous post.

[aspenlucas]

[QUOTE=pines4equines;3390537]
You know another thing is probiotics. I have a cribber who tends to bloat due to the windsucking. He tends to bloat more if he doesn’t get a dose of probiotics.

He has gotten quite fat so I had to reduce his grain ration which has probiotics in it and I noticed he got bloated again. I added probiotics and he is less bloated. I used the Probios brand, seemed to work well. This might also help with any recurring gassiness as well as the accupressure I mentioned in a previous post.[/QUOTE]

Interesting…my mares are all on the powdered Probios, but I did not give it to them that day and hubby did not the morning before. I also have about 15 tubes of Probios paste. Is that something that would help during or after a gas colic? Or really not effective, or “couldn’t hurt”. My fear with pepto was, what if I had an impaction? Doesn’t pepto bind you up? I was pretty certain I was dealing with “Gas” as it wasn’t one mare, it was three that were slightly uncomfy and two or three others that were just standing, disinterested in eating more hay. I’m not rich and just can’t afford a vet call on three mares that may just need to pass gas. Granted we are talking slight stretching and one attempt to lay down from each, but laying down quietly, no rolling. So it wasn’t what I would call an emergency. Now the mare I lunged was fine quickly. I should have lunged the other two. But it was getting dark and I had my 1 and 4 year old daughters with me, and by the time my husband got home 30 minutes later, they seemed to be more comfortable.

[JSO]

[QUOTE=pines4equines;3388750]
You know this is going to sound very, very wacky but my equine chiro told me to do this…I have a horse who had colic surgery a year and a half ago He is a cribber and tends to get gassy.

Along his spine in between where you would sit if you were bareback and the highest point on his butt, start doing a little pressure point/massage along each side of his spine in the fleshy part, start at one inch down from the spine, then two inches down. Go all along on both sides.

I have to say this has helped alot with me. Apparently, these pressure points lead to their intestinal region. One time I had a mild colic and while I waited for the vet, I did this. I was not hearing intestional sounds when I listened at his flank after doing this, I started to hear soft sounds.

Coincidence, maybe, probably, but I’ve been doing it whenever I suspect this particular horse is a bit gassy and it does seem to help.

I’ve also done a slow, relaxed currying as well. Certainly, it doesn’t pre-empt the vet but it might help while you wait for the vet to arrive.

Just remember, this can only be done on the mildest case, obviously if the horse is thrashing around and in severe distress, this ain’t gonna help…[/QUOTE]

That is a great thought! I know when I have a belly ache sometimes rubbing it a little will make it feel better. Obviously you can’t message a horses whole stomach so the pressure points would be great to use. I’ll give it a try the next time!

[Bluey]

The ears are also accupressure points for the digestive system.
Kneading them in your hand and sliding your hands from the base up, holding and pressuring a little at the top is also recommended in some of those modalities.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=aspenlucas;3390821]
Interesting…my mares are all on the powdered Probios, but I did not give it to them that day and hubby did not the morning before. I also have about 15 tubes of Probios paste. Is that something that would help during or after a gas colic? Or really not effective, or “couldn’t hurt”. My fear with pepto was, what if I had an impaction? Doesn’t pepto bind you up? I was pretty certain I was dealing with “Gas” as it wasn’t one mare, it was three that were slightly uncomfy and two or three others that were just standing, disinterested in eating more hay. I’m not rich and just can’t afford a vet call on three mares that may just need to pass gas. Granted we are talking slight stretching and one attempt to lay down from each, but laying down quietly, no rolling. So it wasn’t what I would call an emergency. Now the mare I lunged was fine quickly. I should have lunged the other two. But it was getting dark and I had my 1 and 4 year old daughters with me, and by the time my husband got home 30 minutes later, they seemed to be more comfortable.[/QUOTE]

If that is as I read it, that if you don’t feed powdered Probios your horses colic, I would be checking out your management and rations, since something is way out of kilter there.:eek:

The reality is that most people don’t feed supplements and their horses don’t colic.

[Chiniko]

[QUOTE=EqTrainer;3389392]
Please, please edit this post…

20cc of Dermosedan would lay your horse down. I can only imagine, but it might kill it. You use 1/2 to 1 cc of Dermosedan to render a horse almost unable to move. If you gave a horse that much, there’s no way in creation you would be handwalking it in a few minutes…

I’d be laughing but it’s too scary.[/QUOTE]

OMG! Amen!!! I guess with that dose your horse would be relieved of the gas rapidly, and very relaxed or dead.

I’d likely hit the horse with a decent dose of ace and ensure it’s hydrated, Banamine, maalox, tagament or ranitidine or GG, walk either by hand or machine unless he/she is going down.
And in ALL honesty it is your vet’s job to be on all 24/7. They know that going in. 8 am or the wee hours of the night they are medical personnel and at your beck and call.
My vet friend had a strange (impaction) call not long ago. She is freshly starting her own practice. She had treated the horse and palpated the horse sure enough impacted. She left after treating the horse to get some more experienced help. When she came back the horse was happily munching on hay. BUT it’s hind end was soaked! She was shocked that the horse was so comfortable so quickly after tubing and treatment. Turns out the guys were not one’s to wait so they gave the horse a water enema. Just shoved that hose up it’s butt and let er rip… no word of a lie! It worked, but I shuddered at the thought! Just seems like a very very bad idea

[aspenlucas]

[QUOTE=Bluey;3390891]
If that is as I read it, that if you don’t feed powdered Probios your horses colic, I would be checking out your management and rations, since something is way out of kilter there.:eek:

The reality is that most people don’t feed supplements and their horses don’t colic.[/QUOTE]
No I did not say that. I said that they didn’t get it that morning or the night before. There are a total of 14 horses in this field and six weanlings. THREE had a VERY slight gas colic, one I would not bother the vet with as there were no signs other then one attempt to lie down in the course of 90 minutes and one or two stretches. Most owners may not even notice that in a field setting. But I’m wondering if probiotics in paste form could have helped? More then likely it was a heavy rain followed by the same time on grass, funny thing is it was TB mares only, the pony mares were fine?

BTW it’s not the first time they have missed probiotics, it is the first time I’ve ever had more then one horse out of 35 or so colic at one time. These mares have basically free choice hay, and then grass 2-3 hours a day. They eat a moderate amount of pelleted and sweet feed. Big tb broodmares with foals on their side are getting 8-10 lbs of grain a day tops, and they are bred back. So not a carb overload. I’m pretty convinced it was the wet grass and then the temperature change combined.

[sid]

While your horses have a history of “gas” colic, how do you know you don’t have a torsion? The symptoms present themselves almost identically. Typically, horses with a gas colic responds favorably to 10 cc of Banamine and 1 1/2 cc of Ace. Listen carefully, when the horse flags its tail – can you hear him/her passing gas? Or is it just pressure with no relief.

If there is relief and the horse starts passing gas, great. But keep watching. A horse that starts to represent the same symptoms after an hour or so on Banamine, may have a torsion and should be either be closely examined by a vet and rectally palpated immediately or be taken to a surgical clinic very quickly.

Bottom line, a horse with a torsion does not respond to pain medication for very long before the symptom reappear…and by then it can be a pretty dire situation.

Ditto on the 20cc of Dormosedan…dead horse. Even if that was a typo, 2 cc can flatten them as well.

[equinelaw]

Then you had 2 stressors at 1 time–the new grass situation + the lack of outside probiotics.

You might have been propping up a good population of bugX with the probiotics and then they horses needed bugX and didnt have it or needed bugY to deal wth the higher sugar in the grass.

Either way, I do not think a ER dose of probiotics will get to the gut fast enough to relieve the colic, but they should could be needed to repopulate as soon as posible since the colic surely changes the overall profile in the hindgut.

Whenever something happens to a horse the best place to look is a recent change. You seem to have identified 2 changes–both which you can control.

I think sitting and watching the other two mares was a very effective treatment and one that cost nothing and did no harm. I’m sure if things had progressed into more a more dire situation you would have calle dthe Vet, but since you had yoru eye on things and had a good idea what caused it then:confused:

I would have panicked and thought they were foundering from the grass or something much more dramatic:) Good thing I only have c-4 grasses!

[Chiniko]

And for the record Dorm. Slows he gut, so not that helpful

[sid]

Actually, sometimes you WANT to slow the gut when it has become hypermotile. But Dormosedan usually isn’t the first choice (maybe to tranq them to keep them from thrashing in the trailer on the way to a surgical facility). Typically, Rompun is added to the arsenal of meds for a suspected torsion…seldom if ever are either drugs needed for a gas colic unless their is distention.

[Oakstable]

What symptoms tells a vet to do a rectal in a colic situation?

[Sing_Mia_Song]

I have a friend who swears by Gas-X for suspected gas colics. It think it’s 10 tabs of Gas-X (the tablets, not the gel caps) dissolved in water and dose syringed.

I had a professor in vet tech school who insisted that a horse who wasn’t responding to medical treatment within 10 minutes should be on the way to Leesburg. I think that’s a bit aggressive, but it’s better than camping out all night on a horse whose insides are slowly dying while you think he has a gas colic.

[Ghazzu]

@2869;3389370

My vet has always told me to give 20 cc of Dormosodan (sp?) and some Ace, hand walk for 30 min, then check back w/her. It always seems to work within that time frame. Then they get nothing to eat for 12 hrs, then hay added back in w/in 24, then grain in a small amount building up

And people wonder why I’m reluctant to dispense injectable mediacation…:eek:

[maresnest]

[QUOTE=2869;3389370]
My vet has always told me to give 20 cc of Dormosodan (sp?) and some Ace, hand walk for 30 min, then check back w/her. It always seems to work within that time frame. Then they get nothing to eat for 12 hrs, then hay added back in w/in 24, then grain in a small amount building up[/QUOTE]

As others have said, that much Dormosedan would probably be lethal. I actually can’t think of anything that I would give 20 cc’s of to a colicky horse. And also, Ace has no effect on pain. It is only for sedation, not pain relief.