Help with diagnosis

[mmeqcenter]

@findeight

Did this vet not tube the horse on the first visit? That’s a very old but proven and still pretty standard protocol, not some feed through remedy that takes a day and may not get through anyway.

The way I read it, the vet never actually came out. Was called and texted multiple times from Friday afternoon on. Saturday at 2pm told to come ASAP, yet 2.5 hours later (over 24 hours after initial contact) still was not there.

Absolutely fire this vet, dear lord. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It’s hard to trust a medical professional just for something like this to happen. Don’t beat yourself up, you’re not a vet. You relied on your vet, a medical professional with far more training than you, to guide you through appropriate/adequate treatment during a medical emergency, and they failed you.

I’m in Ocala and use Peterson & Smith, they’re exceptional. There’s like 20+ vets in the practice all around the area so there’s a small chance they may have someone that goes as far as Lakeland (2 hours)? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely worth a call to ask IMO, and at minimum you can keep them on your radar as a backup to haul into if needed. I know people in Tampa that haul up to P&S for things that require a clinic visit.

[mpsbarnmanager]

@twelvebelles

This. Fire your vet. I am sorry for your loss, but this was handled very badly. Your horse needed real medical intervention, not just banamine. Since the horse was pooping, this was likely a twisted or displaced colon that eventually paralyzed his intestines, which led to the reflux you witnessed. Colic surgery was likely necessary. As for what caused it, it was probably just bad luck.

Is it the vet, or the OP? If she had gotten the vet out on an emergency call, this might have ended differently. Not having the vet out at all is absolutely… Trying really hard to be respectful. Not having a vet out in an emergency situation is not acceptable.

[mmeqcenter]

@mpsbarnmanager

Is it the vet, or the OP? If she had gotten the vet out on an emergency call, this might have ended differently. Not having the vet out at all is absolutely… Trying really hard to be respectful. Not having a vet out in an emergency situation is not acceptable.

I’m giving OP the benefit of the doubt here. Post states she was in contact with the vet multiple times through the entire ordeal. I assume vet told her since horse was pooping it wasn’t as urgent, or something of the like. OP relied on her vet’s knowledge and expertise on how to handle the situation. IME it takes a LOT for people to second guess their vets, and I’m willing to bet a LOT of people that aren’t vets don’t know that there can still be a very serious colic going on even if the horse has a poo. You don’t know what you don’t know.

[4horses]

This was mishandled in several ways. First you as the owner have to be more proactive. If he’s down, you call the vet and insist they come immediately or at least that day.

All banamine does is eliminate pain. That is all it does. It is similar to you taking a bad fall off your horse and having some unknown internal injuries/broken ribs and just taking some opioids. You eliminated the pain but you don’t know how badly injured you are.

This is how banamine is abused. If my horse colics i am not going to give banamine. First I’m going to get a heart rate- a painful horse has an elevated heart rate and respiration. I’m also going to check temperature and capillary refill. Then i decide what to do. I give about 15-30 minutes of watch and wait, especially if symptoms are mild. The two times i had a horse gas colic, both passed with 15 minutes or so and the horse was back to normal. Colics due to gastric ulcers also pass rather quickly if you administer crushed tums as a paste and ranitidine. I look for risk factors for ulcers- high grain diet, in training, or in a new environment, ribby, etc.

The reason I do not administer anything is because if my horse gets more painful, i want to know about it. If my horse is laying quietly with colic, that is okay as well. The only time i would give banamine is if the horse is extremely distressed, rolling, high heart rate and respiration. Then give banamine and get the vet out asap.

My neighbor lost a horse the same way you did. They repeatedly gave banamine and missed the signs that things were serious. These things do happen unfortunately.

Someone i worked for lost a horse to colic. The horse was fine at breakfast, fine during stall cleaning at 10am. By 4 pm, he was in shock. His eyes turned red, he was ataxic. He had either twisted or had a severe impaction - this caused reflux to move up the throat and out the nostrils. It looked very similar to choke (swollen neck, nasal discharge) and the vet first thought choke, but quickly determined it was a severe colic. There was nothing the vet could do. The vet said it was the worst colic he had seen, only one time prior in his career did he see a horse present like that. It took 1 hour to walk the horse 40 ft to the roundpen for euthanasia because the horse was so ataxic he could barely walk with falling into things or circling. RIP poor boy.

Banamine blocks pain for 6-12 hours. If you use banamine, and don’t treat the cause, the horse will be painful again when the drug wears off. If it’s 2 pm and the horse is colicy i won’t administer banamine, because i don’t want to still have a sick horse at 1 am at night.

Sorry for your loss. Please tell all your friends about the dangers of banamine for colic. You can save other horses from a similar fate.

[x-halt-salute]

I mean, yes, by all means you should be taking vitals as you’re assessing the horse (which means, before giving an analgesic like banamine). But withholding banamine in the afternoon because you think it’ll make your horse sick at 1 a.m. is kinda beside the point. If banamine is masking some pain that will return in the night, you’re probably dealing with something that’s going to be making the horse sick into the night regardless of banamine administration, and you’re probably going to be at the barn (or, heaven forbid, at the hospital) that late anyway. And by the time you get to the thrashing and sweating stage of distress, you need a vet to administer better analgesic options than banamine anyway. So unless your vet is really far away, the 30 minute lag on oral banamine might mean you’ve already missed the window to use it effectively if you withhold it until the horse is severely distressed.

My colic protocol is: Take vitals and note any other unusual presentation. Call vet (at this point it’s usually/hopefully a heads up about possible emergency brewing). Prepare to trailer to hospital, just in case. Administer banamine unless vet has said not to. Then, depending on symptoms, walk or monitor (and monitor for not just “did he poop”, but drinking (if vet doesn’t recommend withholding water), alertness/affect, energy/lethargy, posture, recheck vitals, etc.). If all signs and vitals aren’t normal within 30-45 minutes, call vet out and start emergency vet intervention (tube, rectal, sedation and ultrasound for more severe pain). Pray to any god that will listen that it’ll come right, and without a hospital trip. Follow vet advice from there on out. If all signs and vitals are normal with one dose of oral banamine and a little walking, no vet call, but continue to monitor and be ready to call vet if anything starts getting worse again.

Regardless of whether banamine is administered, it can be hard to predict when they’re out of the woods and when things are going to take a sudden turn for the worse, so monitoring a colic for hours is pretty much a given, IME. I never administer more than one dose of banamine – if they don’t work through it with a little pain relief right away, they’re probably not going to work through it without at least supportive veterinary care.

Anyway, please don’t go telling people about the dangers of banamine. Banamine itself isn’t the problem, and is a worthwhile first aid measure when used appropriately. Tell them about the dangers of unresponsive vets. The tragic outcome in this case hinges on one vet’s bad advice (MOAR banamine in lieu of more proactive management) and failure to make the farm call.

[AKB]

Most vet school hospitals and other large animal hospitals understand if you call them and show up in an emergency without your vet seeing the horse first. If you can’t rapidly get a vet to come to the farm for an emergency, you have to haul into a clinic. I don’t know if a surgical clinic could have saved your horse, or if hospital care was financially feasible. Severe colic is often not survivable. At least if you had brought him into the clinic, you would have known the diagnosis and could have decided with the vets on a treatment plan.

Check out nearby surgical hospitals. Find out their policies on seeing emergencies that have not been referred in by the regular vet. Find out the usual emergency fee. Drive to the clinics before you need them, so you are not worried about getting lost while driving a horse there in an emergency. Put the emergency phone numbers in your cell phone so you are prepared.

i am sorry about your horse. Don’t beat yourself up over this. We all do the best we can in life. You did the best you could for him.