My 18 yr old horse was just diagnosed with Cholangiohepatitis, which is apparently fairly uncommon. He was released two days ago from vet hospital to await test results from Cornell. Those came in last night and I have been given a treatment plan.
It is m understanding that it can take quite a while for liver #'s to get down to normal levels. What I’m still trying to get a grip on is what this means in more general terms. Will he be able to go back to his upper level work? Possiblity of recurrance?
Looking for any input from others who have dealt with this.
My now almost 25 year old mare presented with a high fever of 105 and when blood was run her liver enzymes were high several years ago. My vet suspects that she had a leaky gut at some point that “seeded the liver” as she explained causing the hepatitis. She was on mega antibiotics for about 3 months and made a complete and full recovery and went back to work US. She is not in work now because of no time. I did give her the time off to heal while she was on antibiotics.
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Khalil- thanks. Hoping I have as good results! It’s a little scary.
My gelding was diagnosed with hepatitis back in April, so I can’t give much insight on what to expect long term but I’ve learned a ton about managing his particular situation and preventing relapses!
His case was bacterial, and pretty severe (neurological, jaundiced, etc.) which earned him 11 days in the hospital followed by 2 weeks of IV fluids and multiple antibiotics at home with multiple vets warning he likely wouldn’t make it - so I’m a little overly cautious with his management now! His relapses present as mild colic and fortunately they’re happening less and less as he recovers. We stopped testing his liver values in September, with how slow the values go down it was getting very expensive to test him just to see elevated (but slightly lower) numbers every week
The most crucial thing we’ve found is making sure his liver doesn’t have to do any more work than is necessary and is supported - he gets a double dose of milk thistle every day and is on a liver cleanse supplement as well, they do actually seem to help. His diet is fairly low protein/low fat now (no alfalfa, etc.) but we were able to slowly reintroduce richer feeds and better hay as he recovered. We have to be very careful about deworming, meds etc. and avoid tranquing unless it’s absolutely necessary. Managing him like this is a bit of a pain, but relapses are less and less frequent so luckily it’s easy to see what he can/can’t handle
I’m not quite sure what working will look like for him going forward, as he got sick during his letdown time after coming off the track at 10 years old, so even without the hepatitis we were looking at a slow comeback. We’ve been pretty successful with working the horse in front of us, and the only limitations we’re looking at are fewer options for maintenance in terms of injections, etc.
Sorry about the novel, it’s super scary to go through especially with it being so uncommon and such little information available! Hopefully some of this is relevant to your horse’s case!
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did the vets give you any idea why this happened. toxic exposure, bacteria or virus?
might it be worth having someone come out and survey your property for toxic plants etc check your water supply hay and feed analysis
the liver is a remarkable organ and I hope baring any further insult he makes a slow and steady recovery. One of the few organs that can actually recover and regenerate itself.
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@onlytbs: Thanks so much for your novel! Because this is uncommon, its a lonely place to be. I was told to get a milk thistle supplement and other similar stuff. I believe my horse was not as bad - not neurological. Showed first sign of jaundice the day he went to clinic. Was only in two days…
@hoopoe: Diagnosis in this case is that it is bacterial (other options were a number of viruses, toxins, including but not limited to plants) colon displacements and some pharmaceuticals). Tests were sent to Cornell for evaluation. We did, in fact, walk his pasture to be sure nothing there. Farm staff is good about weed wacking fencelines and so forth, so it was unlikely but…never hurts.
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