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Horse spun in stall and fell, started having convulsions.. any experience with anything similar??

She is a dutch warmblood

Not a 100% sure about this as I was not there but from what I understood from the grooms is that she fell first then started having convulsions and that is when she started hitting her head. Nothing made her fall she kjusy suddenly fell after circiling rapidly. Nothing was obviously wrong at the time

I have owned her for a year now and everything was as it normally is. She fell straight to the ground after spinning/circiling. It did not last long maybe a minute from what the grooms told me. She was acting somewhat normal afterwards but a bit lethargic and seemed to be in pain from the wound on her head. The vet did not pull blood as I am not sure hes convinced its a seziure as its quite rare in horses and he did not witness the event.

Interesting. But wouldnt this then occcur to other horses?

This seems like a possibility. I will discuss this with my vet and see. Thank you

Dont think its HYPP as shes a dutch warmblood but maybe EPM.

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Yes two grooms saw the incident. What they described was that she started to circle rapidly in her stall then suddenly started falling and having convulsions which caused her to hit her head in the wall.

Once the horse has had a week or two off to recover, Iā€™d have the vet back out. Do some manual neurological tests and see if there is a deficit. Pull some blood for EPM and Lyme. If there are neurological deficits, x-ray the neck as well.

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http://www.thehorse.com/articles/14835/seizures-examining-and-diagnosing

What ā€˜nerve calmerā€™ was she getting? Something sheā€™s had several times before and same dose? Iā€™ve seem some horses kind of panic from sedatives. Maybe it makes them feel ā€˜drunkā€™ or something theyā€™re not comfortable experiencing. Perhaps she panicked from sedative, fell, and hit her head hard enough to have a seizure or concussion

I think you need to back up a step: the spinning caused the fall, but what caused the spinning? Thatā€™s not a normal behavior.

This sounds like a seizure to me. I caught my horse having one on camera. She was sleeping quietly and then suddenly was spinning backwards rapidly, falling into the walls and then fell to the ground and did the classic running while on the ground. After she got up she was completely normal and behaved completely normal until the next one. She could pass any neuro exam any day. There were no other signs other than the seizure itself. Once this above episode happened (broke the stall) it was clear she needed euthanasia. I did have a necropsy done, but nothing obvious showed up and was chalked up to idiopathic seizures. Please take this seriously, get her thoroughly examined and warn anyone that may medicate the horse or that is handling the horse that she may have had a seizure before.

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Is she a recent ( more or less) import? Totally anecdotal but according to my vets and my own experience, as nobody records this kind of data, EPM does not exist in Europe. Over here, itā€™s believed many if not most native born horses have been exposed but are never anything but mildly symptomatic having built up a resistance over countless generations of exposure. Imports lack that and can display much more severe reactions when the buggers move in. Including total loss of coordination, falling over and seizure like symptoms. These start out of the blue and seemingly go away, but theyā€™ll be back.

Would really look hard at EPM, things you can do but sooner is better then later, it can get worse.

Regardless, she needs a full work up, this type of thing is nothing to screw with, you need to know why.

I had a mare once that did something similar. Turned out to be a very painful ovary.

You should also post this on Horse Care. That is where the people who know a lot about physical problems hang out.

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I am sorry for your loss. I had a mare do something similar (with same outcome of euthanasia). The Vet and I both believed this to be a relapse or sequelae of EPM, that had seemed to have been treated successfully. She had both the ā€˜running in placeā€™ while lying down, and syncope/collapse with period of unconsciousness types on different occasions.

Years ago a friend had an OTTB that did something similar and then starting bleeding from his nostrils. IIRC, they ended up euthanizing him because the prognosis was not good.