We have an eight year old mare we just bought in May and a little over a month ago she started colicking. We took her to the Cornell vet school and after a few false diagnoses, we finally got a diagnosis from duodenal biopsy of inflammatory bowel disease (lymphocytic-plasmactic enteritis). The prognosis is poor but some horses can survive. Does anyone have any experience managing this in their own horses? I am not looking for veterinary advice, as I have perhaps THE team, but there is such a small case load out there of horses who are managed with this, and I would like to hear some experiences people have had.
A woman I used to board with had her older gelding diagnosed with IBD. I had already left the barn so donât know a ton of details, but I do know he had to eat tiny meals constantly. I believe he did fairly well. Jingles for your mare!
Iberiansyes
I own a connemara pony mare that was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease May of 2009. The diagosis followed several years of trouble maintaining weight, odd colic episodes, very loud gurgly gut sounds, etc. All were intermittent and my daughter competed the pony up through training. We really just thought it was ulcers and stress related of competing and traveling. So she lived on ulcergard for AGES. (not a happy husband!) Pony tripped the edge May 2009 with another âcolicâ episode. We treated with pain meds, tubed her and didnât feed for 24 hrs. Seemed to be better then had another episode where she was very painful. Vet came out and tubed her-drained several liters of fluid from her stomach and palpated her rectally. Thought she had an obstruction colic so sent us to the local equine hospital. On call vet ultrasounded her belly and found that the entire wall of her small bowel was thickened and edematous. Diagnosis of inflammatory vs infiltrative bowel disease, poor prognosis. Could do surgical biopsy of small bowel to see if it was an infiltrative disease (cancer) process or just an inflammatory process. Treatment for either is high dose steroids. We did a rectal biopsy and glucose absorption test. Both came back normal. We did not do any more invasive of a biopsy because of the cost. She received several days of IV steroids then was transitioned to prednisone tablets. We also treated her with gastrogard for a while. Follow up ultrasound a month later (June 09) showed some improvement in the thickness of the small bowel wall. She has not been ultrasounded since. She is retired from competition (bummer because she is only 12) and lives out unless weather is cold/wet. We feed her Purina adult, and the best alfa alfa/ orchard grass hay we can find. She has been tapered down to 40 mg of prednisone a day. She has had a couple âepisodesâ in the past year. We know her so well that we can tell immediately whatâs going on . I bump up her pred dose, give her some sedatives/pain meds IV and keep my fingers crossed. Bute is very contraindicated because of the steroids. The risk of laminitis is also much increased with the steroids. She lives in a drylot so we can micro manage her. surgery is not an option and so we manageâŠthe saddest piece of this is that she is by the great connemara stallion Grange Finn Sparrow* and there are very few purebred mares by him left. Our vets do not think that it is safe to breed herâŠnot sure we have the funds for embryo transfer.
What caused this, we have no answers. She has been on our farm for years, pretty much in the same field. The other horses out with her have no issues.
I think the disease is maneagable, but one must be dilligently observant to the tiniest changes in behavior, etc. We recognize the longterm prognosis is not great, but she is happy and looks very healthy at the moment. My daughter rides her bareback around the farm and the happiness on their faces and the relationship they have is well worth the effort.
let me know if you have more questions.
Thanks
Thanks for this thoughtful reply. Your case sounds similar to ours in that we are looking at that kind of management. Our vet also has us using Previcox (the kind for dogs at a much lower dose). The mare is still alive but not thriving. I am going to show your reply to my ambulatory vet. She will be very interested.
Youa re very kind to give such a thoughtful reply and I am grateful.
My pony just got diagnosed with this!! I am SO GRATEFUL to know someone else has the same thing. Such a long story behind his diagnosis, but heâs hanging in there. Is your mare still around? Is she doing alright? Iâd love to know from anyone who has had this disease.
Quick summary. Too tired to write entire saga. Plus this thread is old, so who knows if anyone is even interested:
11 year old paint/quarter pony. 14.2 hands. Cutest thing in the world. Went off feed, was acting âcolickyâ-stretching out, chomping teeth, etc. Ran high fever even when 5 degrees outside (February this year)
Vet came out, ran bloodwork, treated for renal failure. Did fluids, SMZâs etc.
March-April. Reoccuring sheath edema, âcolickyâ often, off feed a lot. Drinking minimum amount. Manure softer. Just not my horse. We used a lot of ulcer medicine, tried different antibiotics. Vet cleared me to move barns. Said was just ulcers.
May- switched to a couple different barns. Pony was acting happy, but seemed very anemic. Choked eating breakfast one morning. Started going off feed; was diagnosed with strangles in his guttural pouches (he had had strangles at the old barn 3 years prior). Was treated aggressively, found to be anemic, but got over strangles fairly quickly. Seemed to have a few more âcolickyâ episodes. Vet did another rectal exam,said that a part of his intestine seemed âtightâ. Advised ultrasound, etc. if nothing seemed to help him.No longer anemic
My other horse, my beloved mare, dropped dead after having strangles for a few weeks. Necropsy didnât show much. My pony was best friends with her, but seemed to handle the loss somewhat well. Seemed very upset with me, so I left him alone so he could deal emotionally.
Over the next month, seemed to be dealing ok. Pale gums sometimes, didnât always finish food. Then seemed to be swelling up behind the throat with strangles? Vet finally referred him to Cornell.
July 4th- shipped to Cornell. stayed in isolation for the week. Ultrasounds, duodenal biopsies, rectal exams, glucose absorption test, etc done (2200 bucks!) until we got the diagnosis of lymphoma OR the lympho-phagacytic enteritis. Brought pony home; was told that steroids were the treatment either way. The biopsies of his small intestine were redone.
Later that week-NOT LYMPHOMA. I was overjoyed. Pony started his regimen of dexamethasone (19 ccâs the first, day, tapered down over 55 days).
Ponyâs total protein has been up and down the scale. (was normal range- 6.0 g/dl- when first got sick, went to 3.2 at Cornell, is currently at 5.2 now!!). All muscle wasted away until the dex started really kicking in. I started him on a bunch of over the counter protein and amino acid supplements which seem to help so much.
Currently, his hair is coming out. Like, I can literally pick it out until he is bald? I was told by my vet I work for that when the protein value is so off the scale, and then goes back up, the old hair will often be âsloughedâ off and make room for new hair. It looks like mange, and seems to not bother him, except when Iâm picking at it. But, it is not mange, and most likely is nothing.
We are coming up to the last few days of the dex regimen so the true test is when we finish it up.My vet has my pony on a lot of Senior feed (although he is only 11) since it is easier for him to digest then hay. He is getting hay, and pasture, but not a huge amount of the former. I have him on Ultium as well, probiotics, Fat-Cat supplement, and Platinum Performance. His hooves are holding up well, my farrier complimented him on how strong they are. His next still is scrawny, but he actually isâŠalmost fat on his belly? For the amount of calories he is consuming, he looks fairly thin; but NOT dying. His soft, cowpie manure and his thin, non-muscled body is the only clue of how sick he is.
His hair and skin is the only thing that worries me right now. Iâm sorry for how horrible my spelling, and capitalization is right now. Exhausted beyond belief but was just so happy to hear other people have gone through this.
I know this is a really old thread but does anyone have updates on their horses? Anyone else with a horse with IBD? My mare just got diagnosed after almost a year of fighting horrendous ulcers in the glandular region on her stomach 
Iâm also curious about this.
I have a mare who has some weird digestive issues.
It presented as going off feed, dramatic weight loss, and decreased water intake. It progressed to colic-like symptoms without actual colic.
Bloodwork was unremarkable. Parasites are managed, teeth are fine, vitals WNL. Only other symptom is some low grade arthritis consistent with her age and career.
Treated for ulcers (omeprazole, sucralfate, Nexium, and Succeed) and inflammation with no success, she continued to worsen.
Vet decided we were dealing with cancer and anticipated we would hit the point of euthanasia within the foreseeable future. Except the mare just kind of stayed the same.
I switched her diet dramatically to something that shouldnât have worked and the horse did a 180-- brightened up, started cleaning up her feed and drinking more, gained a significant amount of weight, I was even able to start riding.
However, she still could improve more. Inflammation of her bowel would make a lot of sense and it would be helpful to know how to manage her going forward. What Iâm doing now feels like it has room for improvement.
Interesting. Iâve fed like that at many points, although these days with my small herd I tend to use a ration balancer + whatever extra they need.
This is almost embarrassing to type, but the ONLY thing this mare can/will eat is cheap, low protein, low fat sweet feed. For whatever reason it works. Also, she only tolerates grass and grass hay.
What didnât work: Triple Crown Senior/Senior Gold, EQ8, EQ8 Senior, Buckeye Growth, Gro N Win + Ultimate Finish, Alfalfa Pellets, Alfalfa Hay, Alfalfa Cubes, Orchard Grass pellets, rice bran, various oilsâŠ
Completely counterintuitive to what anyone would think, she does best on a ridiculously high sugar, low protein, low fat diet with no legumes. 
But sheâs a bit hard to keep weight on this time of year and wonât eat more sweet feed than whatâs sheâs currently eating. I canât add back in any of the above without symptoms resuming (with the exception of the orchard grass pellets- she just doesnât like them very much). Since I donât know exactly why sheâs like this, Iâm nervous to experiment with other feeding options. I only found out this worked by accident- I bought a bag of sweet feed as a âHail Maryâ attempt to get her to eat so I could get meds in her.
If she has a thickening/scarring of her gut that decreases carbohydrate absorption, it seems plausible that she would respond positively to high NSC feed stuff.
Deleted my questionâŠit got answered. 
Mine went out on the field 24/7 with plenty of grass and after months of looking amazing I went on vacation for 2 weeks, came back and aged dropped a lot of weight so I started her on ulcer friendly feed as sheâs on the field to try to help a horrible case of ulcers. She continued to drop weight. At the moment sheâs a horse theyâd call the humane society for.
30 + years ago it was common to feed COB. Corn, oats , barley ( i assume it was the mystery pellet?) all coated in molasses. Came in lovely burlap bags and our horses not only adored it, they thrived. Heck I loved smelling the bag and tasted it myselfâŠ
I canât get it now and of course, all my current horses get fat on air so I couldnât feed it anymore even if I could get it but what has always stuck with me is that it is up to us to feed them what they do best on.
We may prefer the new science of low NSC, Fat, Carbs etc⊠but sometimes they just need old school to truly thrive.
Donât be embarrassed because it works and she is happy.
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My guy also only loves sweet things and cheap feed. He was off grain for over month during his illness and now will eat Cob and loves treats. Thanks goodness he likes and has always liked alfalfa. Unfortunately he is still losing weight even though his appetite is finally up to normal and he is excited again for his grain. He seems better and we are lowering the steroids with no negative effects. Sadly, I am not optimistic on his future.
