I’d love to find a vet that believes in it. He was in a high EPM area and I know people here who had horses with it (that got SO bad they put them down - probably because none of the local vets seem to believe it can happen). Hard to treat it when your vet won’t test for it.
I’m not made of money but at this point I’m tempted to find a vet school that can do kissing spine surgery and take him there with that as the plan but have them test him or evaluate him for anything else while I’m there. I figure the spinal tap is pretty invasive, but so is a bone shave, kissing spine surgery?
Obligatory Not A Vet, but I would have no regrets planning a day to let a horse like yours go. I would certainly talk to the attending vet about what’s fair, and it would be HARD, but I wouldn’t want to just wait for her to colic or do something catastrophic to that stifle. You can only “tweak” a joint so many times before it stops getting better IME.
Honestly, we didn’t test. Just ordered the medicine and treated. Apparently the trainer I’m working with believes every teenage horse should just be treated at least once a year.
After some winters with ice storms I decided to euthanize an Arabian mare in her late 20’s. She was sort of a rescue (big arthritic knees) that my husband, non-horsie, for some reason “heard” her deep desire for a better home.
It was better to put her down in the fall season than have her fall during a bad ice storm and be totally unable to get up, or the vet not being able to drive to the farm.
When there is doubt about how a horse is doing with unsoundness I have recommended putting the horse down if a hard winter is forecast.
Definitely an option. My school has 30 odd horses, all of varying ages and all who are mostly pasture sound. They like them a little lame because it’s helpful for teaching the students.That said, they have to have very good temperaments as very few students have ever handled a horse. It’s a good life though.
Someone was ordering it and had to order more than they needed. I bought the other half. But I do know that my vet wouldn’t bat an eye over someone wanting to just treat and if I had just shown up at the clinic asking they wouldn’t have cared and gave me the meds.
I’ve treated two for EPM before and neither had a spinal tap.
Then I put down my late mare, despite her being what youre calling pasture sound.
Her issues were compounding and I was out of bandwidth to keep diagnosing thing after thing after thing. Nothing was going to get “better”.
But was she “pasture sound” with her cancer, stagnant and unidentified 1/5 lameness, and atrophied hindquarter? Yes. She ran around and bucked and rolled and did all her normal things. Eta: she didn’t seem any different, personality wise either.
But I made her a promise to NOT let it get bad before I let her go.
My personal definition of pasture sound is probably more stringent than a lot of people’s. But they need to be sound at the walk and easily able to get up and down. In addition I do not want to see other subtle signs of pain. So for me that would be not being overly grumpy with other horses or humans, nipping biting. Overly food aggressive. Abnormal resting posture, constant facial tension. If I already had a horse I couldn’t ride and had kicked out to a field and then they were still being “quirky” in the field I’d have to really question how much discomfort they are in 24/7, unrelated to being worked.
You are very well aware that I’m supportive and a practicer of humane euthanasia in the best interest of the horse. Preventing a horse from totally wasting away from cancer seems to fall squarely in the realm of humane euthanasia. Releasing a horse from a life of pain is an act of mercy.
Is that what you wanted? Support? Validation that you made the right choice? Or were you hoping to spark an impassioned debate? I’m afraid I don’t have quite the energy for the latter this evening. I had a bunch of meetings this week and my ability to articulate well on complex concepts has been used up for the week.
I personally need a horse that is willing and able trot and canter with very minimal signs of discomfort. I need to see evidence that the horse is engaging with the world; interacting positively with his buddies, enjoying a good scratch against a tree, being curious about changes in the environment (traffic, wildlife, the lawn mower etc), normal pasture behavior (grazing, staying with the herd, rolling, sunbathing, utilizing the shelter etc). I need a horse that can maintain body weight. I need a horse that is comfortable for farrier work. I need a horse to be these things for me to feel confident that he’s comfortable and happy. That he has a high QOL.
I’m willing to provide a fairly high amount of maintenance to keep that QOL for a pasture sound horse. What is a a fairly high amount of maintenance to me might be way too much for someone else. Or far too stingy to another.
I’ve had emergency colic euthanasia circumstances, and it is horrible. I think it is reasonable to anticipate that a horse with a somewhat chronic colic history will have a fatal one at some point, but no way to know if that will be this year, next year, or 10 years from now.
I think the stifle would concern me the most because 4/5 lame is quite bad. I knew a retiree (same one as my laminitis story, he must have 9 lives) who did something to the stifle in the field and was 5/5 not weight bearing. Close call on his life with the amount of NSAIDs he needed to survive it. He did bounce back from that. But to tweak the stifle a few times badly…I would be concerned about what the initial injury was exactly. So hard to tell without surgery to look at all the structures. And even then, would more information change the outcome? Does it get very muddy where you are? Icy? Does the horse have any occasional herd dynamics struggles? The stifle seems high risk at this point given the timeline you shared to go to potentially catastrophic. I would be pretty worried about that scenario if it were me. But I have also been where you are of questioning the line you find yourself teetering on. It’s so hard. I wouldn’t fault your decision either way.
I’m not looking for an argument. You defined your version of pasture sound. My mare met your definition.
Imo, there’s more to euthanizing than “today”. Tomorrow needs to be accounted for, too. If there’s no hope of improvement, there’s no need to drag it on. Do it now, when the horse didn’t need to show you it’s time.
Again, I’m using my own personal examples here. Every case is different. But I put down a pasture sound horse, who could have potentially lived for years in a pasture without issue. And I believe I did the right thing, personally.
I can’t recall exactly what you have said before about this horse and stall rest, but I think stall rest is a no-go for him behaviorally? If that is the case, I would not consider him to be a surgical candidate. And with everything else going on with his feet and gut and his behavior when you try to do any work, I would not expect a high chance of success from the surgery (annd subsequent rehab) either. There are a lot of failures.
Yeah, I agree with that to a point but I tend to do a titer, then if that is low go to MSU. They cans usually figure it out, or not not do a bone scan. Treatment for EPM is $1k at least and throwing mud at a wall. Bone scan/workup is $2k at my local teaching hospital with an amazing lameness vet, and they’d find any ataxia faster.
I think my mare falls into this category. Chronic suspensory issues at only 10 years old, flexing 1/5 on her LH with the stifle likely being the origin, and other issues that I’m working with a vet to diagnose that I suspect in either the neck or the back (eventually I’ll make a post here on CoTH). Her suspensories are a ticking time bomb, and most of us who know the situation are in agreement that it’s not wrong to euthanize sooner than later.
I will NEVER take another animal to my local university teaching hospital again. Made a mistake and took a dog there once. Half of my bill was completely unnecessary tests that were “mandatory” for any admission no matter the reason why you were there. If my regular vet wouldn’t be doing the test if I’d taken them there then there was no reason for the university to do it. They just wanted “practice” at my expense.
