Just curious to find out how many people on this board has had a horse with this condition?
How many of you did surgery, was it successful, did they ever have another episode?
How many of you “rolled” your horse or used excercise to try and move the colon back to the right place?
I find it a very odd colic and just wanted to see if anyone had first hand info!
Also, how old were your horses? What discipline and breed?
I can’t find a lot of recent research about it and just thought I would ask!
Not my horse, but one that came into the clinic while I was there. She was a young (3-4 yo) QH mare that had not been started. She’d gone to surgery about 6 months previous for a nephrosplenic entrapment, and surgery was not on the table for her again, so they rolled her.
Everyone was pretty surprised when it worked. It was an interesting thing to see.
see, thats where the research gets confusing. It says that only 10 to 15% can actually have another episode, but I have seen a lot of people saying that their horses had to go in a second time for surgery!
I just feel like the info on this type of colic is all over the place
I’ve seen a horse with an NSE who was given phenylephrine (which contracts the spleen) and lunged. Seemed to work, but he died of something unrelated a couple weeks later. 
see, I was never told about the lunging. I was told about the phenelyphrine, but nothing about excercising. It seems like it is in all the literature, but the vet never mentioned it.
My vet said they usually give the drug to shrink the spleen and it works.
does it work only with excercise?
Also, if the "rolling’ the horse works, wouldn’t you think that letting the horse roll when he is painful knowing it is a nephrosplenic entrapment maybe help as well?
[QUOTE=Samotis;3870683]
does it work only with excercise?
Also, if the "rolling’ the horse works, wouldn’t you think that letting the horse roll when he is painful knowing it is a nephrosplenic entrapment maybe help as well?[/QUOTE]
When I saw a horse rolled, there wasn’t much “rolling” that happened. It was more lay the horse down, hoist her to her back and then jiggle the crap out of her belly. In no way what I saw happen would have happened if the horse rolled on her own.
It’s a good question… I have always been told to let my horses lay down and/or roll when colicky as long as they don’t start thrashing around.
It is just interesting that different studies have totally different percentageson re-accurances.
We have administered the drug and then trotted the horse. Lunge line or not. It was about the moving and the bouncing.
I also had a horse boarding with me that was colicking. The owner was not cooperating and wouldn’t come out. As I watched him, and was about to call the vet he started rolling, getting himself very cast in the corner of his stall. After what felt like hours (I think it was maybe at most 30 min) I got 2 friends to come and help me flip him and when he got up he seemed to be completely over it. By then I had convinced the owner she NEEDED to come check on her horse. So, of course, by the time she walked in he was fine!! It wasn’t confirmed but I always wondered if that is what was going on and resolved with the time spent upside down.
I had this happen with a pony. We did the medicine and longeing. It took a couple of times but it worked.
The vet didn’t keep the medicine in stock, so my poor sister had to contact hospitals in the area to find it, since I was out of town.
Answers embedded within quote.
My apendix QH gelding had colic surgery at Cornell University for a Nephrosplenic entrapment when he was 18…he is now 28. He only had one episode since that required him to go to Haggard in Lexington about 5 years ago…and they gave him the medicine to shrink his spleen and never needed to “roll” him. He came home the next morning. I have owned him for 25 years and prior to his surgery when he was 18, he used to have intermitent bouts with gas colic and ironically, I would lounge him for a little while, and it would subside. He would get pretty uncomfortable and actually stretch his front end down and butt up in the air like a cat. I had all kinds of tests done on him and the vets at the time told me that he was sensitive to tape worms…? He was always wormed on a regular rotation with various products and it would still happen…then the “BIG” one when he was 18 that required the surgery. It was quite an ordeal at the time and I am glad that it seems to have settled down for quite some time now (Knocking wood!)
so what I am hearing is that most of you that had the phenelaphrine drug and excercised combo this made the horse better.
Anyone else that has seen this type of colic?
Since I work at an equine hospital, I guess my numbers may be slightly skewed. That being said, NSE colics are much more common then people think. Commonly starting as gas colics, the gas filled colon rises up and then ends up being lodged between the spleen and L kidney. If the colon had moved to the right instead of the left, it would be considered a right dorsal dispacement. How many people have had colics that resolved with a bumpy trailer ride? This is one of the types of colics that is “fixed” via that method. Phenylephrine shinks the spleen and the jogging/lunging helps shrink the spleen quicker and bounce the colon back to where it belongs. Most horses I have delt with need 1 to 2 doses of the phenylephrine. I have hardly ever seen nephrosplenics that would not resolve with the phenylephrine and thus require surgery. That being said, most of those that did require surgery had something else going on too.
Its never fun having a NSE colic in the clinic…cause then I need to put my running shoes on.
see, I am just having a hard time justifying why they did surgery on my horse then!
they only ever gave him 1 dose of the phenalyphrine and never moved him. He sat in a stall with fluids.
He had normal bloodwork and belly tap and he was not that gassy at all. No bloating. And he was mildy dehydrated. Not in bad shape at all.
I am just sick thinking that he didn’t need to have the surgery. He is so young and it is going to be so hard on him to be on stall rest.
I am just sick!
Why didn’t the vet suggest this? It seems like normal practice!
After the surgery they said that there was nothing else going on, so it seems like he would have been a perfect candidate for the excercise.
My horse Springer, a TB gelding, had surgery for that when he was 8 yrs old. He was shipped up to Gainesville (U of FL) where they did try to roll him, which didn’t work, so he had surgery. He never had a serious colic after that and lived to be 21 yrs old, when he was euthanized after complications from an injury. I also boarded with a lady, a few years after my horses’ surgery, whose horse had the same type of colic but they WERE successful with rolling him. He was an appendix QH gelding, about 12 yrs old as I remember.
[QUOTE=Samotis;3871324]
Why didn’t the vet suggest this? It seems like normal practice!
After the surgery they said that there was nothing else going on, so it seems like he would have been a perfect candidate for the excercise.[/QUOTE]
I notice that your location is “out west.” Are you in CO? Who was managing your horse’s care?
He is in Arizona at Chaparrels new facility.
Dr. Andrea is the doctor. I use different vets, but they were the closest emergency vet because he was painful when we shipped him.
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