I saw that too. I wish she’d have said what the issue was but she left that detail out.
Could you possibly send me a link to that? My horse has a urine dribbling problem and the vets are stumped. (Different than the OP of this thread, but neuro issues that haven’t been explained)
I can’t find it anymore. It was in a Facebook horse sales group. Maybe it’s been removed. The person never specified exactly what the rare diagnosis was.
I don’t know if this is a closed group or whether this will work…
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She says neuro disease in llama & sheep, rarely seen in horses…when I Google and cross reference, encephalitic listeriosis pops up:
https://www.vetlexicon.com/treat/equis/diseases/listeriosis
This is interesting!
“The neurological form of listeriosis has signs primarily relating to brainstem and cauda equina involvement Polyneuritis equi .”
Here’s a case report:
https://www.askjpc.org/wsco/wsc/wsc98/98wsc17.htm
Wow, they screened for rabies…
And another case report:
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Pssm 2 can cause muscle cramping, a parked out stance and urination/attempted urination.
This is my mare, currently living out a life of semi retirement. Best guess from my vet is that this is type 2 pssm. She is mostly asymptomatic if not exercised, and rarely has episodes out in the field. The vet did say the diagnosis is not confirmed and that the issue shouldn’t progress. However, she is 18 now and not rideable for more than 30 minutes. As a young horse she was never quite right movement wise, but still happy to go and was not exercise intolerant.
I do not have the money/will power to chase down a diagnosis any further, as I suspect it’s incurable. My only regret is that she can’t go on 3 hour rides anymore. She’s a horse that loves to go explore all day and never wants to return to the trailer.
Her as a younger horse:
Now she never could hold the canter well. She could trot just fine though. I have ridden her 15-20 miles earlier in her life without any sickness behavior, so I’m really not sure what she has going on. It’s really a mystery. Pssm 2 is the closest explanation I can come up with.
I really wish she had been healthier because she is an incredible ride and we get along really well together.
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I’ve sort of decided that I never want another paint or QH. Way too many muscle diseases. I had another paint on lease. That mare tied up right out in the field. Looked similar to HYPP. She was staggering with muscle fasiculations. I thought she was going to drop dead on the spot. Only time I saw something similar was with a horse that went into septic shock and had to be euthanized. He was ataxic, with muscle tremors and severe catastrophic colic. The vet said that was the worst case he had seen in his career (the colic).
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What a beautiful horse! I am so sorry she has health issues. How old is she? Curious, did check for EPM?
It really is heartbreaking when we can’t “fix” them and all the plans we had for them don’t come to fruition.
She is fortunate to have an owner like you who cares so much for her.
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@IPEsq That’s what I was about to say it looked like in the cantering video. @4horses I don’t fault you for saying “I’ve chased this enough and I give it a rest now,” but I have a mare who is suspected of PSSM 2 and neither video quite seemed like that to me (though of course every horse is different). I knew a horse who fell and injured her SI and that canter video is the spitting image of what she looked like afterwards. Healed enough not to be “unsound” but always disunited afterwards. I think with her it was more mechanical than painful and she did fine as a low level putz around horse.
Oh my goodness, what an awful situation. I feel for the woman who leased this horse and the horse who appears to be being used as a pawn. So very sad.
I’d hazard a guess that it is meningeal worm being discussed there.
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The lameness vet did try SI injections with no improvement, as well as stifle injections. Said a nuclear scan might help pinpoint the issue. Also I was told it could be both pssm type 2 and sacroiliac issues. But the pssm awareness videos are pretty consistent with her swapping leads behind. Add to that the tying up and exercise intolerance and the diagnosis sort of fits. I agree it does seem more like a mechanical lameness, then a painful condition.
When her muscles get tight after exercise, she can bring her leg forward, but can’t bring it back behind her if you ask her to pick up her hind feet.
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Some SI (and other axial skeletal problems) don’t respond to injections.
@TXKing99
Have you had any response from Rood & Riddle or New Bolton Center?
Hoping for the best for you and your horse. You are clearly a caring and thoughtful owner.
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OP, I’m no help but I think you have gotten a lot of great suggestions. I hope you update us as it’s a very interesting case. I hope you get answers and hopefully help for your gelding.
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Hello. Thanks for the follow up. I contacted Rood & Riddle and they allowed me to send an email with all of Jasper’s info and links to videos. Dr. Reed is very busy, but may be able to look at it on Friday. So grateful that they were open to taking a look. I will post an update when I know more.
Laura
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Not to derail the thread, but I think one of the reasons why we often treat empirically is that diagnostics can be so, so expensive. To diagnosis my (late) cat’s small cell lymphoma was a $6,000 surgery (thank you insurance!), and that was ~ 8 years ago, so probably more expensive now. But I totally hear you - I was also told it was “probably just IBD”. Because we did the actual biopsy, we treated accordingly. Would I spend $6,000 to diagnose a cat if I didn’t have the animal insured? Absolutely not. I would do the best I could with the info I had, then euthanize when the animal couldn’t stay comfortable anymore.
I’m sorry about your cat, btw.
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Whaaaaaat? We got a diagnosis through a small biopsy at Carolina Veterinary Hospital in Greensboro, for around $700 I think. That was 3-4 years ago, so not far from your experience. I can’t imagine a biopsy was so much newer then? Yikes.Initially her symptoms presented as toxoplasmosis, and while she did have that, bloodwork proved it, it was successfully treated, it kept us from “seeing” the small cell lymphoma sooner. She did end up beating the SCL with chemo, but in the end, what seems like it must have been major pancreatitis popped up quickly, and that was kind of that 
I wonder if it was all the little things that added up? I mean, queen of bizarre cat things, I have one “worth” literally thousands that I don’t have a diagnosis for. I am in Canada. His blood was sent to Colorado State, fer Pete’s sake. Still, no answer. He’s still alive and weird and happy many years later, but that thing that looked like some bizarre form of leukemia? We’ll never know. And yet another, I took in for bizarre growth was just a few hundred (repeat it with me, just a few hundred) and her issue was extremely rare - bovine sarcoid. Yes. Bovine. Mind you, my vet and I did a LOT of reading of the very few articles available and decided to try a combo of drugs which worked. An acquaintance I met through a mutual acquaintance knowing I had a cat with a bovine sarcoid was not so lucky. Her cat was put through $urgery after $urgery and everyone was stumped by the lesion/lump/thing (they are not normal looking sarcoids) growing back more aggressively each time. Anyway, we hooked up and her vet talked to my vet and both our vets talked to her local pharmacist (who was a tool about it) and long story short, cat is fine.
I spent a little. She spent thousands. Same country. Same province. 2 small towns not that far apart. 2 different vets. Diagnostics can be hard and weird.
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