The vet is coming out Tuesday. I will update the original post after!
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100% agree. I use a Bemer blanket on my horse (who has SI soreness) almost every day and while there is no doubt that she enjoys it in the moment I don’t think it has any lasting effects. And yes they are around $5000 at this point.
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How did it go?
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I have added the update to the original post, I am sorry its so long but I wanted to include all the details because it makes more sense that way in case anyone has had similar experiences.
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Ok so at the risk of being the thread “oddball” I would suggest one added step to your well devised game plan.
Take horse to nearest vet clinic, not have vet come to you, draw blood and do a spinal tap. Have vet send both to Equine Diagnostic Services in Lexington, Ky for testing. Ask for the ratios between blood and spinal levels to be done.
THIS is now the best way to figure out if a horse has EPM and if it needs treatment or not.
See link here to article that is SO well written and includes commentary WITH videos from some of the best vets in the country.
The explanation about the paired testing of Blood and Spinal Tap fluid is described about 60% of the way down the article in a video clip with Dr. Amy Johnson, our Equine Neurologist at New Bolton Center. (And full disclosure… I am her admin assistant)
I have heard of and seen MANY people who treated (and spent the money on lots of EPM meds) and then the horse’s turned out not to have EPM.
As such my own reaction now to friends and social media acquaintances is to suggest to get both blood and spinal fluid drawn and compared by a knowledgeable vet before chunking down the money for extended treatments.
I am in no way suggesting that your horse doesn’t have EPM, only that more knowledge is better than less. Same way I suggest a neuro exam for a horse with behavior issues before sending it to a pro trainer or cowboy for a month.
You learn from what you are faced with. And I have seen a LOT now.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Emily
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My opinion - INJECT HIS HOCKS. If he is having lameness issues and there are clinical signs of fusion on the xrays, inject them. It is the best way to reduce the inflammation (and pain) that fusion causes. My Red has had very advanced fusion from a young age, that actually took us a while to diagnose because he flexes perfectly fine. Vet and I were shocked when we finally opted to do xrays. Got him injected and he was a completely different horse for the issues I was having with his back end.
I think injections need to be treated with respect and I don’t willy nilly go injecting things. But if there are diagnostic signs (like xrays) and an obvious performance issues, then they can be very valuable. I inject my horses when they need it. And don’t when they don’t.
Second thing - what have you really done to evaluate the bone chip in his neck? That really concerns me, based on the things you describe. Here’s my experience with neck issues. Last year, I ended up retiring my good horse at the age of 10. (I had owned him since he was 6 months old.) He’d qualified me for the world show in AQHA ranch riding in only 2 shows (our first time going) and also was a very good 1D barrel horse. Then, he started showing issues. At first, thought it was typical barrel horse soreness on the hocks and stifles. Injections helped for a while but they didn’t last as long as they should have. He also started getting pushy on the bit, which was not like him. It took a long time to figure out as these things presented but untimately we figured out that the vertebra in his neck were crooked, and had been since birth. And it was most likely compressing his spinal cord. THIS was the reason for his hind end lameness, and the problems that had been occurring.
So, let’s just say I am really anal about neck problems now, LOL. Fortunately, my lovely horse was the kind that anyone could ride and he could sit for any amount of time, so he is enjoying a new life with a lovely family as a leisure trail riding horse.
So for all these SI issues you are suspecting, it really, really makes me wonder about the bone chip in his neck. Is it bothering him? I would strongly question that. My horse went 8-9 years before it started to actually bother him. Could this be the case for yours? Thoughts to ponder.
But to circle back to your question about PEMF. I think part of the problem is that you don’t have your horse’s problem nailed down on EXACTLY what his issue is. So it may be hard to judge on how well PEMF will work. Like anything else, it has its place. I truly believe it helped my horse Red’s tendon injury finish healing in his front foot. We’d gotten about 50% healed in a year and quite amazingly, it healed the rest of the way in about 2 months. The only thing I did different was go to a gal for 3 PEMF treatments.
Know that PEMF is intended to work best with regular use. So if you are going to do the treatments, I say, do a lot of them. If you go to someone else, make sure they know what they are doing. On some of the machines out there, you can harm the horse if you do not know what you are doing with the different levels. I went to someone that had a very expensive large medical grade PEMF machine, and she knew how to run it.
I have been impressed with PEMF as I think it also helped my new horse Lilly get over some minor soreness in her hocks and stifles when I purchased her. I decided to purchase my own system last fall, so I am excited to see how she does with consistent use over the competition season. I went with Respond Systems b/c I can treat the whole body without having to stand there holding coils, and it’s “dummy proof” in that I cannot harm my horse by running anything too high.
I did PEMF for my horse with the neck issues too, but it didn’t help him as much with his issue. Neck injections also did not help him. So in my experience, it has worked great to heal tendon injury and reduce general soft tissue inflammation.
So do you homework too before you choose on who to go to.
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We discussed doing the spinal tap and having another test done. Besides the invasiveness and added expense of doing the extra procedures, the vet felt confident that they would not assist the process that we were planning on. If nothing has changed at the end of the 30 days on Marquis we will re evaluate. It is a very thorough treatment and the best EPM medication as far as I know. I would rather treat him then allow symptoms to become worse or permanent. EPM can be a downhill slope very quickly and I want to prevent that.
We did discuss injections for his hocks but she said at this point it would not matter. He trotted and flexed clear and sound with no issues. His x-rays from about 9 months ago show his hocks and it is so small and they are never inflamed. Perhaps when we get him back up jumping and competing we will revisit it but as of now it is irrelevant for him. She also mentioned that his bone chip in his neck potentially was causing his back issues but she felt confident that the problem was more underlying. We will see how he gets on for the next two weeks and reconvene based on what we find and how he has developed.
Maybe something is getting lost in translation but I’m a lot less “oh this is probably fine” about a horse that fails neurological tests (if I’m understanding that to be what happened) and has a known chip in his neck then your vet appears to be? A horse that fails neurological tests is very concerning in my book. Or am I misunderstanding that part?
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I must not have conveyed it well. She was not “oh this is probably fine” she was ok, he has decreased flexibility on one side of his neck, he has a known bone chip, this could potentially be the problem however, the bone chip does not grow nor does it actively attack the nervous system like EPM does in a progressive way. We chose to go the EPM route first because it is by far the most severe and she believes that it is the real underlying problem. If the treatment resolves nothing, then we go back to the drawing board having eliminated the EPM possibility.
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I guess the divergence is that I find any neurological signs pretty darn concerning, especially when these weren’t incidental findings but rather you were VERY WORRIED about your horse who is disunited under saddle and has muscle wasting with some known veterinary issues including a chip in the neck. I’m not so much suggesting that the neck chip IS the cause of the issues you’re seeing now but rather I am a lot more concerned about the overall presentation when we add in some issues on neuro tests than you/your vet seem to be. I would be really cautious and careful handling and riding this horse.
Neuro issues can go from bad to worse and can put the handler/rider in some serious danger. Just in the past year we had a horse at the barn with what appeared at first to be fairly mild symptoms and it ended up being career ending. The other one started off as very “innocuous” symptoms and progressed over a matter of just a few months to falling (and nearly hurting the rider) under saddle and then a trip to the clinic ending in euthanasia. I say this not to scare you or be dire but to say: (1) please be careful; and (2) I do not personally love a “experiment and see what works” tact with neuro concerns. With neuro concerns I want to drill down to an answer much faster than when I am chasing more of a musculoskeletal issue.
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I will add that the two horses referenced in my above post were “treated conservatively” first with Marquis. Neither had EPM. Both progressed during the time that Marquis was being tried. One arguably might have had a different outcome had the actual issue been identified earlier (possibly). The other unfortunately had an incurable issue that couldn’t have been resolved.
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I would strongly recommend getting a milogram. (sp?) It will tell you a lot.
I have, unfortunately, have had a lot of horses with neck issues, and it is almost always a very bad thing
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Without getting into the neuro findings, I am curious if there was any discussion about testing for Cushings? He is young for it, but lack of muscle is a common symptom, and sometimes the first noticeable symptom.
I don’t know much about EPM so that may cause a similar muscle loss, but just thinking if you’re already doing a variety of testing it might be useful to at least rule out Cushings.
I do agree that I would be cautious riding this horse until you know more about the neuro findings.
This description could be a lack of coordination due to neuro issues, so be careful. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, but I am glad you have a good vet who wants to find answers.
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Having owned a horse with an OCD chip in his neck (cartilage fragment, not bone chip) and chronic, congenital SI issues, I would 100% investigate this horse’s neck further and I would NOT do PEMF unless it is at a VERY LOW setting (Bemer would probably fit into this as well as the Assisi loop - not a high powered machine like Pulse or MagnaWave, etc.).
It is entirely possible this old defect is now causing his neuro issues, which could lead to the disunited canter and muscle wasting and other neuro defects. Neck and SI issues tend to go hand in hand as well. It really doesn’t matter that he was able to be a performance horse in the past. His history of behavioral problems and now neuro issues is leading me down the road that this is most likely NOT EPM when you have this clear finding in the neck. It may well not have been a problem at some point in the past. Does not mean it’s not a problem now. I have been there (I have plenty of threads over in Horse Care about my experiences).
At the least, I would test for EPM before spending the money on Marquis versus more thorough neck evaluation including ultrasound–I would not necessarily jump to a myelogram right away.
My reason for the comments on PEMF is that I know a horse who was treated with MagnaWave on a high setting who became more neurologic from the treatment. He had a neck fracture as a young horse which healed but over time developed arthritis. He did have some mild neuro deficits at first (became over at the knee in posture), but he was serviceably sound for some years until the untreated developing arthritis caught up to him. While PEMF can be helpful in general (and I did use lower powered equipment on my horse with the neck issue as well as things like electroacupuncture), what it did for this other horse horse with this particular intensity was actually loosen him up so much it destabilized how he had learned to compensate and get by over time, so he was more lame and more neuro doing that treatment.
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The reason the bone chip idea is in the passenger seat. I know his normal behavior and notice when he is acting funny or different to his normal self in a situation. If it clears up with the full treatment, we will know. We aren’t going to do it “conservatively” we are going to go in with intent because its serious and not to be taken lightly. Also as I said, I won’t ride him Tuesday and he is fine but get on Wednesday and he is falling over and can’t walk straight. We got on the issue right away and didn’t wait a few months before it could potentially get really bad. My horse is very much even and when out in the paddock does not exhibit strange signs of neuro issues. If he does have EPM it is beginning stages and its is good to nip it in the bud then wait for more conclusive evidence. I hope I am not coming across like we are trying this and that without due consideration. Believe me I am skeptical of anything that goes into the system. If anything changes I will come back and keep updating this because I think it is helpful for others and interesting as well.
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I read everything you wrote. I’m just way more concerned about this particular set of facts in combination than you are! I think, actually, you’re not understanding what I’ve written.
EPM is not the only explanation for neuro issues. I wasn’t suggesting you were being too slow to act, just that going down the EPM alley without investigating further could come back to haunt you and/or hurt you.
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Ya originally I was thinking PEMF because at that point we thought the issue was just muscle soreness and tightness along his back and slight inflammation numbers on a blood test. The wasting muscle I believe was die to lack of nutrition for the past 9 months. After the next two weeks we will revaluate and if at that mid treatment mark if nothing is happening we will finish the Marquis but then look into his neck chip. I will keep this thread updated as we go.
Muscle wasting and thin are not the same thing. I would expect a starved horse to be thin. But that’s different than muscle wasting.
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Am I reading this correctly that sometimes you get on this horse and he is falling over and can’t walk straight? THAT IS REALLY NEUROLOGICAL AND DANGEROUS FOR YOU!
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