I would second this- I have never seen it as a formal diagnosis but I have seen many older horses who start to have painful episodes where they just can’t swallow and digest food like they used to, and a soaked complete feed gave them time with good quality of life.
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So I should probably ask for a copy of the biopsy report to have a look at it myself? Or perhaps have my local vet take a look? I guess I’m unsure what eosinophils cells are. I’m so glad your horse is recovering. I now know the stress and anxiety frequent colic episodes can cause a owner, not to mention pain for the horse.
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This is good to know. He has all but one of his molars. However they are worn down a decent amount. He is eating hay and finishing it, but I notice the chewing isn’t the best. Pelleted and Cubed hay is pretty expensive to be fed alone in large amounts. Is there such a thing as chopping your own hay? Does that work too?
They are like a white blood cell - they show up when there is infection, inflammation, etc. Their presence is not necessarily indicative, but with presenting symptoms of IBD/colitis it makes sense to consider them a response to something.
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I got OSU to send me the histology report. Here is a copy/paste of the report findings on his paperwork.
“ Histopathology revealed multifocal mild neutrophilic infiltration in the rectal lamina propria. There was also a moderate number of eosinophils but according to Rocchigiani et al. (Rocchigiani G, Ricci E, Navarro MA, Samol MA, Uzal FA. Leukocyte numbers and intestinal mucosal morphometrics in horses with no clinical intestinal disease. Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation. 2022;34(3):389-395.), it is considered within the subclinical limit. Given the presence of a mild neutrophilic component, these findings need to be correlated to previous clinical history (i.e. trauma or ulcer).”
He is on Santa Cruz Omega 3 oil now, the weight gain and overall bloom has been incredible. He hasn’t had a colic episode in four weeks today (I’d be lying if I said I don’t still check him frequently 
lol). He occasionally has some “fecal water” pass between nicely formed apples. today I noticed some looser stool, his manure has been great up until then Not every poop, but occasionally it shows up. Anything else I should be doing? I thought of trying the Gas X as well.
I’m glad he’s doing better and putting on some weight. That’s great news!
In response to the histology report, I do think the findings of eosinophils are correlated to clinical history of persistent, recurring colic. If he colics again, and I sure hope he does not, I would look towards treatment options like steroids.
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I was about to search for the thread, thank you @wsmoak!!!
I still have the blower mulcher, and worx has some black friday deals right now!
Worx blower mulcher. It comes with a cloth drawstringed cover for a garbage can for mulching leaves. I put that over a clean muck tub and chop about two flakes slowly, otherwise it gets stuck and bogged down and stops working. Clearing it out is a PITA! And then I dump the whole thing out and do it one more time. Both sides of the muck tub handles are clipped in the stall to each end of a corner so he cannot tip it. Usually he eats the whole muck tub in a couple days besides his regular hay. If i really want to make him eat it, I dump his senior feed over it and he snuffles thru the chopped stuff and gets some of it in each bite as he eats the senior.
String trimmers like the one mentioned above scare me bc if the string has to be replaced that means it is going into the chopped hay. Theres a video about it somewhere on the internet. That is what made me go with a blower mulcher with metal blades.
Just now seeing this but sucralfate tablets dissolve super fast in warm water (and pretty darn fast in cold). But whole tablets. I agree that it’s not as good if you grind them first. Which is weird. But I just make a slurry with whole tablets then mix in a little grain or hay pellets or beet pulp or something.
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That is so interesting. I never tried to just dissolve them - and grinding them made a ‘difficult’ slurry at best, even with oil. Thanks for posting this.
This has been my experience as well.
Definitely don’t let them touch oil until dissolved. No idea why they dissolve whole but not ground, but with warm water, whole tablets dissolve in seconds. Found all this out with trial and error myself.
This is kind of a weird question. I’ve noticed for the past week or so…. Loud, gurgle type gut sounds. You can hear them standing beside him, no need to put your ear to his side. Sometimes they are more quiet than other times, but generally pretty much a noisy gurgle. There is no diarrhea or cow patty manure. Mostly normal. The only thing I’ve noticed with manure is he has frequent smaller piles rather than larger piles less frequently. He’s still eating good. Drinking well. Seems pretty happy. After the initial weight gain, I noticed it’s slowed down now. He looks pretty good, but I’d like to see some more weight yet. Anyways, back to the question. Are those gut sounds “normal”?
They can be. You might see if things change if you give him simethicone. i used extra strength GasX gel caps, 1 for each 100 pounds, 2x per day.
Hey can you tell me what your horse was treated with. I feel like my horse is currently going through this.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Have you done any diagnostics?
What we found in a gastroscopy was that his stomach fluid was at the wrong pH level after fasting, bad bacteria was present, and all of that was contributing to food not being digested correctly and then sitting in intestines, creating extreme inflammation visible through ultrasound. Biopsies also showed markers for inflammation.
First treated to heal stomach with enrofloxacin to kill bad bacteria, and also used a GIANT dose of steroids twice a day - it took at least a month before he looked like he was not going to die. In that time he did continue to colic. But, after that, things moved along well. It took quite some time before I was completely comfortable getting him off all steroids but we tapered very gradually and it’s been about a year. Just had a wellness check and the inflammation at his duodenum went from 8 millimeters to nearly zero.
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Hey there - checking in on your boy. How are things?
Hello. Well, he’s doing just “okay” for an old guy. He’s maintained his weight really well. After treating for ulcers, putting him on a daily probiotic, and basically being on pasture all summer and fall of 2023, he was able to be in what I call “remission”. His manure was at the best I’ve ever seen it in years. He was on pasture all summer and early fall. Once we switched back to hay, things started sliding downhill again. I noticed he would have occasional bouts of fecal water, sometimes loose poop. Then that became more frequent. Now he’s passing mostly soft manure, with lots of fecal water. He hasn’t coliced since all of this began back in October of 2022, and he seems quite comfortable . But he recently had some dental work and needed three teeth pulled. He can no longer eat long stemmed hay, so he’s currently on a diet of chopped hay and soaked hay pellets, both of which he eats well. The diet change just started this past weekend, so he hasn’t been on the chopped hay long. I’ve heard alternative forage like chopped hay, can be really beneficial to the hind gut. So we will see. We are also starting up the Sucralfate again as soon as I get it from the vet. When this all started, OSU diagnosed him with IBS, which may be true. I tend to think he gets Hindgut acidosis, but maybe they are the same thing. Basically I’m going to try to keep him comfortable as long as I can, and if he starts to colic over and over again, or drop weight, I may have to think about quality of life.
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The only thing I can offer is 2 different horses of mine experienced similar re occurring mild colic /going off feed …the first was my 12yr old Dutch mare got very dull, didn’t want to eat after getting routine flu/rhino vaccine and sedation for teeth float -this went on for about 5 days of being dull, decreased appetite and mildly impacted…had vet out multiple times , treated for typical colic impaction …she didn’t worsen but also wasn’t improving either …finally did bloodwork and turns out her kidney values were off the charts…so we took to university hospital where they said she was in acute kidney failure…classic clinical signs are , dull/lethargic , mild colic and decreased appetite …she was as there for about 10 days and has fully recovered -we just can’t give her banamine now or rather would have to really way the options first
Second horse is my 21yr old Tb geld who has Cushings …he mildly started having re occurring colics several times over the course of a month or 2 …turns out he was positive for chronic Lyme
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