Exactly. I think we can all benefit from those findings, even if we don’t have the same scenario currently. I always want to learn. I have a horse who used to have bi-weekly gas colics and it took me a year to get a diagnosis and a treatment that worked. Sharing what we know helps others.
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I think you should be able to ascertain from the replies posted that your information posted here would be appreciated by the community.
@JB I don’t see OP asking for PMs, OTOH, I don’t see why the resolution wasn’t just posted. 
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I guess I see “reach out” as “send me a message” LOL
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Count me in as someone who would love to learn more! Thank you!!!
Just spill it here for all of us who have a general interest, regardless of having any skin in the particular “game”.
Exactly
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Reads like bait for a MAJIKAL cure 
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Wow - sorry that so many are waiting for a sales product to be unveiled … and I had zero idea people wanted the whole story but here it is (well most of it).
Horse has been battling ulcers for 3.5 years; tried feed changes, constant tweaking on and off ulcerguard, ordered supplements from around the world - nothing worked for long. Multiple gastroscopies did show initial healing with full dose of UG and misoprostol over 4 months. And then they returned. This was the way it went for a very long time.
Evidence of discomfort showed up in persistent, unrelenting grinding after 10 minutes of riding, and back muscles basically tight, frozen in place and not using topline for work.
Fast forward 3-ish years, and grinding still not resolved. Horse feels remarkably uncomfortable, and more like a bag of parts than using himself correctly. Was basically trying every once in a while to ride, but it was awful for both of us.
Then, one day his manure starts looking weird - like big puffy dinner rolls, with an oddly sweet smell. Initially, no concern from vets. The manure weirdness continues for another month, he got a vaccine, and by the next day was having severe gas colic. Shipped to New Bolton, he resolved overnight on fluids and pain meds. Kept him for observation - seemed fine and came home after 3 days.
Within a week had coliced again - back to New Bolton. Again, resolved with fluids and pain meds. Manure still weird.
Received another routine vaccination after 3-4 weeks - within 24 hours coliced again, and back to New Bolton. Again, resolved with fluids and pain meds.
Everyone involved gets on a conference call, decides if he colics again, they will keep for extended period of time. He colics within another week, goes back, stays at NBC for 2 weeks, gets fecal matter transplant every day, continues to have mini colics every single day, multiple times day and night, and it takes 2 weeks before he stops those. He comes home. NBC wanted to do exploratory surgery at this point, but I could not agree.
6 weeks or so goes by, colics again. This time, had vaccine 2 days earlier. Goes to NBC, resolves. Had a long discussion about whether if it was exploratory surgery time, it would probably be a sterile autopsy since nothing seems obvious after 12 gastroscopies, abdominal ultrasounds, biopsies, etc. I still cannot agree.
Maybe another 4 weeks go by, colics again. This time, I’m not shipping - the outlay of $$ has been over $40k at this point - months back he was put on bethanachol and misoprostol daily and that cost a fortune and added quickly to the total. I’d have to pull out the calendar for the past year, but I’m pretty sure we shipped to NBC at least 6 times, for stays ranging from 3-14 days.
New internist gets on a conference call about what’s been going on for past 10 months. We set appointment for her to come check stomach and digestive health. Because he’s lost so much weight through this ordeal, we test his blood and insulin levels and decide that there’s no risk in using dex and prednisolone - he would probably be euthanized if we couldn’t get colic under control. He starts on a massive dose, twice per day. Try after 7 days to reduce to once a day, colics again but resolves within 24 hours. We go back to twice a day, and after that, he continued to visibly improve - manure also began to look normal after many months.
At the first appointment, internist uses ultrasound and sees thickening and inflammation at various places in small intestine and colon. Pulls stomach fluid and tests for pH - it was nearly 5 and should have been between 1-2. Sends sample to lab and he has heavy overgrowth of pseudomonas, acinotobacter, serratia marscensens, and rhodococcus. That’s some nasty stuff that has gotten out of control due, vets believe, to imbalance in stomach acid. I do not know much about these bacteria, but I work with many people in science and when I say “pseudomonas” they are all shocked.
As soon as results are available, he goes on 21 days of enrofloxacin. Within 5 days, the change is beyond remarkable. He is using his whole body when he moves, he is happy, his eye is bright, and it was a complete game changer. Re-tested at 21 days, and only light overgrowth of pseudomonas remained, so back on enrofloxacin for 2 more weeks. He starts to feel as amazing as he did when he was five. Ultrasound indicate no areas of inflammation or thickening where it was present before, and stomach is now gorgeous - all ulcery red spots have disappeared, and for the first time ever on gastroscopy, he has the healthy stringy mucous.
So, no - no miracle cure. Just a vet who was dogged in her need to understand the whole digestive process. The working theory is that the dysfunction in the stomach caused improperly digested food to get pushed through the small intestine and to colon, where gas resulted and caused excruciating pain.
Oh also - for the first time in nearly 4 years he doesn’t grind, is super willing to take contact, and is re-building the kind of muscle a 10 year old should have. And, fwiw, his manure is perfect and gorgeous.
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Wrong guess!
Nope.
Not a guess so much as a personal opinion of what it sounded like. Glad you posted the story.
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Wow!
I think I remember you discussing transfaunation on a different thread; did you end up doing this procedure as well as the enrofloxacin?
Glad he is doing so well.
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Yep, 14 days of fecal transplant, with dozens of manure samples tested … but never did get the results of the manure testing, unfortunately. He also was always re-dosed when he went back through the spring and summer.
It didn’t make any obvious difference - although I was happy to try anything at that point.
I did submit manure samples pre/post enrofloxacin, and that should show up in a study from UGA. I also have (if you can believe it) a freezer filled with manure samples from when this started - sort of regularly saved but also every time he coliced.
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I’m sorry it didn’t make a difference. With what was going on, I guess in hindsight it makes sense. What a whirlwind you went through. I hope this helps other posters who are dealing with similar issues.
Did the vets have any idea how the stomach acid imbalance originally transpired? Ulcers?
I’ve never, luckily, had to test for stomach fluid pH. Is that something that could be done on a routine scope, I wonder?
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It doesn’t seem to be the SOP to look at pH or bacteria - though that may be changing. As I understand it, lots of new science is pointing to this as something to consider, and it’s easy enough to pull during a gastroscopy. She just took some fluid, and had some way to measure pH right at the farm, and that took all of 60 seconds.
No one seems to be able to create a hypothesis that covers the grinding for years, and then the bacterial overgrowth. It seems pretty chicken-egg.
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That actually makes a lot of sense. The GI tract is incredibly complicated and there is a great deal that we don’t understand.
I ate some chinese rice and ended up with food poisoning except the symptoms wouldn’t go away. Then was diagnosed with gastroparesis. Further testing showed my entire GI tract had slowed down. Then I had repeated episodes of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. I was treated with antibiotics every 2 months or so, on going for a couple years. This was not working and I became worse every time I was on antibiotics, better when I came off the antibiotics, then worse again when the bacterial overgrowth returned.
Then I developed C. Diff. colitis. Best bet is I picked it up at the dentists office? At least that was my guess. That turned into a 2 year battle. They would treat the C. Diff with antibiotics, I would recover and then 4-6 weeks later, I would relapse. Then they would pick a different antibiotic, and repeat. The insurance would only cover 1 course of the antibiotic that actually worked the best. Then you had to start over with a different antibiotic… My personal opinion was that a double course (28 days) of antibiotics would probably have beat it, but insurance wouldn’t approve that. (Total cost the insurance paid was $40,000 just for antibiotics). Anyway, I finally had a fecal transplant and that took care of the C. Diff.
After that, they recommended not taking any antibiotics at all to avoid having the C. Diff return. The last few years, I have avoided all antibiotics and take peppermint oil to help control the bacterial overgrowth. I’m fairly certain I still have bacterial overgrowth or bacterial dysbiosis and probably always will have that to some extent.
Now back to horses… If you are treating for gastric ulcers, you are reducing/eliminating stomach acid. Without stomach acid, any bacteria that is ingested can start growing in places it shouldn’t be growing. Use of PPI drugs increases the risk for both C. Diff colitis and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in people, so it makes sense that it can cause issues in horses.
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That’s incredible! Thanks for sharing all that.
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Thank you for the explanation. 
You can bet every COTHer with a mystery colic will check back for this thread & hopefully glean something from it.
Meanwhile, glad your horse recovered.
It’s so hard knowing they’re in pain & being helpless to end it.
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What a fantastic update, congratulations for following through until you found a resolution!
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I was fortunate with a recent challenging colic that my clinic did pull pH and test stomach fluid when things didn’t resolve and there was no obvious cause for the continuing symptoms. They were able to do it via a routine scope while we were exploring potential causes. The pH was way off and they found bacterial issues which all also inflamed the bile duct (liver enzymes were also screwed up).
It didn’t really tell us the initial cause but was valuable in determining a treatment plan and giving us diagnostic markers. We re-scoped and pulled pH and fluid again about a week later as the final symptoms were resolving and it helped reassure that we were on the right track.
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