Spinoff thread - stroke in horses

[ljc]

Last night I posted about a seizure/bizarre neuological attack my 26 year-old retired TB gelding was having; This is what I wrote:

Here’s the situation. I have a 26-year-old retired TB hunter who has gradually been showing signs of what I call equine senility (which pretty much describes it all). Sometimes in the morning when I would turn the horses out, he wouldn’t know where to go. Other times he’d “check out” temporarily when doing something basic (like heading to the washrack). His eyes would dull and he temporarily wouldn’t be the goofy TB he’s been. The so-called senility characteristics have worsened the last couple of weeks. He’s still a gorgeous mover and has never shown any signs of stiffness or lameness apart from having a hard time getting up when he rolls (that’s remained constant for the last six years; no better, no worse).

Today something happened. He completely checked out in the middle of the afternoon - didn’t seem to know where he was at all and was disoriented. When I brought the horses in for dinner, he stayed in the field (instead of being mr. boss, first horse in the barn) until I finally got a halter and tried to lead him in. He was staggering and shaking and barely made it in. I initially thought he was colicking (long history of gas colics, always responded to banamine) in a wierd way because he was clearly uncomfortable, so gave him banamine and called the vet. He started twitching and shaking so much I thought he’d fall. He kept acting like he wanted to go down but his legs wouldn’t let him. He had NO idea who I was or where I was - he kept bumping into me and flinging his head around as if something was attacking him. He backed himself into the corner of his stall and stood there shaking. Vet came. Vital signs were good. Lots of gut sounds (plus he pooped in the middle of all of this). He semed to perk up after 30 minutes or so (as if the banamine kicked in) and started nibbling on the pieces of hay left in his feeder (I had taken all his hay out, obviously). Vet started talking about EPM. I kept saying he was acting like he had a stroke or something because it wasn’t just the physical stumbling and shaking; he really was out of it, almost acting blind. (His eyes were fine, according to vet). I suggested poisoning of some sort but he’s in the same field he’s been in for six years and nothing has changed so that seems unlikely. Vet gave him some dex and will be back out in morning. I just went down to check on him (for about the 100th time in the last seven hours; the other horses in barn are wishing I would go away and let them sleep in peace) and he finally seems “normal” - at least he’s no longer cowering in his stall when I come in. I thought he was going to collapse in fright when I tried to blanket him earlier (it’s 30 degrees and he’s bodyclipped).

Fast forward to today. He was fine this morning and has remained fine all day. My gut instinct tells me he had a stroke; his symptoms just aren’t EPM-like enought (validated by posters on my other thread).

I’ve done research about strokes in horses; not a lot out there. A few posters here have made mention about strokes or other types of seizures in their animals. Does anyone have any words of wisdom or advice? I’m in a wait and see mode right now, not knowing what to expect. Thanks.

[hntrjmprpro45]

We have an older mare who has some sort of neurological disease (not EPM- we had that tested). She lacks coordination in her right hind leg and her brain is not sending it the proper messages. Our vet, who is very experienced in this field, thinks it is either a tumor in her spine (which can’t be easily diagnosed) or she has had a stroke. Strokes can happen in other animals just like in people but they aren’t nearly as common. It can be very difficult to diagnose a stroke because you don’t have the same signs as in humans (slurred/inability to speak, problems reading/writing, etc). The main signs you would see would be coordination problems (staggering, weaving, excessive tripping/falling), vision problems (much harder to diagnose vision problems unless they completely lose sight). Not all strokes present all symptoms which also makes them difficult (depends on where in the brain they occur).

As for suggestions on what to do, I would make sure your horse is comfortable (eating, moving, etc) and just see. There is no treatment for strokes and not a lot you can do. If your horse becomes so disoriented/uncoordinated that it can no longer move or be handled safely then it is probably time to put it down. Your horse may deteriorate rapidly or may not seem to get any worse. Our mare still has problems with her hind leg but seems to be getting along just fine in her paddock (its been over 6 months since her suspected stroke). We don’t allow her to be turned out with other horses for fear of her getting knocked down or injured and she is obviously not allowed to be ridden and is only handled by certain people. Just keep a close eye on your horse and keep him happy.

[twofatponies]

see my thread on my mare who had an aneurism (brain bleed) four weeks ago… if you search for “seizure” it’s the one by me…

Given the ongoing problems with your gelding, there could be something more going on - such as a mass in the brain that triggered the bleeding? This was something we were considering when evaluating my mare, but because it came on suddenly and then she recovered fully, we narrowed it down to a bleed in the brain.

During the initial “attack” and for several days after she had strong tremors on the right side of her body (you could see all the muscles contracting and releasing, and at times she could barely keep her feet). Several days she had mental confusion, being unresponsive, walking aimlessly in circles.

Be careful, as you or the horse can be seriously injured when they can’t control their bodies.

(ETA: we gave her four days of DMSO intravenously immediately when the event occurred, and it may be that that helped prevent further damage and aided recovery, as it is a strong anti-inflammatory. As I understand it the bleeding in the brain causes associated swelling which can leave more permanent damage to the brain tissue, so it may be that the treatment helped keep the damage minimal. You could check with your vet about that sort of option.)

[Lori_T]

We had a TB gelding who was diagnosed with lyme disease in 2006. He “recovered” but started having seizures when we started riding him again. Needless to say, we retired him. Then, he would have what I referred to as “mini- strokes”. He would seem very disoriented and confused. They didn’t last long, maybe 20-30 minutes, then he would be fine again. There would also be times he wouldn’t leave his stall…for days. I think the longest was 5 days. Unfortunately, he was euthanized in August of 2008.

[Bogie]

My horse died last year from a stroke.

He had mild neurological signs for about 10 days along with a variety of seemingly unrelated symptoms. First he couldn’t reach down to eat, then he started stretching his neck out and raising his upper lip, then he started becoming uncoordinated in his hind end. He ran a temp throughout. He showed some signs of colicing but was passing manure the whole time.

Eventually he went down and we couldn’t get him up. He was taken by horse ambulance to Tufts and even there they couldn’t find anything particularly wrong with him. Vital signs were pretty good even for a horse that had been down for several hours. Within 12 hours he died.

If he hadn’t died at Tufts I wouldn’t have known what had happened. I was glad to find out because I knew that there was nothing they (or I) could have done. They found a blood clot near his poll during the necropsy. The lead vet there said she’d only seen one other stroke. Her words were that it was really, really bad luck. In my own Vet’s practice only one of the vets had seen a stroke in the last nine years. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information available.

I really hope your horse is doing better.

[ljc]

My gelding continues to act as if nothing ever happened. If I hadn’t sat with him for seven plus hours, I’d be wondering myself if I dreamt the whole thing. Haven’t seen a recurrence of any of what happened two nights ago. He’s trotting and cantering around the field like normal, jumping the little creek beautifully, eating just fine, pooping and peeing just fine. I’ve been monitoring his vital signs - everything is normal.

I guess all I can continue to do is wait to see if it happens again. There were “signs” that afternoon I noticed so I think I’ll get some warning, if it happens the same way.

[Reinger]

Sunday afternoon I trailered my beautiful 21 year old Paint gelding ‘Henry’ and my 10 year old sorrel quarter horse ‘Butternut’. An hour and a half into the trip we stopped for fuel. As always…I checked on the horses. Henry was laying in the trailer. He barely lifted his head. Being out in the country and having no equine vets available we made the decision to get to the barn as fast as possible. This was a 3 hour drive. My vet (Dr. Danny Dutton) drove an hour to come and he did a thorough exam. He determined from responses and lack of responses that Henry had a cerebrovascular accident. He either threw a clot or had a stroke of some kind. Since there was zero chance of recovery from this…euthanasia was administered. This has had to be one of the most gut wrenching things to have happen.