We lost an elderly pony to a strangulating lipoma.
the only thing we’d noticed was that he was having a hard time keeping weight on and the vet recommended a shot of equipoise I think and putting him on pellets. She was an idiot but that is another story. .
We went out to the barn one morning and found him cast his stall. It breaks my heart to think he’d been in pain all night but he had feed left in his pan. We got him up and he ran out the stall door and we found him frantically rolling in the pasture. Our vet couldn’t stabilize him so my husband had to take him to WSU because my two daughters were very ill that day and had to be taken to the doctor.
I’ll never forget that they said the stem of hte thing had wrapped around a section of gut like “spaghetti on a fork” and he had torn the mesentery of the gut. Of course they offered surgery but we declined and when they did necropsy they told us we’d made the right decision.
I just wish I’d know hours earlier to have saved him that agony.
I dont know for sure if my horse had a strangulating lipoma, but it seems likely. He was fine on Sunday afternoon when I saw him. Retired due to lameness, 24 yo, shiny and dappled. Monday morning I got the call that he was down in the pasture (night turnout) He was beat up and had a swollen leg as he obviously had been throwing himself around. Vet found a high pulse due to pain and displacement. She felt he likely had already ruptured his stomach. We put him down ASAP. 
So it might have been a lipoma that started the fatal cascade, but we will never know for sure. It was sudden and brutal.
Thank you - as a Haflinger his breed was certainly in the prone to laying down fat cells group, although he himself was not fat. I am so glad to have heard about it though, because I would have been so baffled when it was happening. And I am so sorry for those who weren’t there - we were very fortunate to be with him when it started and am very thankful for that.
They don’t have to be overweight. None of the older geldings I personally know this happened to, including mine, were overweight, or had ever been overweight.
Fatty tumors are just a common thing in older geldings, like they are common in older dogs. It’s just drawing the short straw when these lipomas become pendulous, and then wrap around something crucial to survival 
Exactly.
Our old gelding was on the thin side and we’d been struggling to keep weight on him.
I just had to put my 37 yr old arabian gelding down because of this. he’d been doing great ate all his senior feed the day before, interested in what grass he could chew in the small pasture mostly spit out, but still could eat some . he would get a little colicky usually resolved on his own. he went down one day and couldn’t get back up, tried and tried, he looked too weak, so called the vet on emergency, he was put down. told me to read about lipomas. said he was dehydrated, no gut sounds, nostrils were red probably from toxin buildup. It just happened so fast. I was stumped because there was a big poop behind him, looked liked he pooped laying down. The grass by his feet was torn up. he was definitely in pain. don’t think I ever cried so hard. There really wasn’t any symptoms that I saw prior, he must have been in some pain though because he had kicked his water tub and broke it couple weeks prior. Other than that when I walked him he trotted up the hill he always drank water and let out some gas. Always put peppermint in his grain which seemed to help. being a senior he really didn’t poop as much, and didn’t drink as much water as he should have. he also had a mitral heart murmur that progressed to a grade 5 that could be heard loudly, but with an elevated heart rate that was probably expected. I would have rather him die suddenly from heart failure than the pain he was going through with this. It was horrible to watch. There is no herbs, or supplements that will dissolve a lipoma and he was too old for surgery.
First off, I am so sorry for your loss. It hurts so much, many hugs to you.
A strangulating lipoma, I have heard referred to as “the well-kept horses disorder”; lipoma simply means ‘fatty tumor’. Horses that are “well kept” are more likely to have body fat, that is all. It does not mean you did anything wrong with your horsekeeping, so please don’t think that.
As to catching it early, if it was possible to ultrasound the entire gut tract? Maybe then it might be seen? But I doubt it.
You’re right, it’s a horrid way to go. I’ve personally known 2 horses very recently who colicked and died because of this. Both were nowhere near the age of yours.
Horses intestinal tracts are so fragile. It doesn’t have to be a very big lipoma, it doesn’t even have to be “in” the actual digestive tract but perhaps on any nearby organ - and maybe it shifts just enough to put pressure on the intestine and “strangle” it. It’s one of those things you can’t predict.
Again, I am so sorry you had to go thru this. Hugs.
Nothing at all except looking back on the last couple of months he got increasingly grumpy and short tempered. Then bam he went down one morning and that was it. He was also in his 30s . We thought he was just being b a grumpy old man, bc he had always been a bit crotchety but looking back we realized he had been more so.
When my then 24 year old gelding colicked and went for surgery we knew he had an impaction (turned out to be a fecalith) but while the surgeon was in there she removed three lipomas that might have caused an issue down the road. He recovered beautifully from that surgery and is doing well now 5 years later but I suspect that at some point this is what will take him. I wish with all my heart that something else becomes an issue prior and I can plan his exit from this earth as I’ve seen a few strangulating lipomas and I will do anything to spare him that level of suffering.
I’ve started to suspect spookiness or wariness in an otherwise willing and good natured horse may be a subtle sign. This is only anecdotal evidence though.
Trust yourself. If/when a horse you suspect may have a lipoma ever leaves feed or hay uneaten, call the vet. If they can’t see the horse within an hour or two at the most, call another, or somehow find a way haul the horse to a vet. Time is absolutely critical.
