Does anyone know the symptoms for a stroke ( or mini stroke) and seizure in a horse?
IME, there is loss of balance, staggering/tripping, panicking, disorientation. Google also says swollen limbs. A horse at my barn had what the vet assumes was a mini stroke. He was in his stall, and randomly started flipping out. Complete panic. He was slamming into the wall, shaking, and stumbling. When he was lead out he had no coordination, and ran into the handler. The balance issues and coordination issues lasted for about a day.
Search here or google, I found a bunch more info when I googled it!
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Many years ago my mare had a stroke–13 year old OTTB. My first horse–I had owned her about three months. What an intro to horse ownership!
We did not initially realize what was happening–she started with seizures. Would start to tremble, back end would go out, eyes show nystagmus, and she would flip backwards and writhe on the ground. This went on for hours. Vets were giving tranquilizers, anti-inflammatories, anything they could think of. I offered to have her put down, but they said hang in there. Seizures started at every ten minutes, then the time between lengthened, then they stopped. Luckily she was out of her stall when they started, and we were able to get her into the indoor ring.
I spent the night with her, sitting in a chair nearby. It was dark, and when the sun came up, I saw a lateral facial paralysis–ear, eyelid, lip drooping on one side. Other side was fine. Classic stroke picture. She could walk, but off balance.
She was one tough mare. She figured out how to drink by turning her head so the drooping lip was under water. She kept on eating. The symptoms gradually diminished–the facial droop never completely went away but diminished. Balance and coordination improved. I hand walked her, hand trotted her, massaged her, anything I could think of that I thought might help. I got on her six months after the incident. She returned to walk, trot, and canter work even the occasional cross-rail.
Six years after the first stroke, she had a second, a massive one. Nothing could be done, and I had to put her down. But we had a good six years!
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I had an elderly “rescue” mare that had been starved. Sweetest thing to ride but don’t be a horse getting near her food. She came up with an eye abrasion, vet out, treatment, whole bit. She was SO GOOD about letting me medicate. Then we realized she could not feel anything on that side of her face. Thus perhaps scraped her eye. In a short time we saw she could not swallow, so had to euthanize. Such a good girl.
Thank you for your information.
I had an older Morgan horse that had a stroke. I didn’t see the stroke but the above describes what I found in the morning. He was staggering around his stall in a complete panic, unable to go to the right and quite disoriented. At the time I used a one-woman vet practice and she wouldn’t come out right away (I now use a large practice now with great emergency service). My horse acclimated to the issue over a few hours and although he was incapacitated he used the stall wall to help support himself and became more calm. Diagnosis was poor, however, and he was humanely euthanized.
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