I was watching your latest videos and thinking “am I stupid? I see nothing wrong here”… Glad I’m not the only one not seeing anything… He is stunning and really cute, BTW
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Aww. What a sweetheart. You’re a lucky girl!
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Some small updates!
Bad news first: I had to reschedule my New Bolton appt because after a damn month my truck still isn’t fixed. The shop only just ordered the hood latch yesterday (???) even though the adjuster and I discussed it in our first conversation. The silver lining is that someone whose horse is in much greater need of an appointment than Petey will go earlier, and we’ll take their spot in Feb with our less urgent need.
Good news next: also after almost a month, Petey’s Vitamin E bloodwork came back and it’s normal!
Then this: he got a trim on Sunday and afterwards I noticed a weird rough spot on the inside of his RH sole that maybe could be an abscess growing out? When he first went lame my coach thought he looked like he didn’t want to weight the inside of the RH and I think some people here made the same observation. So maybe that’s all it was after all! He’s still sound and fabulous. 
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and continued jingles that this was the problem!
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<3
Hope that your answer does indeed lie in that rough spot on the foot!
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I finally have a working truck and an update on Petey! He is at New Bolton. Dr Johnson et al agreed in the exam yesterday that he is mildly neuro, more in the hinds than the fronts and more on soft ground than hard. She said at first she wasn’t sure if he was neuro or just a really fancy mover, but further observation pushed him across the line. It’s pretty subtle though. I think where I see it most myself is in backing up, which is of course the one thing I forgot to video and post for you guys.
They did a CT myelogram today and he has no compression—which is good I guess? I honestly wasn’t sure which way to hope on that one. He handled the anesthesia and recovery well, thank goodness. He can come home tomorrow unless something changes.
So, where to go from here… they are testing his CSF for EPM and Lyme but assuming that’s negative, the working diagnosis is either the “better” trajectory of EDM or just idiosyncratic movement. If all goes well and he doesn’t deteriorate, we may never know which. (The better trajectory means: in younger horses with more subtle symptoms and without behavioral changes, they sometimes see a long period of plateau, during which time they can be comfortable and useful. This is as opposed to the worse trajectory in horses 8-10+ years old with performance or behavioral changes, who tend to decline within about 6 months of diagnosis. This is all generalizing and paraphrasing.)
My understanding right now is that he will get repeat neuro evals every 6 months or so and I will stay vigilant for changes/symptoms. They’ll also recommend a rehabilitation protocol. Apparently they see better outcomes, again anecdotally, with EDM horses who stay in work. They said core strength is one of the best ways to improve balance/proprioception and I’m going to ask about the ProSix, SureFoot pads, etc also.
I already supplement Vitamin E for all my horses in winter but they may have recommendations about that depending on his bloodwork, which they repeated. I’m interested to see if it’s different than in Dec before I doubled the IUs. CoQ10 is another supplement protective against oxidative stress.
So…it’s not ideal to have a lovely young neurological horse but for now it seems like I can mostly keep doing what I’m doing, and at least I know to be on alert for symptoms, keep up with EDM research, and do specific fitness work.
Maybe that means the RH lameness was a blessing in disguise? (BTW I now think the rough spot on his hoof was a red herring so the lameness remains a bit of a mystery. He’s been sound though!)
If anyone is interested this is a really good video lecture on EDM from late 2022: https://vimeo.com/749279172. Even having read a lot about it and watched Dr Johnson’s video lecture, I learned quite a few tidbits.
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Well, at least you were on your way to having a clear plan. I know this must be such a whirlwind for you. I really hope that Petey is okay!! And I hope that whatever it is just not progress or at least not quickly at all. I watched the video you shared and it was very informative.
Can I ask what you see when he is backing up?
Continued jingles!!!
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Thanks for sharing Petey’s update. I’m so glad that there is a plan going forward. Petey is certainly getting great care and much love. He is such a wonderful horse and I hope the two of you have many enjoyable years together.
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Sorry that it wasn’t a completely clear bill of health. Fingers crossed that it does not progress any more, and you have many years to enjoy your lovely horse.
Staying vigilant for changes/symptoms sounds like a bit of a nightmare, honestly. I don’t know if you have a plan for staying vigilant for changes but also keeping your sanity? Maybe something like doing a repeat video of certain movements every X months, rather than over analyzing every ride or every wonky step?
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Thank you for the update. I am really sorry to hear you didn’t get a glowing bill of health, but happy to hear that there is no compression on myelogram. It sounds like you guys are doing everything you can.
It sucks not having a definitive diagnosis, but it sounds like you guys have a Definitive Plan. Would it be awful to hope this is all “just” Lyme?? It really does a number on my boy.
I hope you and Petey have better days ahead. 
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Sorry but I LOL’d at this a little because I have horses so I think my sanity is already a lost cause. 
But I do know what you mean. I now have a whole library of videos for future reference. Periodic rechecks, preferably with the same vet every time, should help too.
I think what would be most worrisome would be sudden behavioral changes or performance issues, but then of course I’d need to rule out other causes like ulcers and Lyme and kissing spine and hoof pain and suspensories and the million other things it could be with horses. Sigh…
So, maybe my plan is a lot of denial and a little bit of red wine?
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Okay, good point that none of us are sane. 
But denial and red wine sound like a COTH-approved plan!
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@Libby2563 Did Dr. Johnson say anything about the blood test for EDM now being more reliable? A horse at our barn (with a complicated history and presenting quite symptomatically) just received this terrible diagnosis, with more confidence than I expected. This was from a vet that works very closely with New Bolton (including Dr. Johnson), and suggested the new tests can be fairly reliable, especially in more-than-minorly symptomatic cases, when the “values” (I don’t know exactly what it’s measuring) are far outside the normal range (as was the case with the horse at our barn). Obviously post-mortem is the only definitive test, but any anti-mortem test with decent reliability might be really helpful for these kinds of borderline is-it or is-it-not cases.
Sorry you’re having to deal with this with such a new and lovely young horse 
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Thanks for the sympathy, and sorry to hear about your barnmate’s case! We didn’t discuss the blood marker (pNFH) specifically. His came back negative/normal and my understanding from all the NBC webinars etc is that positive can be meaningful but negative is not, especially when they’re not very symptomatic, so I didn’t ask.
The minor symptoms make it tough because she said he could have neuro degeneration, or he could just be on the klutzy end of the bell curve—and not even the type of klutzy that’s noticeable outside of an expert neuro exam. I’ve been riding him for over a year and he has never once tripped or stumbled. No one who’s seen him go has noticed anything.
So, we won’t be able to tell which category he fits in unless he degrades, ugh. Meanwhile, despite the ambiguity, I’m sure my insurance company will drop him like a hot potato. At least he’s a sweet potato!
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My younger horse was confirmed neurological last fall after going down in the trailer for no reason. I have long wondered about certain behaviours he exhibits being abnormal so it’s nothing new, but now I know.
He does better when in regular work and I’m hoping the trailer incident was largely due to the lack of work (and trailering) through last year. I found Jec Ballou’s book 55 Postural Exercises For Horses and have been doing some of the exercises for a month or so. I’m using ground poles and he’s knocking them a lot less now. Jec has a YouTube channel and demonstrates some exercises. She’s very clear and gets to the point quickly without all the faffing about that moat social media producers seem to adore these days. Most videos were well under five minutes.
I do see a lot more neurological symptoms than I used to, but I’m reasonably sure it’s because I know what they mean. Before I would just dismiss it as just him being a goofy klutzy horse. I actually identified one behaviour that I had never previously considered could be questionable during the neuro exam on the initial walk away from the vet.
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Are you adding any amino acid supplements?
Yes. Mad Barn Amino Trace + at the moment. Once it’s gone I’m going back to MB Three Amigos (just amino acids) and Omneity pellets as the Amino Trace + isn’t particularly palatable to my horses. Neuro horse eats one scoop buried in 2/3 of an 8 quart bucket of soaked alfalfa cubes and Brooks Fit&Fibre (textured), but my older horse really objects to it.
Both horses were happy to eat the Three Amigos and it’s easier to have them eat the same things where possible.
I will say vitamin E did more for my horse than anything else. He had a patch of mud fever 8? years ago that I chased around his cannon for weeks. The vet suggested testing vitamin E, and when it came back low normal then suggested supplementing E to see if it helped.
The mud fever healed with 2000iu/day, but he tested lower on vitamin E six months later. I bumped him up to 3000iu and over the following couple of years a whole host of things improved. And his E tests came back smack in the middle of normal.
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Would you be comfortable sharing this behavior? Thank you.
