<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 wasnāt sure if he was neuro or just a really fancy mover, but further observation pushed him across the line. Itās 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 compressionāwhich is good I guess? I honestly wasnāt 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 hereā¦ they are testing his CSF for EPM and Lyme but assuming thatās negative, the working diagnosis is either the ābetterā trajectory of EDM or just idiosyncratic movement. If all goes well and he doesnāt 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. Theyāll 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 Iām 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. Iām interested to see if itās different than in Dec before I doubled the IUs. CoQ10 is another supplement protective against oxidative stress.
Soā¦itās not ideal to have a lovely young neurological horse but for now it seems like I can mostly keep doing what Iām 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. Heās 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 Johnsonās 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 Peteyās update. Iām 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 wasnāt 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 donāt 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 didnāt 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 ājustā 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 LOLād 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 Iād 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. Sighā¦
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 āvaluesā (I donāt know exactly what itās 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 youāre 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 barnmateās case! We didnāt 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 theyāre not very symptomatic, so I didnāt 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 curveāand not even the type of klutzy thatās noticeable outside of an expert neuro exam. Iāve been riding him for over a year and he has never once tripped or stumbled. No one whoās seen him go has noticed anything.
So, we wonāt be able to tell which category he fits in unless he degrades, ugh. Meanwhile, despite the ambiguity, Iām sure my insurance company will drop him like a hot potato. At least heās 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 itās nothing new, but now I know.
He does better when in regular work and Iām hoping the trailer incident was largely due to the lack of work (and trailering) through last year. I found Jec Ballouās book 55 Postural Exercises For Horses and have been doing some of the exercises for a month or so. Iām using ground poles and heās knocking them a lot less now. Jec has a YouTube channel and demonstrates some exercises. Sheās 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 Iām reasonably sure itās 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 itās gone Iām going back to MB Three Amigos (just amino acids) and Omneity pellets as the Amino Trace + isnāt 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 itās 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.
Quoting your story because this thread has opened my eyes to how many seemingly normal, dismissible tendencies are actually symptoms of neurologic disease.
Because of @Libby2563ās story, Iāve been watching a lot of videos of neurologic exams. As I watch them, all I can think about are the multitude of horses I have seen display the same pathologies over my lifetime. Yet these horses stayed safely and soundly in work for many years without issue, doing things like jumping, showing, racing, trail riding, etc.
It has me wondering what it all means. My takeaway is many horses are low grade neuro; far more than I would have ever suspected. But my anecdotal evidence is that a horse with a low grade neuro diagnosis can have a riding career and a long life without hazzard or worsening symptoms. Yet Iām wondering if thatās a dangerous conclusion to draw.
Bottom line: what do we do with this information?
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I vetted a horse a few years ago who showed repeatable neurological symptoms. I walked away but kept an eye on the horse as I really liked him. He did eventually sell to someone else and appears to be having a successful competition career with good scores. I am very happy for them and hope the same for you, OP.
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Dr. Johnson is awesome! Sorry you have the āmaybe EDMā diagnosisā¦I put my 5yo down 2 years ago yesterday due to EDM. I will say that if you have the behavioral changes start, they can be pretty drastic and escalate pretty quickly. With my guy I would say the first few months were kind of āoh heās hitting that 5 yo warmblood and feeling fresh stageāā¦after a few more months, it was clearly āsomething is really wrong.ā So, we had a few months were the behavior was questionableā¦and then declined so much there was zero question something was very wrong. Hoping you donāt go down that road.
@Feathered_Feet the pNF-H test is usually very reliable if it comes back positive. However, it is not very reliable when it comes back negative. Generally if you get a positive test, it is accurate. But you can get a negative test and still have EDM (as my gelding did).
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This is something Iāve obviously been thinking about a lot too, including while Petey and I did his exercises (which Iāll post separately in case anyone is interested). One of them is to hold up each leg for 30 seconds at a time, to improve core strength and balance. Well, that wasnāt challenging enough for Petey, who while he was standing on three legs was also swinging his head around to say hello to me, reaching out/down/left/right for nibbles of grass, and at one point stepping his front feet around in a quarter turn while pivoting on a hind leg in order to reach a pine needle he thought might be tasty. It wasnāt ideal from a safety or manners perspective, but it was still pretty impressive. This horse clearly does not have a problem with balance! 
I think I posted on the āGerman vetā thread that Dr. Johnson told me she has a patient with comparable neuro symptoms to Petey who has placed in the top 10 at not-Rolex! She also said that coordination, like many things, exists on a bell curve and some horses are naturally at the less-coordinated end of the bell curve but donāt necessarily have a diagnosable or degenerative neuro condition. They graded Petey 1-1.5 in front and 1.5-2 in the hinds. If thatās so relatively uncompromised that a horse can succeed in 5-star eventing and/or just be mistaken for maybe a little bit clumsy (by a neurologistānot even by any mere mortal whoās seen or handled him), is it really pathological? Or is that the denial talking?
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