Just looking for an update…
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Tonight’s update… He is picking his head all the way up and looking around, still head shaking, still acting very annoyed, spooky and stand offish, will not come up to be petted and refuses to go in his run in. He is still eating, but won’t take food out your hand anymore. He is back at the water trough and did lay down again for a nap and got himself back up with no issue.
Meet with vet again to get more meds, blood work starts to come back in tomorrow am. Fecal clear, his worm load is very low, so that is good. Third dose of Dex, SMZs and just " care". So I don’t think we require another all nighter and maybe tonight I can sleep a bit. Being at work today was a total drag, but hubby works from home so at least he is being supervised. To add insult to injury I left the vets office with the dex (getting hard to obtain due to Covid according to my vet) and the bag slipped, I grabbed at it and dropped my phone, lifeproof my butt, (asphalt =1 phone screen =0.) The cherry to my crap cake sundae of a day. I loved my Note 9…Hopefully I will love my Note 20 :ambivalence:
Thanks for the Jingles!
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Lots of jingles!
P.
Poor boy. It sounds like he’s fighting to get better. Prayers.
This part makes me wonder (again/still) if he was bit by something or attacked by bees or … that type of thing in his run in.
Still jingling!
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Me, too.
I do believe life proof has some guarantee…
Jingling for answers and for your boy to be healthy again.
Best wishes x 10,000. What a mysterious bunch of symptoms!
Okay, news from the bloodwork. Low platelet count? With no bleeding? He is doing better, holding head normally, grazing some and he spent a couple hours out with his friends. Then when they were coming in for dinner he had another spinning episode, almost fell, came up lame, limping and stood frozen for a few minutes with head in the dirt. I am starting to think EPM again, only EPM has symptoms this weird. He is also still running from us. He was happy to be with his buds. But when his bestie tried get close. He ran from him. I basically have to corner him and when I touch him he acts like it hurts…
Is low platelet caused by EPM or by the Marquis? I cannot get a good answer…
We have a plant here, loco weed, that has an alkaloid that affects their liver and that causes neurological symptoms, similar to what you describe.
Here our veterinarians would try to rule that out with those symptoms in a case:
https://csuvth.colostate.edu/poisonous_plants/Plants/Details/12
If a horse or cattle keep eating those, they get worse and act blind at times, won’t let you get close and can become aggressive.
Since they are uncoordinated, if they run at you, generally you can side step them and get away before they get you, but it gets scary.
Not sure you have those where you are, or your hay may have some of that or similar?
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Bluey- No locoweed here. Plus all the my dry lots/pasture are mowed to less than 8 inches. The only thing we have found was kudzu, dog fennel, dandelion and crab grass. I know I out his symptoms in and Lockheed pops up. THANKS!
Platelets are the clotting cells aren’t they? Could he have gotten into rat poison? Or something else that acts as a blood thinner?
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Yes, that’s it, his blood did clot fine in the vial, but yes. The only rat poison I use is Rat x, the pet safe gluten stuff. Dogs and cats around. No other poisons and I have not even sprayed any weed inhibitor this year. I have just been mowing and weed eating…
How old your horse? Has anyone done an abdominal ultrasound?
He is 14, we have not done abdominal ultrasound. Not indicated as stool sample showed no blood and urine is clear according to my vet. No idea what it is, but it seems like a toxin or EPM. It is just wait and see…so frustrating!
At that age and grey, I would not dismiss some melanoma somewhere as a possibility.
We had a grey 17 year old broodmare that didn’t have any tumors anywhere we could see, come up one day from the pasture with a broken shoulder.
No sign anywhere of trauma, no scuffed spots, no kicks or bite marks.
On examination, vet said there was a melanoma right behind the break that may have damaged that part enough to just break on a bad step.
Probably not your horse’s situation, but melanomas is something we always keep in mind on older grey horses.
Whatever is making him sick, hopefully he will soon be back to normal.
So sad when one is not well and can’t tell you where it hurts, as you say.:no:
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Splenic issues, such as cancer can lead to low platelet counts. Also, if I remember correctly, exertion or excitement can lead to artificially elevated RBC count. It sounds like it took some work to catch and pull blood from him. It he has one tumor, he may have others, which could explain the neuro symptoms. The spleen is relatively easy to image. Easier than a head CT at least.
Further more, issues with the spleen (or many other organs) would leave no trace of blood in urine or manure.
Idk, sounds like tumors or EEE. For whatever it’s worth, I have lived in areas of high incidence of EPM my whole life and have never seen one act like that with EPM. EEE on the other hand, I have seen one similar to that. Only she became aggressive instead of trying to avoid contact.
We had a horse, when WNV first hit here, come down and die with it before the vet could get there, from hitting a wall while acting crazy and stumbling around in the little pen by the office they put him in when first noticed not eating, as they were waiting for the vet.
He acted a bit like this horse, except for what they said when they called me, I was heading there also when he passed away and I was called back not to come, it was over, not sure anyone could have done much, not even the vet, as he was dangerous to himself and others.
Vet got there and took blood samples to confirm what he suspected and it was WNV.
Horse had been vaccinated, but not long enough to mount an immune response when infected.:no:
I think any kind of encephalitis would by now be showing way more symptoms, even a mild case?
You may be right. I’ve only known 3. Two with WN, one with EEE. One with West Nile was never as severe as it could have been and is alive and well now (unvaccinated at the time). One was recumbent for two days before being pts. EEE was alive and aggressive while getting supportive care at the clinic for two or three days before being pts.
