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RE: [RC] [RC] RC RC:Thanks Leonard - Nik Isahak Abdullah

Leonard and Dr Heidi DVM ,thanks for the invaluable ,free tuition.Next time I have the spinal reflex urge to shoove in mega doses of EL into my horse's gullet I will think of both of you .Great discussion and Leonard,I may sound inflammatory ,but that is just intentional ,to bring the best "confession" from you .Best regards to you two .
Nik


From: heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: Nik Isahak Abdullah <drnikisahak@xxxxxxxxxxx>
CC: Leonard.Liesens@xxxxxxxxxx, ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [RC] RC RC:Thanks Leonard
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:56:55 -0700

Nik, here are a few points to ponder.
?
1)? A 500 kg horse "contains" about 20 kg of
electrolytes.? Of that, about 40% is calcium, so he contains about
12 kg of of other e-lytes.
?
2)? While the losses in sweat seem like a lot, do the math
sometime on the amount of sodium, potassium, and chloride in
forages.? It is relatively high, and horses that eat the amounts
that our endurance horses ingest far?more e-lytes in?one
day's worth of?hay than the calculated losses on a 100-mile
ride.?
?
3)? The "soup" in the horse's hindgut consists of what he ate
2 days ago--in other words, his gut contains at least two days' worth
of feed.? See point #2.? The hindgut of the properly fed
horse?is a huge electrolyte reserve, as well as a fluid
reserve.
?
4)? As for fluid, an average horse in temperate weather
consumes about 5-10 gallons per day.? )That's a shade less than
20-40 liters for those of you in countries?more progressive than
the US of A who?use the metric system.)? A?lactating
broodmare?on a hot day will drink upwards of 100 gallons per
day.? (For the aforementioned, that's?a bit less than 400
liters.)??Although a horse's stomach only holds about 2
gallons (8 liters, for the aforementioned), water is absorbed so
rapidly that?IF the horse does not have his?cellular
mechanisms?for transporting water across the lining of the stomach
impaired (say, by too many electrolytes), he can often drink up to five
gallons (20 liters, for the English-unit-challenged from more
progressive countries) in one go.? At any rate, replacing fluid
losses on the order that Nik mentions (7.5-10 gallons, for those of you
in the US of A who are metric-challenged) is not a difficult thing for
the horse to do in the course of the ride.
?
Bottom line--the key here is keeping the horse EATING.? If he
eats well, he will generally drink well, which in turn will
sufficiently hydrate the food that he ingests so that he can
benefit.? But really, he is drawing from that great huge vat in
his hindgut, if you have fed him adequately going into the ride--every
volume of "hindgut soup" that he dehydrates into a ball of manure gives
him both e-lytes and fluids.? What he has to do is to keep eating
to keep that all moving, so it doesn't just sit there.
?
Now let's look at the flip side.? Let's pour a bunch of
e-lytes into his stomach.? Critters are tough, and his gut will
try like hell to assimilate the stuff, but he will have to draw fluid
out of the bloodstream (and in turn out of cells) and into the stomach
in order to process that big wad of caustic stuff.? And if you
mess with this mechanism enough, you end up with horses that actually
reverse the direction of the flow of fluid so that it tends to go INTO
the gut from the body instead of into the body from the gut.? This
condition in the upper small intestine is called anterior enteritis, and
it is on the rise in endurance horses in this country.? Left
unrefluxed, this fluid?can actually result in rupture of the
stomach.? (Been a few cases of that in recent years.)? This
is also called "third-spacing" of fluid.?
?
The subject of ulcers has been discussed here, and there is also a
connection there to e-lytes.? Oh, great--you need this horse to
eat, so you stick stuff in his stomach that makes it hurt so that he
doesn't want to eat.
?
I'll add that there are some specific situations where e-lyte
supplementation is necessary and advisable--but?on review of the
amounts of fluids and e-lytes involved in?consumption and loss
(never mind the flip side of what can happen when you give too much),
I?can't think of ANY excuse for giving the big walloping doses
that are currently in vogue?in this sport in the US of A.
?
Kudos to the French for doing their homework--Leonard is right, you
get good performance by first breeding good horses, then raising them
right, and then conditioning them right, feeding them right,?and
putting good riders on them.? E-lytes are not a shortcut to the
end of that formula.
?
Heidi




-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [RC]
RC RC:Thanks Leonard
From: "Nik Isahak Abdullah"
<drnikisahak@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, January 09, 2007 10:47
am
To: heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Leonard.Liesens@xxxxxxxxxx,
ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Heidi ,
? ? ?
?It is interesting that we are divided on as 'simple 'an issue as
EL
on a ride .Make one wonder where the absolute truth is .But let
us reexamine
the facts in an average 160 km ride :
1.Water loss
....average 30 to 40 litres,may be more depending on the heat
of
the day,but not really much more if the humidity is high as well which

put a cap on the sweating mechanism { which also put a cap on the
horse
ability to go at speed on a hot and humid day ,which is
another story and
issue }
2.An average loss of around 300 to 400
grams of salt ,sodium chloride {0.3
to 0.4 kg!} ,45 to 50 grams of
potassium loss and a smaller amount of
magnesium etc etc .
3.The
max one can ever get to replacing sodium chloride loss in those

commercially produced EL gel packs{ 50 ml syringe} is probably less
than
2000 mg or 2 gram if I recall correctly .Even if we were to
correct only a
quarter of the deficit ,we would need 40 shots of
those big ampoules!!!!40
ampoules in ?a horse with varying
degree of dehydration may probably do more
harm than good .Majority
usually dispense with 4 ampoules and if you are
Leonard Liesens
,outside the confine of his CDQ in a foreign land we are
probably
looking at 2 or as he put it ,only one ampoule at the start as a

bad recurring habit .
4.And finally we have the French and the
Belgium teams doing so very well at
top level FEI competitions with
a no EL' policy .Never mind the French ,one
can feel at any one ride
that it is close to a 'national' religion . The
Belgium ,if I get my
facts right has only less than 400 registered riders
and horses and
there are doing so well !I am sure EL is just a minor part of
their
story but they must be in total in the right flight path
.

?Now what would I do on a ride on a hot humid day in
Kuala Lumpur ? The
next time I feel compelled to syringe down a
whole load of nasty ,sharp on
the gastric mucosae EL down my
horse's throat I would think of the French
and Leonard .May be go
more slow on the EL .Concentrate on preempting the
more dreaded
dehydration issue perhaps .

Nik



>From:
heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To:
Leonard.Liesens@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>CC: drnikisahak@xxxxxxxxxxx,
ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: RE: [RC] ? RC RC:Thanks
Leonard
>Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:50:05
-0700
>
>Obviously I have no experience in Malaysia,
either, but to add to
>what Leonard has said
here...
>
>One of our winningest riders here who normally
uses zero
>electrolytes has a "hot and humid" formula that works
for her--and like
>Leonard's suggestion, it is not high in raw
electrolytes. ?She does
>a mixture of about 25% e-lytes and
75% yogurt, and then gives something
>like 2-3 ounces of that
mixture ONCE at the beginning of the ride, and
>then no
more.
>
>One of the very serious repercussions with overuse
of electrolytes
>is that critters (not just horses, but humans,
etc.) will "third-space"
>fluids--in other words, begin to pull
fluid back into the gut to bring
>the concentration of the
e-lytes there back to normal when they can't
>transport the
e-lytes across the gut wall fast enough or when
the
>concentration is already high in the fluids in the
bloodstream and the
>cells due to dehydration. ?This even
more rapidly dehydrates the
>critter. ?I keep thinking about
Bev Gray's horse in Dubai having
>seizures on the overly
aggressive e-lyte doses that were more or less
>forced on the
horses by the leadership of the squad that
year...
>
>Heidi
>
>
>
>
>
>With
El, I just don't know what would be the best in
>Malaysia. Just
guessing and giving an answer would be ridiculous. You
>guys
there should try to launch some tests.
>
>Example :
weighting
>horses before and after events (80 or
120K)
>trying a few without EL
>and the others with El (but
please calculate the total amount
>administered otherwise simply
saying that you give EL make no sense if
>the horse receives just
lets say 3 doses of P&W for the whole
>race).
>trying
isotonic EL (in the drinking water)
>callculating
>the
quantity drank by the horse (not that difficult, counting
the
>number of movments of the (sorry forgot the english name),
but you
>understand what I mean.
>
>I can just tell
that our horse at the
>Terengganu rides didn't receive very much
of EL, not the huge amounts
>that I sometimes see administered in
the US. They got the Foran Refuel
>that I think (I have to check)
is very low in terms of
raw
>EL.
>

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RE: [RC] [RC] RC RC:Thanks Leonard, heidi