Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Finding my horse like that would scare the crap out of me and having the
vet not know what it is...ugh.

This is a wild guess. Stop all processed type feeds and supplements, they
might have a toxin like that stuff from china in the dog food. Check with
the owner of the other horse to see if you were both feeding something
the same.

Another wild guess. One morning my friend found his horse walking
backwards in a circle. He put a halter on to lead the horse out for the
vet and the horse would not go forward. These symptoms are completely
different than yours but the diagnosis for my friends horse was something
I had never heard of. The blood test showed heart worms and why that made
the horse walk only backwards is a mystery. I do not know what the
treatment was but the horse recovered completely.

Good luck because it always helps to have a little.

Don Huston



At 10:08 AM 9/12/2008 Friday, you wrote:

I need some advice.  My 10 year old arab was down this morning, his whole body was quivering. Got him up with lots of encouragement to stay up..  Trailer ride seemed to relax some of the muscles and he wasn't wanting to go down after we got him to the vet clinic.  He still had the shakes so bad that vet couldn't get an accurate heart rate on him.  Gums were gray, temp was good, body very quivery, no appetite, alert, balance seems to be off, reacts normally when hand is brought toward eye.  Those are just random things vet looked at.  Drew blood to screen for west niles.  Horse was vaccinated with 5 way and west nile one week later in late may or early june.  After being at vet clinic for over an hour, receiving an intravenous injection of banamine, and a dose of penicillin he slowly quit quivering and regained some of his pep and personality. (Hubby says that he was not really shaking even before receiving banamine and penvk) We were able to get a resting heart rate of 28 on him then.   We were sent home to follow very basic care instructions.  Feed him 25% his normal amount and watch him, call if quivering returns. 

Vet was very honest, he did not know what was causing the problem, he doubted it was colic, I didn't think it was colic to start with.  Here is my dilemma, we have no idea what is going on and one other horse in the valley showed signs that were very similar over a week ago, she continued to get worse and is being put down this morning, they only did a blood draw for west niles and sent it off yesterday. So if any one has any advice the vet and I are both open to suggestions.  I really don't want to get behind the 8 ball. 

He is currently alert and wanting to eat, bright eyed and seems normal.  Unfortunately the other horse also seemed to come around only to regress and is now down and being put down probably as I am writing this.  Symptoms of that horses first day seem to be very similar.  I just don't want to get behind this and loose him.  Any other blood work we should be doing?  We are going into the weekend.. 

No changes in feed or daily routine, high quality grass hay diet.  No access to weeds or strange plants.  Has not been exposed to any other horses this summer, The rides I wanted to do were canceled, so we have done a few trail rides by ourselves..  No obvious wounds or punctures.. 

If there are spelling errors and this is random, please ignore, it has been a really crappy morning.. My son missed the bus on top of all of this, and I missed my drs appointment.. SIGH!!!!!
Thanks

vickie hogen

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Don Huston
San Diego, CA
donhuston @ cox .net