I'm not a veterinarian, but my understanding is that in a true azoturia,
moving the horse will make the condition worse instead of better, which
leads me to suspect that a horse that improves with movement is doing
something more along the lines of a major cramp. I agree with Tom that
blood through the muscles is going to improve but in a true tie-up I
would try to use massage rather than making the muscles produce energy.
I'll see if I can find some stuff in my research collections, 'kay?
>
> I think the idea is to find a way to get the horse moving, but that often
> means finding a way to get the muscles out of tetany. The sooner you can get
> circulation moving through these muscles, the less damage is going to be
> done. Too much damage and you get kidney failure, leading to horrific
> founder, followed by death.
>
> >And finally (stab in the dark here) does this alkalosis have any correlation
> to tying up...the person that hyperventilates (alkalosis) needs to breath
> back co2 to balance PH, develops muscle twitching and tremors. Does this
> effect the muscles in the horse the same as a human? What about the panter?
> These questions have plagued me for a long time and sure would like some
> insight.>>
>
> This sounds like an interesting possibility--but the tying up would probably
> occur long before clinical alkalosis. I'm not sure about that, though. Susan?
>
I agree with Tom, that tying up would happen before alkolosis. From the
research I've read, azoturia seems to be related to faulty carbohydrate
metabolism, which is why some horses are more prone to it than others.
Any hot horse can hyperventilate. I would think an alkalotic horse
would/could drive his pH up high even to upset muscle metabolism and
cause some twitchiness, but any horse hot enough to blow that hard, that
long to cause really severe muscle problems like tying up would have
long since dropped dead of heat exhaustion. IMHO, I think the two have
some common factors, but no real causative relationship. However, I
just saw something on tying up in the pile of research articles piled up
(everywhere) in here. I'll see if I can find it again (I'm trying to
get it all into binders, but it's slow going).
Susan