Re: Horses Blood Sugar Readings

[Gayle Ecker <gecker@uoguelph.ca>]

On Sun, 15 Mar 1998, DreamWeaver wrote:
> Does anybody know what a normal blood sugar/glucose reading is for an
> endurance horse?  At rest?  During work?  Recovery - post race?  How wide
> is the range of flunctuations?  
> 
> After about 30 pokes, I finally got a whole drop of blood (1!!) to get a
> test strip on my horse.  (he won't be so easy to catch next time, will he?)
> hehe    
> 
> Happy Trails,
> 
> Karen
> in Gardnerville
> & Pin Cushion Weaver ;^)
 
 
Hi Karen,

Thought I would "de-lurk" for this one since I have some data you might be
interested in seeing.  I now have well over 300 endurance horses included
in my database on rides of 40 to 100 miles.  At rest, blood glucose ranged
from 6.0 to 9.1 mmol/L.  
At various points mid-ride the range was 4.3 to 8.8 mmol/L.  At the finish
(different distances) the range was 4.6 to 7.7 and at the one hour
recovery period, 6.0 to 8.9 mmol/L.  The following morning, the ranges
were similar to the pre-ride resting levels.  The lowest value I have seen
was 2 mmol/L (yes, this horse was lucky to survive, some very good vets
aggressively treated the horse immediately) and
the highest value was close to 10 mmol/L.  

Having said all this, defining "normal" is not that easy.  You must develop 
"normals" for the individual horse, keeping track of what the horse ate, when, 
how long the blood sample was sitting before analysis, the speed,
conditions, etc. Some individual horses
have very wide "swings" of glucose levels (ie, high to low values) throughout the
ride and recovery, in some part due to the ride conditions, management,rest
periods, conditioning, type of feed (at the ride and at home) or sugar
content in the electrolyte mix used.  The wide "swings" in glucose levels are 
obviously not desirable in an endurance horse, but are a natural part of the 
physiology. I am not sure what you are working on with the
glucose levels of your own horse, but hopefully this will give you some
information that is useful for background.

Sincerely,
Gayle Ecker