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Post by fin on Jul 31, 2008 22:44:40 GMT 1
As most of you have probably know by now, JJ the quarter horse has had a bit of a checkered hisotry in terms of his general health--he's had laminitis, is insulin resistant, and we now suspect that he also has EPSM/PSSM. The insulin resistance has been a tricky one to solve, despite us taking him off grass completely and converting my once large and rather fabulous back garden into a woodchip turnout area and stableyard so we can micromanage his diet. At any rate rather understandably his behaviour has often been somewhat erm.....challenging. He has a head count of small animals, terrified old ladies, has on several occasions been more than willing to put our EP in hospital and has so far had two physios and an osteopath refuse to treat him  Still, over the last few weeks we've been pretty sure we've cracked the IR and feet issues, but we still had a sore and extremely aggressive horse who appeared to have muscular, rather than foot, problems, that, like the IR, appeared if the ned had taken in too much sugar or starch. One of the things we'd never considered though was EPSM--which is a glycogen storage problem in the muscle, causing chronic tying up and stiffness. THe treatment for it is oil--20% of daily calories need to come from fat--so we decided to try him out on a high oil diet to see how he went.... It can actually take 2-4 months to see any improvement, but after a week or so we founf he was marginally less stiff. Today he was as stiff as a plank with huge, hard, swollen hindquarter muscles, which is less good, BUT..... He is almost a reformed character. Yesterday he met a complete stranger, and the worst he did was give her a sniff and try to rifle through her shopping bag. Today Boony bravely came over to be a crash test dummy--he tried to bite her head off last time he saw her--and while he was very stiff and anxious he was actually quite polite about being given a good stroking ;D For him, this is a HUGE advance. It suggests that his blood sugar levels have evened out, and that he isn't in as much low-level pain that's been making him so grumpy and cross  I equissaged him today and he was into everything, which unfortunately involved trying to chew through the wire  But not a swish, stomp or strop--he even seems able to cope with grooming and baths which have been a bit chancy for a long while, since he was really rather unhappy about being touched. So. I'm not holding my breath that we have a solution and that I'll have a sound sane horse at last, but things *are* looking promising...... ;D ;D |
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Post by Louise C on Jul 31, 2008 22:48:25 GMT 1
No-one deserves it more than you Finn if it's true!!!!!!
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Post by fin on Jul 31, 2008 22:52:28 GMT 1
Well, it'll make my life a bit less stressful! You know what he was like--you saw him when he was being a bit awkward with strangers (though he had improved a bit by then)--so if he could just at least manage to be comfortable and able to go for walks without being uncomfortable, that would do me.  |
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Post by wendyihts on Jul 31, 2008 22:55:15 GMT 1
Fingers crossed Finn. But it's a complex picture - my understanding of EPSM is that it's almost the opposite of insulin resistance in that the muscles 'suck in' too much glucose in response to a given level of insulin. Certainly, for example, I wouldn't give Lutine cinnamon, commonly used to help insulin resistance, for fear of making her hyper senstivity to insulin worse.. however, I'm not a specialist in muscle dysfunction etc so how it could all fit together, I've no idea! Is there any danger of a high oil diet making his insulin resistance worse?
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Azrael
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Post by Azrael on Jul 31, 2008 23:16:51 GMT 1
Fingers crossed the good behaviour lasts!
I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that all the cr@p produced in the muscles of a horse with EPSM can affect the feet. And also that fatties with EPSM often don't put on weight when fed oil which is totally not what you'd expect, so maybe its possible oil doesn't have the same effect when there's EPSM present as well as IR as it would with just IR. But this is distant memory from reading I did months ago so could be remembering bits wrong, I wasn't really paying very close attention to those bits since Mia is neither laminitic or a fatty at all.
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Post by fin on Jul 31, 2008 23:17:25 GMT 1
Yes. I didn't think about EPSM for a long while because as far as I was aware it was totally impossible to be IR and EPSM, since it's supposed to be characterised by insulin sensitivity. But Beth Valentine, who researched EPSM in the US, reckons that it is possible and I've been in touch with a few people with horses that have tested positive for both conditions via bloods and biopsy, so yes, it looks like it *is* a possibility for JJ It would certainly explain why the pattern we've aways seen is aggression-stiffness--lameness-digital pulses and feet issues, since excessive sugar intake seems to hit his muscles first. I think the EPSM picture might be incredibly complex. From what I can see it may be governed not so much by insulin levels overloading the muscle with glycogen, but abnormal polysaccharides--illformed glycogen I suppose--being stored, and then being unable to break down properly to fuel the muscle. I don't know--there doesn't seem to be all that much agreement on the issue really. Both conditions are triggered by excess sugar/starch, obviously, and they're treated the same way--except fat is expressly contraindicated in an IR diet I think partly the problem is that most vegetable fats are high in Omega 6 which can be very proinflammatory. Coconut oil is supposed to be the best thing to feed, but at £22 a litre it's just too expensive to contemplate. We're feeding a 50:50 mix of olive oil and flax oil, which should have a favourable omega 3:6 balance and seems ok so far, apart from the fact that both the horse, the house, and me now seem to be covered in a thin film of grease But he's very shiny, if nothing else ANd no, he's not really put on significant weight except where he was really wasted--though I guess it's early days yet! Richard's pretty convinced that EPSM can affect the feet, too. Be interesting if it was related to digital pulse issues. I've been religiously taking JJ's blood pressure twice a day, since gnerally a sharp rise in BP predates a lami attack by 12 hours or so. On the who his BP is low, rather than high, which is one of the things that made me think that what we're dealing with now is a totally different issue.... |
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Post by sara on Jul 31, 2008 23:38:25 GMT 1
Sounds like a great start
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Post by kristine on Aug 1, 2008 5:52:10 GMT 1
Still, over the last few weeks we've been pretty sure we've cracked the IR and feet issues, but we still had a sore and extremely aggressive horse who appeared to have muscular, rather than foot, problems, that, like the IR, appeared if the ned had taken in too much sugar or starch. .... Today he was as stiff as a plank with huge, hard, swollen hindquarter muscles, which is less good, BUT..... Whoaaaaaa, Finn... do you happen to know what JJ's pedigree is?? Theres some physical issues with certain Quarter Horse bloodlines, wondering if this might be part of the problem. Ever seen a horse with hyperkalemic periodic paralysis? It basically inhibits transfer of sugars between muscle tissue. This sounds a bit like it... |
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Post by stybba on Aug 1, 2008 6:26:38 GMT 1
Finn, I do so hope he is on the road to recovery, for both your sakes.
As a matter of interest, how do you measure JJ's blood pressure, if that isn't a stupid question?
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Post by fin on Aug 1, 2008 10:48:50 GMT 1
Still, over the last few weeks we've been pretty sure we've cracked the IR and feet issues, but we still had a sore and extremely aggressive horse who appeared to have muscular, rather than foot, problems, that, like the IR, appeared if the ned had taken in too much sugar or starch. .... Today he was as stiff as a plank with huge, hard, swollen hindquarter muscles, which is less good, BUT..... Whoaaaaaa, Finn... do you happen to know what JJ's pedigree is?? Theres some physical issues with certain Quarter Horse bloodlines, wondering if this might be part of the problem. Ever seen a horse with hyperkalemic periodic paralysis? It basically inhibits transfer of sugars between muscle tissue. This sounds a bit like it... Yep, got it back to 1620 ;D THere's no Impressive bloodline in there as far as I know so I think we're clear of HYPP, and neither of his parents have any sign of it. Are there other bloodlines that are affected? I did wonder about it at first because he does get worse when the mineral balance of hay is wrong, and he seems quite sensitive to high levels of potassium which is part of the HYPP problem, but mineral balance's also an IR/EPSM thing so I think that was it with JJ. That's probably just as well because nobody over here knows about HYPP--inless they happen to have been working with QHs, anyway  How do you take a horse's blood pressure? You get a smallish cuff and a bogstandard monitor--I got a cheapie digital one for £20--and put the cuff on the dock. After that, proceed as normal  JJ doesn't actually mind, though it took a couple of days for him to relax enough for us to get consistent readings. Going stiff and swishing tends to mess the pressures up a bit Normal is 120/70 I think. JJ averages much lower than that, but that may well be that the monitor isn't accurate per se, so we just use his 'normal' BP as a baseline, so we know that if it seriously goes up we're on the beginnings of a problem. He was less stiff today, but he's still very cheerful:) |
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Boony
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Post by Boony on Aug 1, 2008 12:13:28 GMT 1
He he I was a very brave girl!!!!! JJ was a very very good boy and I couldnt begin to tel you how much his character has improved, he didnt try to eat me once, infact he didnt even pull a face apart from a big question mark over his head as he couldnt figure out what I was actually doing which was infact nothing, we even did a bit of hands on well Finn was doing the hands on, whilst I watched Finn and JJ watched me. I was most impressed and happy to see the change in him, Finn you deserve a medal for the ammount of time youve put into this horse, I think a lot of people would have given up long ago its commendable. Oh and almost forgot to mention that of course H was head meeter and greeter she is just sooo clever, I was a little concerned that a small child may have wandered into there corral as there was a folorn empty pair of pink wellies but Finn assured me they were for H to play with lol she really does have a foot fetish xx
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dingbat
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Post by dingbat on Aug 1, 2008 13:15:03 GMT 1
wouldnt it be great to finally have an answer?! And be able to control what (in the world) is going on!?
i think i'm fast giving up with mine. hes just getting no better. hes also lost a load of weight and gets cold if it rains. i assume it has something to do with whatever is wrong with him. But i'm out of ideas.
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Post by jen1 on Aug 1, 2008 13:17:13 GMT 1
ooo well done, you have almost been there so many time, lets hope this continues, give the big fella a kiss on the chops from me,lol
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Post by troop on Aug 1, 2008 13:32:10 GMT 1
glad things are looking up hoefully its all good from here for you both...crikey you know loads about all these various illnesses and stuff its all very interesting
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Post by wendyihts on Aug 1, 2008 13:37:03 GMT 1
Really interesting discussion as, obviously, Lutine's pattern is also laminitis/EPSM. I'd always put down the laminitis symptoms to leaky gut caused by the high cereal diet she'd been on - and the leaky gut will stuff up most other systems in the body. But it makes sense that there's some kind of pro-inflammatory link between the EPSM and the laminitis somehow - though the 'how' makes my brain fry even contemplating it.
So what about canola oil Finn? This is what I plumped for with Lutine as it's supposed to have a better omega 3:6 ratio than, for example, sunflower.
(Not sure the olive oil/flax oil would be achievable for us owing to cost... )
One thing I noticed with Lutine is that after about 18 months on the high oil diet her metabolism seemed to re-set and now she will put on weight with the oil - but she goes stiff when I try to cut back on 500ml a day so I have to manage the other parts of her diet to keep her weight at a reasonable level.
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I equissaged him today and he was into everything, which unfortunately involved trying to chew through the wire 
But not a swish, stomp or strop--he even seems able to cope with grooming and baths which have been a bit chancy for a long while, since he was really rather unhappy about being touched.
JJ doesn't actually mind, though it took a couple of days for him to relax enough for us to get consistent readings. Going stiff and swishing tends to mess the pressures up a bit 
