Any info on EPSM?

dr beth valentine! google her for her email ad.

Zac tied up end of May and I was advised on here to contact her, she is the leader in EPSM research I believe. All horses that tie up should be tested for EPSM but many vets either dont know about it or because the op is muscular biopsy from the stifle, it is more hassle than its worth and the results are often not 100% conclusive. The main 'prevention cure' is feeding very high oil content but i have got to a level with zac where he is now turning his nose up at it. D and H do ERS pellets though which look good

Shout for Finn

Yup, I was going to say google Beth Valentine and join the EPSM group!

We suspect my ned has PSSM, which is the quarter horse version of EPSM. Basically it seems to take a lot of forms but the common factor seems to be the horse stores ridiculously high levels of glycogen in the muscle, and that the glycogen is then broken down into an unusuable complex sugar when the horse is exercised. The result is that the horse runs out of muscle fuel and literally freezes, or at best, stiffens up a little after a few minutes exercise. Other symptons tend to be an odd hind gait with a sort of hitch--often mistaken for locking stifle--difficulty holding up feet, backing, moving sideways etc. It is supposed to affect major muscle groups but from watching my own horse, it also affects shoulders and neck. Horses tend to get sore--they can be hideous to groom or handle, often becoming aggressive They develop muscle wastage over the rump, and often they can be quite hard to keep weight on.

Treatment is pretty simple. Exercise--a few mins in hand building up--and low sugar and starch and high oil, which the horse can metabolise as an energy source (thereby not overloading glycogen stores). For a 500kg horse you would feed 500ml of oil a day. Getting it into them is interesting. They get sick of it and they will refuse it It takes 4-6 months for them to start to metabolise the oil properly, though we saw an improvement in temperament in a week and he's been on it 4 months now and is doing pretty well. Adding Vit E and selenium is also a good idea. We've been using L-Carnitine too which may help with fat metabolism and is pretty cheap if you buy it by the kilo from dodgy bodybuilder's websites

So, it's all v interesting. Does the horse on the yard have a history of colic, gut disturbance, and low grade laminitis by any chance? We're beginning to see a link between them all in JJ, so it would be interesting if this was a common thing. I suspect it is.

That's one of Mia's tricks! She's fine when you get on, if she gets moving without incident she's usually fine but the first steps has always been the tricky bit. She's getting much better about it now and is usually fine as long as she's warmed up before anyone gets on, its when she's got cold or wet that she seems worst. I've read on another forum about other horses with epsm really not liking getting wet/cold and being less than cooperative about riding if cold.

Mia is a bit stiff on her back end as well, has opinions about having her legs moved into uncomfortable positions while being trimmed, drags her back toes in trot sometimes, never muscled up as much as expected and at her worst even dragged her front toes so not just the back end affected. She has had proper locking stifles as well as a funny thing with her back end that looks almost like a locking stifle but the hitch in her stride isn't quite at the right bit of the stride for it to be a locked stifle. Symptoms do vary in different horses.

Mia has had gut problems but has had plenty of reason to have them with not getting fed properly when she was younger, no colic or LGL (she's amazingly LGL proof, the most she's ever had is a nasty growth ring after antibiotics).

if someone can remember where i can find that Yan it would be great.I've searched threads and found nothing.

Topic: EPSM - how are you all getting on? (Read 142 times) .This was the nearest connection I could find to the original thread in the Archives, it was in 2005.

finn, would muscle enzyme tests pick up on that? I'm trying to figure out of that's what they suspected with sherb because they did bloods for muscle enzymes (which came back normal) if they had been high they would have done a biopsy.