Recommendations to help with Lymphangitis

[wendyihts]

Hi there,

Lutine's been quite prone to lymphangitis this year. She's now on her 4th bout of it. It's happened in various legs, front and back, though mostly her hindlegs. She's out 24/7 and gets top spec comprehensive balancer, unmollassed sugar beet, 500ml of oil (for EPSM) and Cool Condition cubes while the weather is cold, plus 10:10 joint support and a calmer. She's not in any work as we're trying to get her fit for riding but she keeps coming down with things!

The lymphangitis doesn't seem severe - she swells up to half way up the cannons, it's painful but doesn't weep and she's stiff on it rather than lame. I haven't noticed any mud fever but she has had thrushy frogs so maybe that's a trigger for her? A short course of anti-biotics and bute seems to knock it on the head, but it's now a recurrent thing and has happened once a month for the last 3 months now.

A neighbour of mine has recommended pure vitamin E though I'm having trouble finding this without selenium in it. The TS balancer is meant to have the required selenium in it.

So, I'm wondering what else I can do for her. I recently did a course of Trinity Consultant's L94 liver tonic, but the lymphangitis has now come back. Was wondering about any other things - maybe magnetic boots - or other herbs that might help?

Thanks!

[jen1]

do she get the scabs? my vet gives me flamzine cream made by smith and nephew which has siver in it, and it seems to cler the scabs up in a matter of hours, and anti biotics, ,, billie had her wrost bout when on top spec, or just after so i cant pin piont it just to feed, though she did go on pink powders and hasnt had a bout as bad as before them, i also put her on dandilion and milk thistle seed, from hilton herbs, so fingers crossed, sorry for the flaky reply, but i suppose it canbe differant in each horse, good luck i hope you get a way of managing it,

[Confuggled!]

The more i read people who are feeding topspec and having other problems the more sure i am that its not as good for every horse! Ive stopped my TS and im going to keep an eye on my boy- who while on TS has had extremely bad Mud fever and celulitis (similar to Lymphangitis) Both are just about gone now apart from one or two scabs that im getting rid of slowly. However, my vet suggested massaging them and that worked a treat!

[coathambeauty]

Hi Wendy. Have not been on here for a very long time. One of my mares struggled with lymphagitis/celulitus last year (Spring 2005). I'd only own her a few months so thought it may have been stress related, mud fever related or wetness from long spring grass). I made the condition worse by cooling with chilled bandages/using various creams (sudocream/zinc and castor oil as she had scabs as well as swelling) On our second visit to vets the stables were full of really poorly horses on drips. 5 had lymphagitis/celulitis but like you my mare was out 24/7 and I was riding her lightly on vets advice. The others had been stabled and not walked out which apparently makes the condition worse. Have to say I was concerned about riding out but took it really carfully. Excersise is important as it breaks downwhat ever causes the swelling and stops the glue like serum from scabbing. I Stopped bandaging and lathering with cream and I started to use 100% alo vera and fed her the Simple System feed. She was on a high dose of Eclipse recovery but almost 24 months on she still gets half a mug of Eclipse Recovery every day. Touch wood she has remaind Lymphagitis free and both my mares have been without any mud fever at all. It took a while to eliminate the condition and she does have a scar on one of her hind legs. I feed my horses 1000IU Vit E which I buy when on offer at Holland and Barret. I take one and they have one tab each at tea time. It's pure vit E so I dont think it is harmful but dont quote me on that. Good luck

[Pauline]

It is interesting about Topspec. Until the middle of last year 2006 I fed TS but found that one of my horses was losing weight and had no energy. I changed to Nesler Solid Gold.

Last year another of my horses had bad mud fever and another if he cut himself he had a swollen leg.Since changing over neither have had a problem.

Some horses seem to being having problems with TS

[wendyihts]

The thing is that a lot of horses generally are on Top Spec balancers or supplements and at some point many of them will come down with 'something' but that doesn't mean it's the Top Spec causing the problem. :? Lutine's been absolutely transformed since going on it and there's nothing else like it on the market here - the majority of feedstuffs here are the high cereal or high mollassed variety, both of which almost killed Lutine. So, I don't really have the option of chopping and changing in order to try her with other brands such as Simple Systems etc.

I do think that Lutine's got a problem with leaky gut syndrome and someone else has also just suggested giving her Aloe and perhaps Slippery Elm or Marshmallow to help her gut to heal. This person suggested to me that if she has a leaky gut, proteins might be getting absorbed before they're fully digested and that this could help her come up with the lymphangitis. She hasn't had any problems with scabbing or weeping - it's literally that she swells up in her pasterns, fetlocks and half way up her cannons and it's very sore and hot to the touch. I have found that some massage helps, and I am loathe to handwalk her on our lanes given that we were hit by a car on our lane just the other day! Maybe I could find some other place or way to hand walk her...

I also had a good go at the thrush/fungal infection in her frogs yesterday and am going to have to be super focused on getting on top of it and eradicating it, I think.

Thanks for all your replies!

[sandybks]

Wendy,
Hi this is Alice (from EE). I saw your post yesterday but didnt reply as i wasnt sure i had anything useful to suggest! However having seen today's post - i maybe have.

Levi had a problem with Lymphangitis at least once a year, usually twice + for a few years. It was persistent and would take 2 weeks + to shift each time. It tended to be in summer which is when he would also suffer from protracted problems with diarrhoea/watery poo (despite not being on grass at this time). It was in all 4 legs and was not related to any hoof/leg issues. As you may know i think he has leaky gut (worm damage?) causing his issues and laminitis problems (he also has shivers which may link to your epsm issues - though the oil diet didnt help).

Anyway my point is, this hasnt reoccured at all since he went on Founderguard 2 years ago. I am of course not suggesting that this is a solution to your problem as it would be far too radical, just that there did appear to be a clear link between leaky gut /acidity issues and lympangitis. I did, prior to the FG, have some success with slippery elm and of course also fed yea-sacc (though this didnt sort things in our case). So i would very much suggest pursuing the gut/lymphangitis link and perhaps trying slippery elm, yeasacc etc etc to see if it makes any difference in lutines case?

hth
alice

[wendyihts]

Thanks very much Alice. Glad to hear that you've found something to help Levi. I am now searching for some Aloe and Slippery Elm to start giving to Lutine, among all the other stuff I have for my horses. I am the Queen of Supplements at the moment (though anything is better than being the Queen of Vets Bills! LOL) I would love to know the mechanism for the leaky gut/lymphangitis problem... (squirrels off to go and find something out..)

Thanks again!