Epsm

[mags]

Anyone had any experiences of this and if you have what did you feed, symptoms etc

Be far to easy for this to solve all his problem but im thinking its an awful lots of coincidence's, having Ruth mention it when he does have some symptoms

He's abit stringhalty, very nervous(mostly to sudden movement but apparently much worse under saddle)hard to pick his feet up esp back(not difficult as in never kicks snatches or anything just doesnt pick them up)and he is generally very poor and no muscle

[arabheaven]

zac is suspected to have epsm - search the general board - some very good threads on it not too long ago xx

[mags]

Yes thanks arabheaven, I found most of them. But not everyone states why they think their horse has it and what exactly they feed(other than oil) and im just nterested to know abit more

[Sarah Dent]

Then you need to look here

www.ruralheritage.com/vet_clinic/virtualvet.htm

I think everyone agrees is the best resource on the net for EPSM

[mags]

Thanks for that Sarah, iv read all of the articles there, im just interested to here ppl's personal experiences

[mags]

arabheaven what makes you suspect Zac has it?

[Amanda (S Yorks)]

Be far to easy for this to solve all his problem

I know exactly what you mean by this. It was my reaction when EPSM was put forward as a possible problem for my mare and it took a long while and things getting quite bad before I really paid attention to it. I'm so pleased that I did as I now have my horse back.

My mare had lots of little niggles that could have been related but weren't necessarily so. She'd had sacroiliac problems in the past that seemed to trouble her periodically despite being fit and well otherwise, she's sensitive to sugars in grass which shows up as being footsore over stones (was barefoot for 4yrs, ok for first 2 but gradually got less sound over time rather than better), had some muscle wastage, clicking joints and some other minor niggles. Vets diagnosed her with arthritis in Sept 2007 but despite treatment with Hyaluronic acid injections, field rest and oral joint supplements, she never really improved all that much. She lost a lot of muscle and looked quite weedy too, but at the time I put that down to her being out of work. She also used to be very prone to being flighty, particularly out hacking, though supplementing with magnesium helped that and so, again, I thought it was a separate issue.


I use a Bowen therapist who's also a kinesiologist and she mentioned EPSM to me quite some time ago, but I thought it was a bit of a stretch and unlikely to be the problem. At about the same time a friend sent me a link to a blog which described a horse with almost the exact same problems as Bebe, who was diagnosed after 2yrs of issues with EPSM.

Things came to a head in August last year when Bebe started getting stiffer and stiffer. She'd spent most of the summer muzzled to keep weight off her but I'd been taking it off for longer periods as the grass in the field was being eaten down. She came in for a few hours each day but started to become so stiff that she couldn't lift her hind feet up for picking out, she came close to falling over a couple of times. I started leaving her out 24/7, but things didn't improve. It finallly culminated in her becoming so stiff that she could barely walk and when I tried to lift one hind leg her hindquarters went into spasm and she just stood there trembling.

It was at this point that I twigged to a correlation between grass (e.g. sugar) intake and her symptoms, as she was getting progressively worse the more time she had out on the grass. I put her muzzle on 24/7 but left her turned out as movement is important for EPSM, and within 48 hours she was a different horse. In the space of 2 weeks she was back in work, albeit only light. This is after almost 2 yrs of being pretty much retired (we hacked for 20 mins in walk a couple of times a week, at most. She couldn't cope with more.).

I had her shod in September as I discovered that whilst she was much more comfortable all round for being muzzled, on days when the grass was likely to be high in sugars (sunny days after rain overnight is her trigger) she'd be a bit stiff and footsore over stones. I made this decision on the basis that a lot of her hoof problems are down to her metabolic issues, and being barefoot hasn't fixed them. I can't keep her 100% comfortable without removing her from grass completely, which I can't do, so the shoes add that little extra protection and comfort. This made a world of difference to her again, and she improved further.

I didn't really do much to change her diet beyond restricting her grass intake as she's always been fed a forage diet. I have added 100ml of Olive oil (important for Omega 9, which horses can't produce themselves) and 10ml of Almond oil (apparently Bebe needs it based on kinesiology). She also gets a good quality joint supplement and wears magnets if she's stabled for any length of time. She does better for being kept warm so is now rugged anytime I feel she needs it and she gets long warm ups in walk.

She's now back in regular work and completed a 90 minute hack on Saturday, our first one in about 2 years. We're schooling properly again too and she's starting to work nicely over her back and into the contact, which is something we've really struggled with in the past. She's not muzzled at the moment but was up until the beginning of this month, and will be as soon as the grass starts to grow again.

[Furiey]

For those that wonder what ESPM stands for and what it is (as I did) ESPM is equine polysaccharide storage myopathy.

Description is here: www.ruralheritage.com/vet_clinic/epsm.htm.

Thanks for the link to that site Sarah, I'd not come across ESPM before.

[Azrael]

I'm pretty sure Mia has it, but haven't had a proper diagnosis from a vet just tried the diet instead. Vet thought at one time that she might have wobblers but after a few tests decided she was just very weak behind, she looked like a possible wobbler from some of them but her very enthusiastic objection to having a back leg crossed over convinced vet she knew exactly where her legs were.

She's always been a bit lacking in muscle, especially on her scrawny bottom. Had locking stifles for a while but also had a strange thing happen with her back end sometimes, like a leg would drop her but it wasn't quite right for just a locking stifle. She drags her back toes, when I fed her something that didn't agree with her and she got worse she even dragged her fronts (that's when I figured it out and tried the diet). She was very difficult to pick feet up, especially the back ones (though I'm pretty sure it wasn't entirely to do with EPSM it wouldn't have helped). She's been quite touchy about things like girths and leg aids.

Diet is hay/haylage/grass depending on time of year and what we have, fortunatly grazing doesn't seem to make any difference to her. Bucket feed is sugarbeet, chaff (Leighs Senior which has grass and hay in rather than straw so better for protein than most chaffs), 300ml sunflower oil (not quite the recommended amount but increasing it more doesn't make any difference) and Selenavite E. I would like to add some linseed but they haven't had it in stock when I've been feed shopping recently If I stop the diet I can see a difference within a few days and it takes a couple of weeks to build it back up again. The other thing that seems to help her a lot is Bowen therapy.

[arabheaven]

Hi Mags,
sorry was in a rush this morning!

Zac tied up in May a week into a change in his feed. I changed him from spillers slow response CUBES to spillers slow response MIX. I questioned spillers on the risk of him tying up due to the higher starch content and they said he would be fine as it was lower than competition mixes. He tied up, and I am 99% sure this is what triggered it, having never tied up in his life before!!
I got in touch with Dr Beth Valentine who leads the research on EPSM in America and described him to her. I asked my vet about EPSM and he said any horse that ties up should be considered for it. As Zac shows a high probability of having some type of starch intolerance, it is likely he suffers from EPSM. However, the only way to test it is a muscle bipsy but it is taken in a difficult place and takes ages to heal so vets tend not to do it. There is very limited research on it.
He has been off for nearly 3 months now with ongoing physio to some serious muscle damage in his hindquarters. He is back in walk now to mobilise the muscle the get deeper tissue tension release. It's been a long journey and we have a while to go. I don't know if he will ever be 100%.

They recommend high oil but I got to about half the recommended amount and he wouldn't eat it. He is on high fibre (fast fibre, chaff) and a supplement (pik powder) then if he needs more oomph I will feed him ERS pellets designed for horses with EPSM or prone to tying up as a precaution.

[wendyihts]

With Lutine, it was stiffness in all her body, joint stiffness that mimicked arthritis, coupled with muscle loss, improper co-ordination of her hindlegs in canter, shivers and difficulty holding up hindlegs that got us thinking about EPSM. She would never put on muscle and condition in her hindquarters no matter how well fed she was, even when it was low sugar, high fibre, good quality protein. So she went on to the full 500ml oil per day, which luckily she is very happy to eat, plus TS Balancer because it gives her loads of amino acids, plus the vit E and selenium required to metabolise the oil. She gets low sugar, good protein cubes for condition and calories.

She went from this



to this, within about 6 months

[juliecrussell]

sorry for the delayed reply, I saw this a week or so ago and only just got time to respond!

I have a 17hh Warmblood with EPSM.

His symptoms are:
- chronic (not acute) lockup of muscles - he is virtually unable to process lactic acid out of his muscles on his own
- extreme reaction to changes in grass: a slight increase in grass sugars makes him very spooky and very suspicious of everyday objects; a large increase in grass sugars causes him (we think) to hallucinate, as he will snort at the walls and floor of his stable as if things are climbing the walls - on two occasions it has taken up to 2 hours to get him into his stable and on one occasion a further two hours standing with him in the stable to calm him down and stop him jumping out again!
- extreme muscle wastage.
His treatment is:
- daily massage by me, which helps push the lactic acid out of the muscles
- ideally, exercise every day - even one day off results in him getting a little stiff.
- increasing work very, very gradually

His diet is as follows:
- hi-fi lite
- spillers hi-fibre cubes
- speedibeet
- vitamin e & selenium (equistro do a supplement called Super-E)
- NAF electrosalts (every day)
- corn oil (about a mug full per day)
- Cortaflex (tight muscles put undue pressure on the joints)
- Red Cell (his iron and magnesium levels dropped and he was also more susceptible to colds)

In the spring, he will also have a liver/kidney herbal tonic from Hilton Herbs, because when the spring grass is coming through, he gets kidney congestion (so much sugar, even his kidneys can't cope), which actually causes lumps on his back directly above his kidneys.

This all sounds quite major, but actually is just fairly routine - remembering about the grass is the hardest thing. This time last year he looked like a hat rack with no muscle, now he weighs in at a healthy 574kg, is well rounded, fully muscled and out competing at affiliated dressage again.

We think it was originally triggered by a very severe viral infection he caught three years ago.

The diet/management details above are a combination of guidance from my vet and also Spillers horse feeds - if you ring their feed info line, they will send you a whole info pack about azoturia and the different types, of which EPSM (or PSSM, as it is also known) is one.

[juliecrussell]

forgot to add, he also has up to 30lbs of hay overnight (about 3/4 of a bale) and I buy best quality hay, as his body condition (coat, eyes, etc) is noticeably less good on even average hay.

The main guidelines are low sugar, low starch, low protein, high fibre. I go for any food in cube form (no mixes at all) and protein of less than 10% (these tend to be the feeds which have low sugar/low starch as well.

The HiFibre cubes are really good, because you can feed quite a lot of them to keep weight on and you don't have to panic about increasing the amount, because he isn't reactive to them because they're such low sugar. Hope this helps, PM me is you have any other questions.

[rifruffian]

hullo juliecrussel. do you personally identify your hay purchase as best quality hay? If you do, I would be interested to know how this is done........Patrick.