Kat's not doing well

[galadriel]

I'm going to be calling the vet on Monday--it's time for Coggins, rabies, and West Nile, so I need to get the vet out anyway. So I'll ask her to schedule time to look at Kat too...so I suppose I'm just moaning and looking for support.

Kat is not doing well. I don't really know what it might be. Her coat is dull, and she's not shedding at all. Even when I brush her I am not getting any of the winter coat off. This worries me because the other two have lost their winter coats almost entirely; they're also both glossy and sleek looking. Kat *was* shedding when the other two first started shedding; I brushed a lot of fur off of her, and then she just stopped shedding.

She's been underweight--again--since her last colic (early January). Once I started blanketing her, she hasn't been acting colicky at all; up 'til then she was getting colicky when the temperature dropped. So I think she hasn't been ill...she's just unwell. I've upped her grain and them upped it again, and she's not putting on weight. (She's dewormed regularly, of course, and just had an ivermectin dose about a week ago.)

I don't know why my baby's in this condition :( She's worrying me.

[Esther.D]

Poor little Kat, I hope she perks up soon :)

[DavidH]

Might be worth getting the vet to do some blood tests. Could be something as simple as mineral / vitamin deficiency.

[shandy84]

Hope the vet finds something for you hopefully as David says something vitamin based

[chev]

Poor Kat. Don't really have any constructive suggestions, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you that it's something simple and easily solved.

[Showjumper]

Poor Kat :( I hope the vet can figure out what's wrong and how to fix it :)

[casey]

Oh no. My lovely Kat. :( I have nothing to offer but support too. Hope she feels better soon.

[shankspony]

Hi , could it be her thyroid or (I hope no)the start of Cushings disease? How old is she ? Hope your vet can help . Its alway worse when you dont know what it is-once you know you can start to fight it .Keep us posted . :)

[Mehitabel]

poor baby girl. i'll be thinkign healthy vibes for her, let us kno what the vet says.

[jUmPingIsLifE]

aw galadriel thats horrible. at least the vet is comming out soon anyway, i'll have my fingers crossed for the both of you.

shankspony- i was actually thinking the exact same thing as you-hopefully we are both very wrong and its something a little more simple like davidh suggested.

[T-bred]

Oh, poor girl. :( I hope that the vet can figure out what is wrong and I hope everything goes well. :)

Anna

[Tootsie4U]

Bonfire sends a hug. (maybe some attention from a boy will lift her spirits :D)

Hope its something not serious and she's back to herself in no time.

[kedwards]

So sorry to hear it Galadriel. Thankfully, the vet will be out soon. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it isn't anything serious.

[areias]

I'm very sorry :( . Like shankspony said...it sounds a little like cushings. Have your vet check her blood sugar-abnormal levels are a sign. I do believe, however, there are good therapies out there to help with it, if thats what she does have. Keep your chin up...hopefully its something easy enough to deal with.

[Ginger Thing]

Poor Kat, hope it's nothing serious and she recovers quickly.

[galadriel]

Thank you, all. I'm mostly a little edgy about this; it's nice to have warm thoughts out there for my baby girl. I've never known a horse that I loved so much as I love her.

I do suspect that the vet will suggest some blood tests; though she might want to start with "let's try [X] and see if it works" and if it doesn't, then try blood tests.

If she were a little older (she's 12 now) or if she had a thick/wavy coat, I might be more worried about Cushings (it did cross my mind). But she *never* gets a heavy coat, and she actually did start shedding at the beginning of spring. I'm thinking there's something else going on.

[martini55]

Aw poor Kat, hoping it's nothing serious :(

[Alle]

I'm glad the vet will be out tomorrow and hope they can find out what's wrong. Poor Kat! Hope she feels better soon!

[Jessey]

So what did the vet have to say? good news I hope......

[KarinUS]

I am sorry to hear she's not feeling so well. Has the vet come out yet?

[galadriel]

Well, I only called yesterday to make the appointment...vet will be out Thursday. I briefly told her what I was seeing, and she said that she'd probably want to go ahead and pull blood for some tests. (Not surprising.) So I probably won't know anything about results until next week, since I doubt tests would be completed by Friday.

Thanks for your support. My poor little mare. I kind of wonder if she's depressed. We were starting to have a lot of fun until my back acted up again :( She's one who really enjoys the opportunity to be ridden and do fun things.

When I got home today, I could see all three mares in the back pasture. Duchess was blindingly glossy; Fantasy is shiny and sleek looking. Kat, bright red-orange Kat who has always stood out against any background, was dull-looking and almost hard to see. Only 2 more days till the vet comes and can offer me some suggestions.

[martini55]

It's horrible to see your horse like that :( Poor Kat, I hope she is just feeling a bit under the weather rather than anything serious. At least you will get to know soon, fingers crossed

[Stella2]

Good luck with the tests tomorrow, I do hope its nothing serious.

[galadriel]

The vet pulled some blood to run a CBC on it, said that may show anything out of whack. She also said that we should have results by tomorrow! That's fast...told me that she has a neighbor who works at the lab, so she'll drop if off with the neighbor tonight and the tests will be run first thing tomorrow. How convenient.

She also said that, without any other results on hand, she suspects insulin resistance--not quite Cushings, but similar, and Kat's much closer to the right age for that. She suggested that it would probably help in any case to go ahead and switch her from her current feed (Nutrena Compete) to a new one by Nutrena--SafeChoice. Says it has a better balance of things--more fiber, less sugars. It's pretty close to Compete, so I don't mind switching. (although I have 3 new bags of Compete! Drat!)

It seems to me that if insulin resistant-type treatments work, then it shouldn't be that hard to maintain. It's not quite as dire as Cushings is. We'll see if the test results give us any more info tomorrow...

[KarinUS]

SafeChoice is what I am feeding DJ. It's what contributed to his fabulous shiny buns... ;)

[Miriam]

Hope she picks up Galadriel

[Kerry Claire]

Good luck for the blood test results - I've got everything crossed for you! :)

[galadriel]

Kat was on Compete when this shiny bum picture was taken:
http://galadriel.shaftnet.org/horses/kat-jan-2003/s-kat-right3.jpg
but perhaps SafeChoice will now be a better feed for her. It will be a relief if it helps. I hope the vet has a few minutes to talk tomorrow when she calls with the results--I don't know how long to give it before I start expecting to see an impact of some kind.

Thanks, you guys :) I'm feeling a little better, I think. Just having some idea what might be going on does help.

[Alle]

Good luck...hope the SafeChoice works. That's great that you'll get the blood results back so quickly too.

[virtuallyhorses]

Good luck on the tests - do you know which tests were being performed. When I get bloods done there are some that seem to take longer than others - selenium always takes several days for some reason and so can calcium and copper\B12 levels ... all the rest are same\next day type results.

[Cochise]

Eek I am sorry! I reallly hope she picks up again soon, you were so so wonderfully supportive for me with Cheeky's cancer! Thinking best wishes for you and Kat Gal!

[nakedescapee]

Aww... poor Kat and poor you! I hope Kat gets to feeling better soon. Maybe this insulin resistance thing has something to do with her colic too. Wouldn't it be nice if both issues were solved with this diagnosis. Best of luck to you both. :)

[Waikato Valuta]

i'm sorry to hear kats been ill. I've got my fingers crossed for tomorrows results.

I'm glad i didnt find this post untill just now, i dont think i could have stood the suspense ;)

[Esther.D]

Fingers crossed for the results!

[nakedescapee]

Hey there G~... any word on the blood test results? How is Kat doing?

[cvb]

Galadriel

Fell ponies are thought to be high risk for insulin resistance - we figure that was probably what was behind Duds inability to cope with grass, hence weight gain and putting fat on in all the wrong places, and then laminitis.

I know this is different to Kat - but...

before he had laminitis he always shed his coat really late. Post-laminitis he's been on a strict diet - no cereal, plenty of fibre, and a balancer. And his coat and feet and great AND he's shedding his coat at the same time as his buddy !

At least if you know about it, you stand a chance of managing it.

[galadriel]

The CBC came back normal, so the vet said that we should just give the SafeChoice a month to work and see how she does on it.

Thanks cvb, that's sort of how I was looking at it--if we know it's a potential problem, then we can try to manage it.

It is a little frustrating that Kat doesn't have the body type often associated with IR; she's skinny with no fat deposits. Both this winter as last winter I've had trouble getting weight back on her after she dehydrated and colicked. I managed to get the dehydrating/colicking to stop, but she just hasn't put weight back on...and even when she's a touch overweight, people still think she's starving to death. It would be much easier to consider things like grazing muzzles if she were chubby.

In the meantime...She's still kind o dull-looking and not her usual perky self, but at least I'm finally having some success getting hair off of her :) Don't know if it's related to a switch in diet or just a coincidence, but at least the hair is finally coming off. I was starting to wonder if I ought to clip her.

[Mehitabel]

that is frustrating. hope the safe choice works, at least.

[Lgd]

I know you've wormed her but this sounds worryingly like red-worm - the ivermection does not cover encysted red-worm. Has she been done with a five day course of fenbendazole? (we call it Panacur Guard) which works specifically for that. If nothing else it may be worth having a worm count done - if you haven't already.

Regular correct worming is no defense sometimes. Peri had a half sister who was orphaned & hand-reared. Wormed scrupulously with everyone else - we lost her to redworm aged 10 months - vet reckoned it was due to her being an orphan with lower resistance. The stud also lost an older mare to similar circumstances - probably had a heavy burden before they bought her - she showed up with dull coat and colics - the PM showed her to be riddled with red-worm. The 5- day guard treatment came out not long after that :rolleyes:

[galadriel]

Going over the information I've got, I'm not finding anything called "red worm." I suppose it might be something that goes by a different name over here...

I worm with Strongid-Iver-Strongid-Quest. So not last time, but the time before, was Quest, which covers everything but tapeworms. (Not arguing with you, just pointing out that on a regular basis, I don't use just Iver.) According to my vet, as long as they're regularly wormed and do get that regular dose of Quest, that should take care of all of it.

Thanks for the thought, though, and I'll keep it in mind if the SafeGuard doesn't seem to be helping soon.

[chev]

Redworm are strongyles. The Quest kills them I think.

[galadriel]

Ah, yep, Quest kills those. But again, I appreciate the heads-up, and will look into more worming options too if the SafeChoice doesn't have any effect.

Poor Katiemare. It's just not like her to not want to be caught :( but for a couple of weeks she's just walked away when I come along with the halter. Usually she sticks her nose right into it. I think she must really be unhappy.

I haven't ridden her at all since February, I think (maybe once or twice bareback for a few minutes)...she hasn't been working at all; I can't think of anything that would make her avoid being caught. Except for not feeling well.

She doesn't avoid me completely, by the way...just turns and walks a few steps away. Then she'll wait and let me catch her. This is what she does when I've been doing things she'd rather not do--like lunging instead of riding, or stuff like that. She's such a good mare. Even when she isn't looking forward to it, she still doesn't go to geat lengths to avoid being caught; just lets me know that she's not enthused.

[casey]

I was reading through one of my horse nutrition books. And Kat sprung to mind. I was reading about protein deficiency and she has all the hallmarks. Dull coat/weight loss etc. Just a thought.
I hope she feels better soon :)

[bubblegum]

I too think it could well be encysted small redworm larvae. The symptoms are all there, recurrent colic, weight loss and dull coat. Is she ticklish about being groomed on her under belly?

Now is the time of year for them to emerge. I don't know her history, is she homebred? If not, and even if you have been worming effectively whilst you have had her, they can lay dormant for years and then cause havoc when they do emerge.

A friend had a similar problem with one of her horses, it was treated with Dectomax injectable wormer, a cortisone injection and antibiotics to help heal the gut wall and stop any infection.

I hope you get a positive diagnosis soon with a good prognosis :)

[galadriel]

Thanks for your comments, folks. I'm still listening and open to suggestions. I don't want to start experimenting until we've given the SafeChoice some time. If she starts to get better, it will be good to know *why*; if we throw thirty different changes at her now, we won't know which was effective. But I am keeping track of suggestions as directions to go if the SafeChoice doesn't have any effect.

I think we've managed to definitively pin the weight loss and colic on dehydration; silly mare stops drinking when the temperature drops, and so dehydrates and impacts. Since I have managed to keep her drinking even in more chilly weather, she has not colicked any more & has not lost any more weight. I just can't get it back on her--but I had the same problem last year, too, that I couldn't get her weight back on (and last year she had no other problems, was just skinny).

Eh...she's always been skinny, and hard to get weight back on when she loses it. Especially if I'm not working her, so she's not building muscle. She's much more likely to gain significantly when being worked as well as getting more in her diet.

Hey, the SafeChoice has more protein than her previous feed did...

I didn't breed her, but I have had her for four years and in that time she's been dewormed regularly every 2 months, and twice a year that's been Quest. So I do still doubt it is a worm problem that's been lying dormant, but can keep it in consideration. And we have a known reason for the recurring colic--by the way, they've all been palpated and diagnosed as impactions of various degrees.

[chev]

Poor Kat. I don't think it's that likely to be encysted small strongyles either - Quest is the US name for Equest, which is one of only two wormers licenced to kill encysted small redworm in this country.

It's possible that she's had a worm problem in the past, and her gut is damaged as a result - that might be enough to cause the problems she has. I had an old cob whose intestines were significantly damaged by past worm problems - he didn't colic but he did have the same problems with weight loss, poor coat and was also lethargic and had bouts of diarroeah periodically. We managed him with veteran feeds and pro- and pre-biotics. But having said that, since Kat is an OTTB (which probably means she's been wormed regularly all along) that's probably not all that likely either.

Fingers crossed the change of feed makes a difference - and if not, that the cause is found. It is horribly worrying when they're unhappy and we can't see why.