Colic Complications

[equine949]

:

Hi all, I haven't been here in a long time and I am looking for some help from the masses. I realize this might only serve to confuse me more, but I figured I would put it out there and see if anyone else has been in my position.

So I have an 11 yr miniature gelding who in october had colic surgery. He was presenting with signs as if he might have an entrapment of some kind. When they opened him, they did find a bruised area on his colon. otherwise his intestines seemed to look okay. So he was rehabed for a couple of days and then sent home. At first he seemed alright, but for a mini who used to get fat on air, he was losing weight. I expected this because alot of horses, after colic surgery lose weight. But the problem has arose that he doesn't want to eat. He used to devourer hay, and well basically anything you put in front of him. Now, he has little interest in hay, dengy, and some grains. He will graze outside and he will eat softened alfalfa cubes, but he doesnt wat alot.

Sadly he has had at least two more boughts of painful day's where we thought he was colicing again. His blood work for the most part has been normal, but his protien levels are very low.

We are at a loss as to why this horse is not getting better after almost two months since his surgery. I was just wondering if there is anyone out there who has been in the same position and has any helpful advise?

Please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]

Thank you

 

[ClickMini]

I am not always one to jump on the ulcers bandwagon, but this would definitely be something I would look into right away. I am sure he was on bute and/or banamine after his surgery, and this can be a prime cause of ulcers in horses, especially minis.

I am sorry to hear about your little fellow. Maybe you could feed him a nice mash of warmed soaked beet pulp with some pelleted feed like Strategy or Cadence in it...my horses do love that.

 

[targetsmom]

I guess I would want to know more about the bruised area on his colon - do they know what caused it? And if they didn't remove that section of colon, how was he supposed to get better?

I do hope you can find out what is wrong and get it fixed. I guess I was lucky with my big horse - he had 2 colic surgeries that removed first 6 ' then 24' of small intestine and he recovered just fine. They didn't ever figure out WHY he colicked, but at least they knew what to do.

Good luck!

 

[chandab]

i'm sure you've consulted with your vet about your concerns...

I am not always one to jump on the ulcers bandwagon, but this would definitely be something I would look into right away. I am sure he was on bute and/or banamine after his surgery, and this can be a prime cause of ulcers in horses, especially minis.

I'm kind of thinking along the same lines as ClickMini... Surgery is stressful, stress can cause ulcers; as can bute (which may have been one of the meds prescribed after surgery). I would talk it over with my vet, but in the meantime, it won't hurt him any to try some ulcer meds (even over-the-counter Tagamet for people; I gave it to my girl while she had to be on bute for founder, before her equine ulcer meds arrived in the mail).

 

[Viki]

I had a weanling filly go threw colic surgery. Major ulcers after! She ended up on ulcer meds for weeks! She ate A LOT of soaked beet pulp too! She too lost a lot of weight after surgery. It was a really bad time for all of us involved with her. I'd sure talk to his surgeon and ulcers meds wont hurt him a bit.

Good luck! By the way, this filly is now 3 and perfectly normal!

Viki

 

[Jill]

Ulcers was the first thing that sprang to my mind as well.

 

[Getitia]

My first thought would also be ulcers. I'd discuss ulcer treatment (gastroguard) with your vet. Actually the symptoms that were first presented that resulted in surgery could have been related to ulcers as well.

 

[PaintedLady]

Hello,

You have a pm.

 

[sfmini]

I am with the gang on ulcers. We have a colt that tried to die pretty hard a few weeks ago. We seem to have whatever that was under control but are now treating a nasty ucler case. This horse didn't poop for over two weeks, we have been force feeding a swill of alfalfa pellets and equine jr. Just in the last couple of days have we started to think we may save him but it is still a battle. He is eating a little omolene 200 on his own and grazing but no hay, hates beet pulp and bran so the swill is now the alfalfa pellets. Poor guy has been sick for a month now and is a rack of bones and weak. For the ulcers he is getting Pepto Bismol (60cc) and Gastrogard about 2 hours apart. BTW, he finally started to poop last week. Had a party over that as it is so rare for a horse to shut down like he did actually come back from it.

Please contact your vet, it would be a shame to lose your horse to ulcers after going through that surgery.

What you will find is if you don't use pepto or some other coating, he will eat and then get the ulcers irritated and will get painful and not eat. Nasty cycle there that the Pepto can help.

 

[Soggy Bottom Ranch]

I went through ulcers with my weanling. Noticed he wasn't eating hay as well, laying around alot, and went off grain. I dosed him with a good dose of MSE probio paste. Then I read about aloe vera juice in some past forum posts, and added that in. He did really well on that combo, and within a couple days was back to slowly eating grain. After about a week I put him on U-Guard, a dry MSE probio powder, and just enough aloe juice to moisten it all. He felt 100% better, and was back to terrorizing the other boys in no time.

 

[equine949]

I am not always one to jump on the ulcers bandwagon, but this would definitely be something I would look into right away. I am sure he was on bute and/or banamine after his surgery, and this can be a prime cause of ulcers in horses, especially minis.

I am sorry to hear about your little fellow. Maybe you could feed him a nice mash of warmed soaked beet pulp with some pelleted feed like Strategy or Cadence in it...my horses do love that.

Thanks for the advise, yes he was on banamine, however he was also on gastrogard, an ulcer medication. (I work for the equine hospital he was sent to). Sadly he has turned his nose up to beet pulp and/or mash

 

[ChrystalPaths]

I will also say an ulcer, I would find the softest grass hay you can and take him off any sweet feed, switch over to something easily digestable like Strategy.

 

[whitney]

Try Kaolin (white clay product). I'm giving 1/3 cup morning and evening right in their pulpgurt (receipe I developed that even a mini with an ouchy belly will DIVE into).

I have been battling upset stomachs for over 2 months now. This is the first thing that has helped, don't ask me why.

All my minis are back to eating, pooping etc. normally. Rest assured I have tried EVERYTHING.

INCLUDING 30 days of gastrogard, they acted better but 24 hours after stopping the gastrogard the upset stomachs came back. This worked better than it did. I'm NOT a vet, I'm just letting everyone know what has worked for me.

Example: I was trying to wean them off of the kaolin and I 1/2 the dose well when I came home from work my mini mare was acting REALLY colicky, I was debating on whether to give her banamine..... but she did eat her pulpgurt (with a full dose of kaolin) and 20-25 minutes later she was back to eating her hay and acting normally. (she reacted the same way she did after a dose of banamine quite unbeliveable). Ginia could attest to this I was talking with her on my cell phone while I was sitting in Tweets stall with her. One minute Tweets head was on my shoulder and as the kaolin started to work she mosied over to the hay feeder and started picking and then eating full bore.

Vets seem to think its somekind of bacteria that doesn't die until we get 2 weeks of FROZEN outside temps. Which we should of by now its JANUARY in MICHIGAN for GODS SAKE!

 

[Bluerocket]

Gosh - I am so sorry that your cold is doing so poorly -- I had a mare die last February - she was in intensive care for a week, got better and came back home - We thought she might have had colitis as well as some other things - colicking as well --

HOWEVER -- the reason I bring this up - is she had a growth connecting several organs plus one or more ulcers etc.. - and this was mostly what caused her death.

We did not have surgery as we did not know about the growth (did not show up on ultra sound etc..) until after she died. Necropsy exposed it. I will edit this post in a bit with a link to the thread that has the necropsy report for my mare in it.

This growth was near the top of her body (e.g. not in the area they would open up for colick surgery). I don't know if any tests would have showed that it existed.

You might ask your vet if it is possible that there is some abnormal growth that he/she would not have seen when your colt was opened up for surgery.

You are in our prayers

JJay

Here is the link I said I would add with the necropsy report: http://minihorse.ipbhost.com/index.php?act...f=1&t=54857