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unicorn122
Bronze Member
 England
152 Posts |
 Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 2:02:55 PM
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Hi All,
Bit of a long one, but basically I got my Gelding in September 2011, he came newly backed and previously unhandled. He was a bit small but healthy and full of energy like you would expect to see for a 4 year old arab. He was living out 24/7 with rugs and thriving. Things continued to go well until the end of January this year when he suddenly dropped weight.
Advice from friends and YO was that this was probably due to the sudden cold snap and I should give him an extra rug and some conditioning feed instead of his usual plain livery nuts which I did, with no effect. (It seemed strange to me though that he'd wintered out through November and December and looked great) I then went to a nutritionalist who put me on some recomended stuff for weight gain (obviously I was introducing all these changes gradually!) Still no Joy so in March I called the vet. He had no other symptoms and was still full of energy. On examination vet said he looks fine except for a bit skinny and it was probably just the change in the weather etc but she took routine bloods to rule out infection etc. Turns out he had elevated GGT (a liver enzyme which indicates liver damage) so he was put back on plain food, put on legaphyton supplement and monitored for about a month, but level kept rising. She then gave him a shot of steriods and level still kept rising so we took him to Liphook Equine hospital for an ultrasound and biopsy. Ironically at the time of the biospy (end of April) he had randomly started to gain weight again but Biopsy came back as Sub actute/chronic liver disease with unknown cause. (This ruled out ragwort/tumours etc) He was put on a course of steriods and continued to gain weight and vet re tested and was confident he had recovered and it was probably a one off virus or infection that had now gone but left some legacy inflammation in the liver. We had a good summer, after him being brought back into work slowly. I recently went off to get married in september and was away for about a month which he had off as no rider and I just started lightly hacking him again the last weekend in September and he was looking amazing - hes 5 1/2 now, and he seems to have grown an inch and filled out and has been absolutley full of beans in the field and under saddle, jogging sideways, snorting,happy and really full of himself..
On Saturday just gone it was a normal morning, brought him in from the field as usual he was happy jogging,usual cheeky self looking forward to a groom and a feed. I had just finished grooming when he suddenly startled and stopped eating his haynet, almost like he was choking but no coughing then he started shaking and it was like all his muscles where twitching and he was pawing, picking his hind legs up one after the other. I was on the phone straight away to the vet practice in a panic. They suggested perhaps colic and to keep him moving. He was shaky on his feet but followed me, but every so often he would stop and start shaking more violently/spasming almost like a fit and he seemed really stiff in his hind legs. When vet arrived she checked for colic then tubed him to check for Grass sickness (due to symptoms I was convinced this is what he had and was done for)
She pulled emergency bloods and we sped off to liphook to drop them off. The only thing that came back on the tests was the liver enzyme again, this time double what it was last time (it was 800 when its supposed to be about 12)and Vet thinks the build up of Liver enzyme lead to fluid on his brain which lead to a sudden onset of strange symptoms, but even her and the expert at liphook find this very unusual.
He is a little better now, but still very lethargic and just not himself. His eyes are dull and he is not as alert as usual except hes eating and drinking now and has his (very enthusiastic) apetite back!
I was just reacting to the situation on Saturday and rushing round to deal with everything but last night it hit me how horrible it was and I cryed my eyes out.
The worst is we dont know whats causing it. No ragwort or tumour, he has the same pasture, hay, water as all the others and they're all fine.
Does anyone have any experience of anything like this? vet doing more bloods today and he is likely to go for another biopsy end of the week :-(
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Pop
Platinum Member
England
3051 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 2:24:53 PM
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I could go for pages on the subject :(.
As a first thing I would get the B12 and K multi vit injection and put your horse on Equisup-I. There is another medication which seems to be prescribed, but its rubbish. Probably best not to post the name but I can tell you if you need to know.
Feed is very important. As is not assuming that all the symptoms are from that problem. A liver problem can cause other problems and there is a danger of thinking all the symptoms come from the single source. E.g. I have heard often that gastric ulcers can happen when there is a liver issue; but there is no proper evidence for this.
ETA. I mean the type of feed, protein content (low) and so on, your vet will be able to advise. |
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Edited by - Pop on 29 Oct 2012 2:27:49 PM |
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Nut
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
2838 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 2:45:59 PM
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| Yes and will pm you. We treated without chemicals as if liver needed to process even more chemicals from the steriods or other recommended treatments how could it when it was full of toxins already. Only time we've ever gone homeopathic and monitored with 4 weekly blood tests from our vet. Manic at work and lunch now over so will pm later. |
     www.ndlarabians.webs.com
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Pashon2001
Platinum Member
3575 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 2:46:53 PM
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Many years ago I had a young stallion who dropped weight to the point of looking severely neglected. He too was diagnosed with a non functioning liver but no known cause. He was treated and after several months he then recovered. A couple of years passed by and he became ill again. Looked very poor (still full of energy though) but eating well. His other symptom was that one day I came down to see him and he had a fore leg through the bar of his pen and he was reaching through the lower bar trying to gnaw it off! I got his leg free and assumed this was some sort of panic thing even though his leg was not trapped.
To cut a long story short the self harming became so bad I did in the end have him pts. Do remember this was many years ago and treatments for this sort of illness are much better than back then (there was very little they could do) but I thought I would mention his errant behaviour which my vets truly believed was the results of toxin build up in the brain. |
     
www.jarvastud.com http://hocon.webs.com/ |
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Pop
Platinum Member
England
3051 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 3:09:36 PM
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"We treated without chemicals as if liver needed to process even more chemicals from the steriods"
Agree 100%, in fact I was surprised, I thought it was considered 'inadvisable' in those circumstances. |
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Edited by - Pop on 29 Oct 2012 3:11:26 PM |
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unicorn122
Bronze Member
England
152 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 3:17:52 PM
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Thanks all.
I'm willing to try anything. Ive only had him a year but he's my baby.
It's so frustrating that no Vet can tell me the cause, but apparantly with liver disease in horses this is sometimes the case?
Hes had the B12 and K multi vit injection. He's on a fairly bland low protien diet and supplement recommended by vet Legaphyton. What I dont get is that his condition has been amazing for a few months and we all thought he was fine then all of a sudden out of nowhere hes just had this episode? so strange.
Shes going to ring me later after another examination, and I should have more blood results tomorrow. |
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unicorn122
Bronze Member
England
152 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 3:27:45 PM
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mmm yeah I was a bit scared of steriods because I read about potential side affects but Vet reckons low dose is beneficial as reduces the inflammation. A friend had a mare with a similar issue and her vet also gave her a 3 month course - so I thought this was pretty normal.
However she told me to hold off on the latest worming (we are due this week) in case his system cant cope with the wormer. However he had one steriod shot on saturday after the episode, but isnt currently on anything accept legaphyton and a syrup she gave me to soak up excess ammonia (not sure of the name) and she is re testing today. |
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Edited by - unicorn122 on 02 Mar 2017 2:03:11 PM |
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garnet
Platinum Member
2382 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 3:56:28 PM
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| No advice or opinions - just to offer sympathy and good wishes; I know how it feels when your baby is ill. |
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Goldenmane
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4964 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 6:59:13 PM
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| Milk thistle is a very good natural liver supplement. No other advice, sorry. X |
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debs
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
3218 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 7:59:44 PM
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| Oh poor boy. How scary. Keeping fingers x'd for good news. |
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brack369
Gold Member
559 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 9:06:00 PM
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| My aunts horse has liver damage. They noticed not only because her weight had dropped slightly but also her eyes were swollen. The vet had not heard that this was an indication of liver damage but my aunt insisted they blood test and good job she did! As others have already said, low protein diet and milk thistle. Her horse is blood tested every 6 months, then they anxiously await the results fortunately they have seen some improvement in the last year. So there is hope, good luck x |
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Pasch
Platinum Member
2277 Posts |
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Vik1
Platinum Member
1711 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 9:29:57 PM
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So young to have it. The liver can regenerate itself unless scar tissue has formed. I know with people they tend to treat with B vits/thiamine.
Only got a bit of experience with an older horse that developed acute liver disease. No idea how it happened as no signs of poisonous plants in field. First sign was photosensitivity on nose, at first thought it was sunburn. Yo had to take foal at foot off at 11 weeks old. It all happened within 3 days, mare developed encephalopathy (a very end symptom) by time vet had got to her to pts, she had already fractured her jaw and prob eye socket from battering it off the wall. Im not meaning to freak you out but I just want to make you aware that encephalopathy can be quite disturbing (as it is with people) if you do ever find yourself in that position but you seem to be vigilant so hopefully never will.
Ive also heard about milk thistle as a long term thing but dont know alot about it. I wish your horse well, try to stay positive! He has youth on his side! You l be  in no time again! |
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Callisto
Platinum Member
6905 Posts |
Posted - 29 Oct 2012 : 11:29:17 PM
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| We lost my Anglo to liver failure, however he was 19, and the vet believed it was due to liver disease contracted in his youth that finally caught up with him (possibly ragwort in his hay before I bought him as a 9 year old, but we will never really know). The liver can cope with a lot, but it was a hell of a shock to lose him because he was one of the toughest horses I have ever met. Try Roger Hatch at Trinity Consultants, he is recommended in this situation for a nutritional approach. We had to let Tulsa go when he lost his eyesight (I don't want to freak you out, but please do check for this), the day he went he was in good physical condition with a shiny coat, it was so hard to believe that he was so ill. Wishing you all the very best, and fingers crossed your boy will come through this. |
  Zahkira (GR Amaretto x Taffetta)
Linda
East Sussex |
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Almaas
Junior Member
33 Posts |
Posted - 30 Oct 2012 : 08:58:25 AM
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Hi, i am a bit of a lurker on here but sadly have experience of dealing with liver disease. Mine was 19 and had undiagnosed liver problems. Over the last year i researched everything i could about it and here are a few things which helped me:
Mine started on the legaphyton supplement but when i changed vets (due to moving out of the area) they switched him onto Hepatosyl just because its what they stocked but he actually did better on it. You can buy it over the internet for less then the vets charge (i used to be able to get it for between £56 and £89 where as the vets charged £105) Different things work for different horses however.
Because we didn't know the cause of the liver failure Liphook reccomended he was wormed with a sheep wormer in case of Liver fluke. This was slightly clutching at straws but depends where you keep him- its more common on wetter land near cows or sheep.
Feed- mine was incredibly fussy and i spoke to just about every feed company, some were less helpful then others! i found Baileys the best. The most important things are low protein (like you mention) but also low oil. This makes it really hard to find a food to put weight on as most conditioning feeds are oil based. The feeds we settled on was Blue chip pro to ensure he had the vitamins and minerals and a high quality protein source (they do need some protein)with micronised barley, sugarbeat and chaff by the bucket load! Baileys no 1 would have been good but he would not eat it and flaked maize was higher energy with lower oil but again he did not like it.
Steroids-my horse was so poor the vets literally said they could be a kill or cure. We tried him on them and he turned the corner. It was a balancing act getting him on as low a dose as possible, he was on 2 weekly then monthly blood tests but they have a feel good factor and massively improved his quality of life. The trouble is they suppress the immune system so makes infections more likely- any cuts had to be kept super clean and he had to have a dust free environment else he got sinus infections. Mine also had inflammatory bowel disease and the steroids really helped with this. He was on them for 8 months with doses ranging from 2ml-20ml per day.
I wish you all the best with your horse, it sounds like you caught the symptoms early. Its so hard when you don't know the cause. We never got to the bottom of my horses problems, and i finally called it a day when he came down with chronic cellulitus, it was just one treatment to far what with the liver and the bowel disease. With regards to the liver however his GTT was 2200 at his worse and we got it down to 200. He never showed any symptoms from the liver disease except weight loss which could also have been due to the bowel disease. My friends horse also had raised enzyme levels which was picked up during a routine blood test, they never found the cause but he had a course of steroids and a supplement and returned to normal without any further problems.
wishing you all the best
x
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Pauline
Platinum Member
England
3185 Posts |
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unicorn122
Bronze Member
England
152 Posts |
Posted - 31 Oct 2012 : 6:43:43 PM
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| Hi all, thanks so much for your suggestions and kind words. Quick update, vet gave me more blood results today and levels have lowered on their own which is good. She thinks this indicates the episode on saturday was a One off episode relating to him eating something toxic as symptoms were of sudden onset rather than last time, and she only thought it was liver problem related initally because of his history.. He is pretty much back to his old self now too :) but we are going to take bloods weekly to keep checking and go through field with a fine tooth comb. Desperate to get to the bottom of this!! |
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suyents
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
1651 Posts |
Posted - 31 Oct 2012 : 7:19:02 PM
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i don't know if you are aware, but buttercups (creeping or otherwise) cause extensive liver damage. because f the wetter seasons we have had over the last few summers, creeping buttercup is rife...
also, i was interested in sheep's liver fluke treatment being used for a horse as i was advised by my vet to use cattle drench due to the sheep dose not being of the same concentration..
fluke is also much more common in England now also due to the wetter weather, whereas before it was limited to Ireland and the Welsh Borders.
Owners in East Devon be aware that fluke has been known to travel in the River Otter.
Putting your horse on milk thistle seed for the winter will certainly help him recover from liver problems... there is a product made by Hilton Herbs called hepatyte gold (i think) specially formulated for liver issues.
good luck. |
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Callisto
Platinum Member
6905 Posts |
Posted - 31 Oct 2012 : 7:24:04 PM
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| I was also going to suggest Milk Thistle to support the liver |
Zahkira (GR Amaretto x Taffetta)
Linda
East Sussex |
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Renee
Gold Member
539 Posts |
Posted - 31 Oct 2012 : 8:15:08 PM
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| Just a quick response, my gelding was diagnosed with liver damage aged approximately 20 and the vet wanted to put him down (he was really bad, lying down all the time and wouldn't eat) but I refused (the second picure below is him aged about 25). I found a vet who was a homoeopath as well as a herbalist and enlisted her help. I hand fed him and moved him to a different place with more space & better surroundings, and kept him in all the time in a large yard with organic hay. Grass is surprisingly challenging with natural toxins for a horse with liver problems. Basically, I only ever gave him organic feed/hay, turnout on organic grass, and no grass when he wasn't good (we made a special large yard for him under trees, etc, so he felt he was 'outside' when he was basically restricted to being in. He had milk thistle every day to support his liver. I didn't ride him unless he was looking good. I did continue riding occasionally until he was 28 and put him down aged 34. At this point his liver readings were almost normal. Hope that helps, do get in touch by email if I can give any other info. Renee |
      
Jeago (Ludomino x Bahia) 1973-2007 & Khylie* (Nazdrowie x Kaminah) 1990-2010 ~ Fouad el Khyl (Lothar el Nyhl x Khylie) 2005- |
Edited by - Renee on 31 Oct 2012 8:16:14 PM |
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Touchofblue
New Member
29 Posts |
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carol B
Silver Member
England
312 Posts |
Posted - 02 Nov 2012 : 5:11:20 PM
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| I'm so glad to find this thread! I hope you don't mind me tacking on to it. Following my thread about my arab losing weight http://www.arabianlines.com/forum1/topic_new.asp?TOPIC_ID=52351 the vet came and did his blood tests today. The result of the liver test came back this afternoon, his GGT is 600. I'm sitting here feeling devastated, I never imagined he might have a liver problem. My poor boy. The vet said have a think about what I want to do over the weekend and she'll speak to me again on Monday, she's talking scans and biopsy maybe next week. So I've had a good weep (as you do) and then came across this thread, SO much excellent advice, recommendations and HOPE!!!! I've written down a massive list of relevant stuff from here and will bombard the vet with it on Monday. Thank you!!!! |
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Nut
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
2838 Posts |
Posted - 02 Nov 2012 : 6:24:43 PM
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| Carol B - I'll pm you tomorrow, having had one with it serverly and now as recovered as possible and competing in freestyle dressage to music in less than a month, the right treatment can be invaluable. DOnt give up hope just yet :) |
www.ndlarabians.webs.com
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carol B
Silver Member
England
312 Posts |
Posted - 02 Nov 2012 : 7:14:30 PM
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| Nut, bless you, thanks, look forward to hearing from you. |
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unicorn122
Bronze Member
England
152 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jan 2013 : 3:16:49 PM
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Hi All,
I thought Id give another update on my little boy and his liver...
Well the vet wanted him to have another biopsy just so we could see how his liver was compared to last time. I agreed as I was so desperate to get some answers.
We got the results back last week and they were pretty much the same as they were last time, inflammed, especially in the bile ducts but no permanant damage (thank god)and now bombshell both my vet and the vet at the hospital have told me to move yards!!
Basically they think its simply down to the pasture we are on and something in the soil he is sensitive to (we are next to a river) have good reason to believe they are right.
We are moving to a place on the other side of town. Bit further for me and due to my work and commute he will have to be looked after by YM mon to fri - it will be really weird not seeing him during the week :| but I have to do anything I can to make sure he stays well (hes happy and in v good condition at the mo) |
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Edited by - unicorn122 on 02 Mar 2017 2:04:56 PM |
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Pasha
Platinum Member
England
3622 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jan 2013 : 4:26:54 PM
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This thread seems to be soo topical as my little Shesky also has Hepatitis at the moment 
He started losing weight through Aug/Sept and became really lethargic, so I called the vet. he is 16 and was already diagnosed with EMS, so the vet immediately thought PPID (Cushings). He was right  BUT he also had raised liver enzymes: AST 632 and GGT 207.
The vet only wanted to treat the PPID for the first 4 weeks so he put him on 1mg Prascend and then retested. I did however contact the feed companies and take him off Linseed, put him onto D&H Ultimate Balancer which is high in B Vitamins and gave him the Equimins Liver Cleanser.
His next results showed his ACTH (PPID meausure) had come down, but his Liver Enzymes were not improved: AST 636, GGT 211 and GLDH 104 
My vet didn't want to scan and perform a Biopsy on Shesky as he said it would serve no purpose as he wouldn't change the treatment. So he gave him a 10 Day course of antibiotics (standard ones that I have had for Mud Fever in the past) and a 30 day course of Hepatosyl.
Weight wise, Shesky put back all his weight over this month and looked and felt great (bucking and biting everyone, his two favourite pasttimes!). When I finished the Equimins I started giving him a Milk Thistle (D&H do a big sack) and Apple Cider Vinegar as recommended by Saracen.
The vet retested Shesky last Friday and called me Monday morning with the good news that his Liver Enzymes have improved a lot  I on't have the exact numbers but they are being sent to me. They still arent normal, so he is to continue on Hepatosyl and we will retest again in 4 weeks... poor Shesky feels like a pin cushion, but he is enjoying all the pamering! |
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