Vet Visit
After months of feeling slightly in-the-dark about what is going on with Sage, and floundering around doing my own research and reading, it was really nice yesterday to finally have the vet out.
I had set up an appointment for Sage to get his spring shots and some acupuncture yesterday, and then had him scheduled with the lameness specialist for Monday. And the farrier for next Tuesday. I know, busy schedule. I'd called my vet a couple of times to discuss Sage's dietary issues and I'm pretty sure he'd been out once last summer while this was going on, but he never really did anything about it or gave me much advice, which had me frustrated.
Well, apparently either we had some miscommunication, or we had his full attention yesterday finally or something. Because we got much better results. Sage is now diagnosed as having 'metabolic syndrome' which is decidedly different from laminitis, and I now (more or less) understand the difference between the two. I'm still a bit frustrated by the chinese medicine approach our vet takes, while also loving him for it, because he seems to really be able to help my horse, and yet I am left analyzing phrases like "your horse has too much ying energy" and wanting another vet out just to explain things to me.
So Sage had acupuncture first. he got 8 needles right on his croup, and he was cranky about each one going in. When had acupuncture last year he got really sleepy and relaxed both times, but yesterday he was kinda twitchy throughout the whole thing. The had 2 more needles in his right hind leg, and one in his shoulder.
Don tested him for pain first. He uses this little pencil-like thingy to push on specific meridians I think, and watches the horse's reaction, and that informs where he puts in the needles. He said that Sage wasn't showing any pain around his sacro-iliac injury and that he feels it's healed on its own over time. (I guess maybe moving him to my mom's for the 24/7 turnout paid off then.) But Sage *did* have a big reaction in his right shoulder, and Don felt his reactions at the mounting block probably have to do with that shoulder being painful. I have to wonder if that's related to his old SI injury...I know sometimes as they compensate for an injury in one place, they get sore in another. But I think its more common for it to be the diagonal leg, not the other leg on the same side.
Sage eventually got a little quieter as the needles worked. He gave Thea her spring shots while we waited, and I told him about Sage's symptoms around grass and we talked about metabolic syndrome. He recommended putting Sage on a fairly high dose of magnesium, and said that with metabolic syndrome, there's glucose everywhere but it's not making it into the cells. And that magnesium helps fix that. ??? More research needed apparently.
Sage has a "yong deficiency" which is a "chi deficiency" along with not enough fiery energy basically. Which Don said matches his inability to digest his food. Then Don felt his ears, and said they were cold. He had me feel Sage's ears and said the first two fingers should be warm, and the next two should be cooler. Then he had me feel Thea's ears for comparison. Yes, Thea's ears really were warmer. Sage's ears both have a noticeably cold patch at the bottom, and actually get a little warmer further up, which is weird. Now all of you, please go feel your horse's ears and report back to me before this guy asks me to start boiling frog's tongues and reading entrails???
Also, Sage's tongue and mouth are really pale pink, and Thea's mouth and tongue were more reddish. Don said that again Sage's mouth being so pale was a sign of metabolic syndrome.
So, all the needles in Sage's bum were to tonify his yong energy I believe...to rebalance him. Sage's hooves were not warm, and the pulse near his hooves was fine and in balance. Don said to absolutely keep him off of pasture until later in the season, and that every horse is different and we were just going to have play around with what works for Sage. He suggested fencing in very small strips of pasture, and really limiting his pasture intake though. He also said there's really not any need to worry about coffin bone rotation as his hooves show no sign of founder (which I knew). he said the fact that they were warm a couple times meant we did need to change things a little, but did not indicate to him any danger of coffin bone rotation.
So we muddle forward, with 2 new supplements; some magnesium in significant quantities, and some rehmania, which I believe is a chinese herb, and Don said it would take at least 3 weeks to see a difference.
Again, I am really thankful to have a vet with a more alternative health viewpoint. But, being somewhat educated as an herbalist myself, I find it annoying and against my overall herbal philosophy (which is use your own environment to find healing, i.e. use the plants around you) to be paying substantial sums for herbs shipped to us FROM CHINA. I suppose I could talk to my herbalism teacher who sort of specializes in treating horses herbally, but I guess for now, we'll try this.
Oh, and, I had actually seen my herbalism teacher that morning for a website meeting, and she gave me a new supplement for Sage called "easy balance" with magnesium and cinnamon and chromium etc. for Sage. Well, Don looked at it and sort of smiled and said "That looks fine." and I looked at him and said "Do you think it will do any good?" and he said he didn't think it had enough of any one thing to really make a difference. He was basically telling me it was ok, as in, it wouldn't harm my horse but he obviously didn't feel it would actually help. The magnesium he's having me use instead is like $3 a pound anyways so I don't really mind giving the Easy Balance back to my herbalism teacher. But I find it interesting that she feels she's had good results with it in other sugar sensitive horses, and Don feels it wouldn't really do much of anything at all.
Sage is okay'd for exercise, although really what I was asking him was not whether or not Sage *could* exercise, but more "how important is it that he [does] exercise?" But Don didn't quite catch that and just told me it was okay to exercise him. Mom feels exercising him is important as in, its nice when I can do that, but not crucially important as in "Move or sell your horse because if you continue owning him and not riding him enough, he's going to be really sick."
I hope she's right.
The short version:
Sage also had his coggins pulled and half his spring shots done. Don's coming back in 2 weeks to do other half. And sheath cleaning! After having Sage kick at me half-heartedly and glare at me for months whenever I tried to just *touch* that area, it was interesting to see him be a perfect gentleman while Don applied the excalibur and got the job done. I think it was the acupuncture.
So, I cancelled Sage's appointment with the lameness expert on Monday. Mostly because, even though I would like to have Sage get some chiro if needed, and get another vet's perspective in english! thank you, without some vague terminology like yong deficiency...I also want to just wait and see how he does for the next couple weeks. If the herbs and magnesium really do work, and we keep him off of pasture and he really does stay sound, then there's no need to do anything else except keeping doing what we're doing. Besides, the lameness exams are really *expensive.* Totally worth doing if necessary, and doing in the not-too-distant-future if Sage continues to be lame *at all.* But, I don't mind holding off for now and waiting a couple weeks to see how he does.
What all this means is...I need that new endurance girth like yesterday. Gotta ride Sage and keep him in shape as best I can starting NOW. But I can think of much worse things than your horse needing to be ridden regularly for medical reasons...
EDIT:::
http://www.rivervalleyveterinary.com/documents/equine_cushing.pdf
(Equine metabolic syndrome is the 2nd half of this pdf.)
This makes me confused again. Clearly exercise IS crucial according to this and some other articles I found on the web. AND it can be related to laminitis. ARGGH!
I had set up an appointment for Sage to get his spring shots and some acupuncture yesterday, and then had him scheduled with the lameness specialist for Monday. And the farrier for next Tuesday. I know, busy schedule. I'd called my vet a couple of times to discuss Sage's dietary issues and I'm pretty sure he'd been out once last summer while this was going on, but he never really did anything about it or gave me much advice, which had me frustrated.
Well, apparently either we had some miscommunication, or we had his full attention yesterday finally or something. Because we got much better results. Sage is now diagnosed as having 'metabolic syndrome' which is decidedly different from laminitis, and I now (more or less) understand the difference between the two. I'm still a bit frustrated by the chinese medicine approach our vet takes, while also loving him for it, because he seems to really be able to help my horse, and yet I am left analyzing phrases like "your horse has too much ying energy" and wanting another vet out just to explain things to me.
So Sage had acupuncture first. he got 8 needles right on his croup, and he was cranky about each one going in. When had acupuncture last year he got really sleepy and relaxed both times, but yesterday he was kinda twitchy throughout the whole thing. The had 2 more needles in his right hind leg, and one in his shoulder.
Don tested him for pain first. He uses this little pencil-like thingy to push on specific meridians I think, and watches the horse's reaction, and that informs where he puts in the needles. He said that Sage wasn't showing any pain around his sacro-iliac injury and that he feels it's healed on its own over time. (I guess maybe moving him to my mom's for the 24/7 turnout paid off then.) But Sage *did* have a big reaction in his right shoulder, and Don felt his reactions at the mounting block probably have to do with that shoulder being painful. I have to wonder if that's related to his old SI injury...I know sometimes as they compensate for an injury in one place, they get sore in another. But I think its more common for it to be the diagonal leg, not the other leg on the same side.
Sage eventually got a little quieter as the needles worked. He gave Thea her spring shots while we waited, and I told him about Sage's symptoms around grass and we talked about metabolic syndrome. He recommended putting Sage on a fairly high dose of magnesium, and said that with metabolic syndrome, there's glucose everywhere but it's not making it into the cells. And that magnesium helps fix that. ??? More research needed apparently.
Sage has a "yong deficiency" which is a "chi deficiency" along with not enough fiery energy basically. Which Don said matches his inability to digest his food. Then Don felt his ears, and said they were cold. He had me feel Sage's ears and said the first two fingers should be warm, and the next two should be cooler. Then he had me feel Thea's ears for comparison. Yes, Thea's ears really were warmer. Sage's ears both have a noticeably cold patch at the bottom, and actually get a little warmer further up, which is weird. Now all of you, please go feel your horse's ears and report back to me before this guy asks me to start boiling frog's tongues and reading entrails???
Also, Sage's tongue and mouth are really pale pink, and Thea's mouth and tongue were more reddish. Don said that again Sage's mouth being so pale was a sign of metabolic syndrome.
So, all the needles in Sage's bum were to tonify his yong energy I believe...to rebalance him. Sage's hooves were not warm, and the pulse near his hooves was fine and in balance. Don said to absolutely keep him off of pasture until later in the season, and that every horse is different and we were just going to have play around with what works for Sage. He suggested fencing in very small strips of pasture, and really limiting his pasture intake though. He also said there's really not any need to worry about coffin bone rotation as his hooves show no sign of founder (which I knew). he said the fact that they were warm a couple times meant we did need to change things a little, but did not indicate to him any danger of coffin bone rotation.
So we muddle forward, with 2 new supplements; some magnesium in significant quantities, and some rehmania, which I believe is a chinese herb, and Don said it would take at least 3 weeks to see a difference.
Again, I am really thankful to have a vet with a more alternative health viewpoint. But, being somewhat educated as an herbalist myself, I find it annoying and against my overall herbal philosophy (which is use your own environment to find healing, i.e. use the plants around you) to be paying substantial sums for herbs shipped to us FROM CHINA. I suppose I could talk to my herbalism teacher who sort of specializes in treating horses herbally, but I guess for now, we'll try this.
Oh, and, I had actually seen my herbalism teacher that morning for a website meeting, and she gave me a new supplement for Sage called "easy balance" with magnesium and cinnamon and chromium etc. for Sage. Well, Don looked at it and sort of smiled and said "That looks fine." and I looked at him and said "Do you think it will do any good?" and he said he didn't think it had enough of any one thing to really make a difference. He was basically telling me it was ok, as in, it wouldn't harm my horse but he obviously didn't feel it would actually help. The magnesium he's having me use instead is like $3 a pound anyways so I don't really mind giving the Easy Balance back to my herbalism teacher. But I find it interesting that she feels she's had good results with it in other sugar sensitive horses, and Don feels it wouldn't really do much of anything at all.
Sage is okay'd for exercise, although really what I was asking him was not whether or not Sage *could* exercise, but more "how important is it that he [does] exercise?" But Don didn't quite catch that and just told me it was okay to exercise him. Mom feels exercising him is important as in, its nice when I can do that, but not crucially important as in "Move or sell your horse because if you continue owning him and not riding him enough, he's going to be really sick."
I hope she's right.
The short version:
- Sage has metabolic syndrome, not laminitis. Yay!
- Sage is okay'd to exercise and the acupuncture got rid of the pain in his shoulder entirely. (He didn't flinch or move away at all after the acupuncture and should now be okay around the mounting block.)
- He's now on magnesium to help his metabolism. And also rehmania, a chinese herb.
- His sacro iliac injury did not trigger any pain response, and Don feels it's fully healed.
- The vet giggled again and wiggled Sage's ribfat. He needs to lose close to 100 lbs. I taped him later at 1085 I think? Crap, now I have to tape him again to make sure. Mom thinks at his build he should be at ~900-950lbs. Let's hope the rehmania and magnesium help him lose weight because he's really not getting that much hay.
Sage also had his coggins pulled and half his spring shots done. Don's coming back in 2 weeks to do other half. And sheath cleaning! After having Sage kick at me half-heartedly and glare at me for months whenever I tried to just *touch* that area, it was interesting to see him be a perfect gentleman while Don applied the excalibur and got the job done. I think it was the acupuncture.
So, I cancelled Sage's appointment with the lameness expert on Monday. Mostly because, even though I would like to have Sage get some chiro if needed, and get another vet's perspective in english! thank you, without some vague terminology like yong deficiency...I also want to just wait and see how he does for the next couple weeks. If the herbs and magnesium really do work, and we keep him off of pasture and he really does stay sound, then there's no need to do anything else except keeping doing what we're doing. Besides, the lameness exams are really *expensive.* Totally worth doing if necessary, and doing in the not-too-distant-future if Sage continues to be lame *at all.* But, I don't mind holding off for now and waiting a couple weeks to see how he does.
What all this means is...I need that new endurance girth like yesterday. Gotta ride Sage and keep him in shape as best I can starting NOW. But I can think of much worse things than your horse needing to be ridden regularly for medical reasons...
EDIT:::
http://www.rivervalleyveterinary.com/documents/equine_cushing.pdf
(Equine metabolic syndrome is the 2nd half of this pdf.)
This makes me confused again. Clearly exercise IS crucial according to this and some other articles I found on the web. AND it can be related to laminitis. ARGGH!