Update on Gracie: 1 Week Later

After learning about all the symptoms, talking to other people who’s horses have been diagnosed with it, and watching videos on youtube I really didn’t think this could be the case but I didn’t want to completely rule it out. Since I wanted to keep costs down as much as possible I read about a new treatment that some people had done and seemed to be some what successful. This treatmeant was feeding horses Diatomaceous Earth. DE is a natural product that can be used as an anti-caking agent or pelleting aid in feed. It’s also used as a Dewormer but has never been clinically proven to help horses with EPM but many people were saying they noticed huge improvements in their horses after using it. So I gave it a try and started all my horses on it. I bought a 20lb bag from Tractor Supply for $12 and started feeding 1 teaspoon once a day in their feed.

• Licking dirt – she would sit and eat the clay instead of the green grass right beside it.
• Chewing wood – her stall looks crazy however it could be from her being bored from being on stall rest.
• Eating leaves – she looovveedd leaves and prefered that over grass. She would even eat the tree limbs holding the leaves.
• Muscle spasms – you could see that happening in the video I posted.

3. PSSM (Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy) – I’m not going to go into all the details about this but you can read more about it here. That article provides a lot of great information on the disease. I thought maybe she was “tying-up” which was causing her muscles to spasm and her to be so tight in her back end. I did watch some videos on horses with it and I ruled this out pretty quickly but to be safe I read that sweet feed is high in sugars which is the cause of this and decreasing that can help. So I cut back her feed so she wasn’t getting as much. Exercise also is suppose to be a huge factor in getting horses well but I wasn’t able to exercise her.

4. HYPP (Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis) – Symptoms of this are similar to PSSM. Again I watched videos and read about this but it just didn’t seem to fit Gracie just right. However, I will say that I do plan to breed her at some point so I will get her tested just to be 100% sure she doesn’t have this and can’t pass it on to the baby. If you want to know more about this, go here.

As you can tell most of what I read were pretty serious diseases. My gut feeling tells me Gracie isn’t dealing with anything like that and more then likely it’s just a lameness from being kicked or rough housed by Vinni. Which Vinni is known for playing too rough. He likes to kick, paw, rear and bite not in a mean way he just loves to play. Gracie doesn’t like it so much so she will kick at him. So she could have just hurt herself kicking at him.

Just to sum up what I did tho. I started feeding Diatomaceous Earth, I cut back her feed, I made sure she had access to a mineral block at all times, she was put on stall rest for 9 days and I only had her out about 4 hours each day to eat grass. I also had the massage therapist come back out and work on her to help her muscles relax. I will say I noticed a slight improvement after that too. On day 6 I started to hand walk her for 15-20 mins up and down a small hill. I also bought a magnetic blanket and she wore that for 1 hour every day. She was on 2 grams of bute every day for 5 days and then I cut it back to 1 gram for 2 days. She has been off bute for 2 days and has shown no signs of any problems coming back.

Like I said I have no idea what caused her problems and the fact that I did so much to help her doesn’t help narrow down what really worked. However, I feel confident to say whatever it was isn’t still bothering her and she is on her way to be 100% again.

Thank you for all your prayers and concerns during this time. Feel free to leave any questions or comments below. I would love to hear any stories you want to share about similar problems your horse had.  Gracie is thankful to and sends sweet horse kisses your way!