I havent posted on here about this, Ive been working with both my vets and even " Want2chase3" from this site about her experiences. Two weeks ago my horse won a barrel race by 3/4 of a second, next day just a little off, by day after that, full blown laminitis! Xrays showed a SLIGHT/minimal rotationso we started all the precautions. Bute, icing the feet, diet change, etc. Sent in blood work for any and all things metabolic. All negative. He had hock injections done 2 weeks prior and had one slight joint flare at the time. It resolved very quickly. Vets have determined he had a reaction to the steroid and thats what caused it. He went down hill pretty fast the first few days then stabilized. He was able to come off the bute ans switched to equioxx. Vets have all said its a rollercoaster. SOme get better in a week, takes several months for others. He has been in Cloud boots and heavy bedding since day 1. Vet gave a DMSO IV drip a week ago which made him instantly improved. Vets origionaly said to put a pad and shoes on, but he was so painful they said to take them off so he is barefoot now with the boots. He literlly will be bright eyed and feeling better one minute and barely able to walk 2 hours later. He lays down and sleeps a LOT, which is good i guess. Eating and drinking good. He has never been on feed with molasses, jut renew gold and alfalfa /Grass hay so there wasn't a lot of diet changes to be made. He is a BIG 1300 pound horse in shape but he has lost 50-75 pounds these last 2 weeks. Vet says he should make a full recovery, just takes time and we can't predict how long. Just wondering if anyone on here has any ideas maybe I missed!! I have packed his feet with magic cushion few days and tried sore no more. Both seemed to work then not work so who knows.  Thanks for reading, if there is anything I am missing please tell me!!! He is a super nice horse so I am giving him a chance but I don't want to continue something if its going to not work in the end. Thanks! 

Are you still feeding Triple Crown Lite? 

Just wanted to add to my thoughts: Have you done more xrays again? Sounds like he may have done some more rotation if hes laying down alot more. If he were mine I would be getting more x rays to see what his coffin bones were doing, if he can tolerate a trailer ride to the Vets.  

Yes! That was part of the feed change. Winwillows was helpful and said RG would not contribute enough sugar and starch but we did switch to one pound of the TC Lite to reduce it even more. Oh, And for hay he is on unlimited teff AND TC Low starch forage because its guarenteed at 8.3% NSC so under the 10% requirement. I know its working cause he has lost a lot of weight. 

Yep!!!! His first xrays were 2 weeks ago today, and we took a second set ONE week ago today. Their wasn't any real change, but its been. a week so might not be a bad idea to maybe get a 3rd set. 

Re check the joint....any fever?

You mean from the joint flare? That resolved fine and no fever, but I can check it again for sure! 

Not that I am recommending this but just my story. I treated a light case of laminitis once with banamine, absolutely no feed even though the horse was a hard keeper, grass hay, deep bedded stall and I started off taping cut down memory foam people shoes that belonged to my husband --lol his favorite runners-- to my horses' frogs for support and pain relief.  I eventually moved to boots with memory foam inserts I cut from a memory foam pad.  My horse went through a miserable week or two then once the abscesses started erupting out she started improving really fast. 

My good friend is a veterinarian and I trust her completely when she goes outside the box when one of my horses does not respond to traditional treatment.  

I hope your horse feels better soon.

Have you checked his digital pulse latley? If so how was it? When Melvin was really hurting and laying down I knew he was in alot of pain and I checked his pulse and it was thumping hard, I called his Vet and he wanted to see him right away. 

Checked the joint. Zero heat or swelling and perfectly normal temp. I put my sore no more poultice in the freezer and packed his feet with the cold clay tonight. He sure liked that. He ate and is laying down again. Lol. Every person who I've talked to said this is the normal eb and flow of this and to stick it out and he will recover. I will keep at it!! 

I have heard about the abscesses. He was only on bute a week before we switched to equioxx. He didn't tolerate it at all. The best thing my vet has done is give him an IV DMSO drip. She is willing to let me take a couple bags of it home and I don't mind doing it every week if necessary. 

Yep! The hard part about this horse is he has big pulses normally. But yep on his bad days they really get to thumping. Me and the bet text back and forth regularly. 

Sounds like you are doing everything you can for him,which doesn't surprise me, it does take time,ALOT of time,its just seeing them in so much pain that hurts the heart.

Flit has been doing everything and anything he can for this horse, literally has spared no expense, gotten lots of great advice and he put together a dream team of vets and farriers to try to get this horse fixed! it's definitely a terrible roller coaster to endure ... hoping and praying each day to see any sign of improvement,  even if it's just a little, it gives you hope then the sinking feeling when they take a few steps backwards.. its heart wrenching... and I feel for you ... I remember it all too well. 

I would find a good farrier that could put wooden clogs on him. I'd also run more dmso

So sorry to hear- prayers for your horse to have a full recovery and for your patience and perseverance. 

I agree,its the first thing our vet suggested,and if the DMSO worked that good I would give again asap.I would also remove his feed and suppliments,, all OF IT  except hay until you see some improvement. Is he on alot of supplements?

We went with cloud boots for the time being because he can only stand on one front foot about 20 seconds at a time before he jerks it away and has to put it down. It took my farrier a long time just to get his front shoes pulled!!! And my horse feels horrible about taking his foot back like he is going to get in trouble. Not his fault but he knows he is not supposed to do that. Maybe he will improve a little more in the next week and we can put the wooden clogs on. Supplements wise, all he gets is his curost total support. That's it.

have any of you had one go through it and come back and run cans? My vet is a barrel racer as well  and is really confident that when this is over he will be back running just have to maintain them a little different.  

My mare became laminitic during the lockdown.  My friend lives in another state and the vets that I use were only accepting haul in drop offs.  They would not even consider letting me pick up meds or do a DMSO drip without a diagnosis so I had to do the next best thing and go old school with ace since I had it on hand.  Equioxx and bute were useless so my friend told me to go with banamine it was her preference anyway.  My mare started parking out at first and it took me hours to get her in the stall from an outside paddock just outside the barn.  Once the abscesses started forming she went down from the pain and that is when I taped my DIY lily pads to her feet made from my husband's shoes.lol  No way could I get her to hold one foot up long enough to do much of anything.  Once the abscesses broke out she was up and going.

The laminitis was mild and stayed that way. The abscesses though tore her feet up.  She had two in each front feet and one in each back.  She has the slight dropped sole in front and you can tell where there was some separation.  When I started her back I tried riding her barefoot because she doesn't have much foot to nail or glue a shoe to but she clocks almost a full second off barefoot.  I finally found a farrier that can custom make a shoe and get it on her and keep her sound at the same time.  So it looks like I will be able to compete on her again but her feet will always be a management issue now and I will always be cautious of a relapse.

It looks like you are doing what works for your horse and all set to a hopefully a solid recovery with your horse. 

Thanks! Good to hear that after all that you were still able to compete.  It's a day by day thing for sure. Luckily my vet didn't agree with the lockdown and it was business as usual! Lol 

Just wondering how things are progressing?

I have one thats been going through laminitis flares for years due to his cushings and he's kind of an unorthodox case. He's never rotated though, but he's been to the point where he cant even take 2-3 steps to go to his food or a water bucket. Banamine works well on him and icing, I've never put boots or anything on. But his flares up when he gets switched to any kind of hay with grass in it, he has to have straight alfalfa or he can't walk within a couple days. I can't even let him hand graze fresh grass for more than 5 minutes or he can't walk the next day. When he's bad I stand him in a rubber feed tub with water & ice, give him banamine, pull all the feed he's bene getting & go find alfalfa. Even if I have to buy the expensove $20 compressed bales at the store which sometimes I keep on hand in winter when all the hay suppliers are sold out of regualr hay. But he'll go through this 5-10 times a year, for a few days or a couple weeks. And he's always come back fully sound & xrays are perfect, he's not sound to run due to an old tendon tear, but he runs around the paddock sound & I do still ride him when I have some free time. My vet is entirely confused by his unorthodox case but since we figured out that alfalfa works best for him, he's come across a couple others that also seem to be the same. He's done a lot of hay testing in our area and where I'm located he's finding most alfalfa to be way lower in sugar than the grasses. Which is probbaly why local horses are having better luck with alfalfa, and even the 2 compressed bales we tested were lower sugar than any local grass hay we tested. So that is also food for thought and will change I'm sure depending on location, field mixes, cut times, etc. But for here, central IL, alfalfa is showing to be better for horses requiring restricted diets. Might not hurt to have you hay tested 

Well, today is a good day. Lol. He hasn't had to lay down all day. Pretty darn sore but instead of laying down 80 percent of the day he has been up eating or standing in his corner. His personality seems good he doesn't  seem withdrawn from pain. It's a roller coaster for sure!!! Tomorrow he goes to the vet for his 3 week xrays and a DMSO drip. 

I'm out here In CA and alfalfa is plentiful 24/7/365. Vet has me remove it because it causes weight gain and my horse needs to lose weight. Lol. He has lost probably 50-75 pounds in last 3 weeks. I do give him a handful , literally handful and he loves it. I have been getting this bagged forage called " Triple crown low starch forage" it's Timothy and orchard and totally fortified. He seems to like it ok. It's guaranteed to be only 8% NSC so I know it's good. Other than that he gets teff. 

Actually he had a good morning yesterday but by the afternoon he was prettty bad. Vet is coming today to take 3 week xrays and give dmso. Such a roller coaster. 

Prayers he starts having more good than bad days

Since hes having more bad days now and hes going on 3 weeks, I would not be feeding any type of feed at this point with supplements included just hay, have hay in front of him 24/7. I have been threw this with my own Gelding and one that was giving to me, he had laminitis and she didnt know what to do and didnt want to spend the money on him she was going to put him down, so I took him and once I removed all feed with good soft area to be in he recovered very slowly with my vets help. I dont have the one that was giving to me anymore but I still have Melvin and hes recovered but when he was going threw that bad time I removed his feed to and he lived on hay for about a week. He never parked out, but was just sore. So I watch him like a Hawk now, I can tell when hes gotton more then he should have of something and most times its his hay thats been freshly cut and fertilize so I keep the older hay on hand for him. 

I discovered the value of old hay years ago.  I now keep some of the year before cutting on hand always and it came in handy with my mare last year.

Yea when this all started my vet told me to feed him teff or Timothy. I picked up some teff because researching it , it has the lowest nsc. BUT.... got to reading about it and it's highly variable. It can be as low as 5%NSC a d as high as 22%! I'm not going to have it tested and this stuff is a little greener than I've seen so I SUSPECT it's higher in sugars. Soooooo I scoured the neighborhood tractor supplies and picked up 8 bags of the triple crown safe starch forage. It has everything they need and he seems fo like it. It's TESTED and guaranteed 8% nsc and has everything they need !! That's what he is getting until this all resolves. Vet had some emergencies come up so it's not looking like DMsO until tomorrow. If he does well on this stuff, he might very well just stay on it forever ! Lol. So much less messy. 

Your horse is lucky to have you!  I will have to look into the TC safe starch forage.

Well I am learning alot on here... And I am so sorry you are having to go through this Flit... (((HUGS)))) 

IDK what you all have access to, but Danco Forage has a 8% NSC cube, that has flax in it and timothy and alfalfa.  

And CubeIt has a less then 10% cube with Timothy and alfafa if you can get either of them... sounds like TSC had a good option for you. 

With a laminitis issue, do the traditional soaks help at all?  

With all our rain, I had a abcess not long ago, and they traditional epsom salt and warm water soak, and I tried the diaper with sugar and iodine and it blew in days... but IDK if that is the same for laminitis?  does anything like that help... 

I use two vets out of the same office. Mostly one , but she was booked up solid at the beginning of all this so saw the other one. He absolutely told me NOT to soak in ice water, that it would soften the sole which could cause problems......... so I had some ice packs and he told me to put them just under the fetlock 15-20min 2x daily to cool the blood going to the foot. So that's what I did.  For my 1 week follow up and X-rays my regular vet tells me that swimming my horse ( we have a public facility close to me that does this ) is excellent therapy , let's them have low impact exercise, and the cold water is great for his feet and that I should try and swim him 3-4x a week for 10 mins each. Lol. I told her what her PARTNER vet said about water and she told me that 10 minutes a few days a week would have zero affect on the sole and she would do it with her own horses. Such opposite and contrasting opinions. It's HOT and dry here this time of year so as soon as your out of the pool your feet are dry pretty much instantly. However he has been to sore to really ride in a trailer so he hasn't swam. Last night I decided give him some extra relief and I got a bag of ice and did the traditional soak in ice water and he really really liked it. So I might do it once a day or on his bad days. I have all the other leg icing products in my freezer so will continue those couple of other times during the day 

Hows your boy doing?

Much improved!!! Probably the best weekend so far!  I went out today and one cloud boot was in the water trough , the other about 30' from that one. Lolol. He must not be in much pain!! He was standing at his bucket waiting on dinner. Only thing that sucks is the blue foam pad came out of the boot and it melted/ shriveled up in the sun. Luckily, I had a spare. Lol. At the walk he is about 80 percent sound , no more tucking his butt under him. Turning is for sure ouchy but he is making some good progress. Thanks for asking. He did get a DMSO IV drip Friday 

So happy to hear this!

Glad to read this!  

It gets so emotionally draining when we are doing everything we can and they still hurt... But good work!  

I have learned alot on this thread

Here are my two biggest frustrations which will hopefully keep me from ever having to do this again.......

1. feeding : trying to find hay, supplement etc and having to look at every single little ingredient is exhausting. Many feed companies don't lie but they make you absolutely dig dig dig to get what's really in a product. 

2. Pain roller coaster: I really wish they would just get sore until they got better !!! I have been riding the roller coaster of " wow, he is finally getting so much better" to being barely able to walk 2,3,6 , 12 hours later. That is exhausting but part of the process 

Are you not going to keep him on Triple Crown Lite?

Feeding this feed with his meds to my boy was a good choice, he was pretty bad for about 4 days, he did have some rotation in his left hoof (got threw this mess) and then barely 8 months of him being great he got a abscess from hell in that hoof that almost ended his life, the abscess stayed in his heel bulb and would never blow out, then the infection went into his joint/coffin bone, man what a mess, he stayed at his Vet for 2 days having to IV meds into that area and cutting out a big chunk of hoof to get that abscess to drain. Talking about being a roller coaster ride, I know how you feel so try to stay on the positive side. He stayed in his Soft rides for about 4 months letting that hoof grow out enough to get front shoes put back on him since he stayed to sore being bare footed. The shoes helped him alot, this all took place in 6/12/19, and you would never know that he went threw all this mess, he feels great, but he still has a flar up now and then and thats because he got to much grass or his hay was to rich, so I really have to watch how he moves. For his supplement I have him on MVP (Anti-carbs) along with his TCL. He gets very little of this feed, hes a really easy keeper. 

For the time being yes, he is still on his very small amount of TC lite. I like that it has everything vitamin and mineral wise they need with a low 9% nsc. However , it does have middlings , soy, , and some other inflammatory ingredients. I actually went off my vets advice and STOPPED the isoxuprine today. Even before all this happened I had used it before and it DOES increase heat In the foot! With extra blood , more heat. At this point , his foot needs to cool down as much as possible so i consulted with a few vet friends who said they would not use it. Lol. For whatever reason he LOVES the Timothy pellets I get him and they have zero binders or molasses so that's great! I talked to winwillows about RG( he was on it for years until the laminitis ) and he said it wouldn't cause a problem. So my plan might be to just mix HALF pound RG with the TImothy pellets just to get his thyrol L and curost In him. He is on unlimited teff hay which he also likes ( this time ) lol. Bet suggested a hoof supplement but all the ones she recommended like platinum or horseguard , have molasses and rice bran. lol. 

Hummm, I never notice any extra heat in Mel hooves, and for the extra blood flow I think its great that the blood is circulation, I want that blood being pumped. 

Have you looked into Life Data Lamina Formula, I have heard lots of good things said about it. Been needing to look it up and see what its all about, I'm been thinking about putting Mel on it, (maybe) But I need to see if it might interfere with the Anti-carbs. 

I hope that you are able to get your fellas pain under control soon and beable to keep it that way.

Well, a great morning! He was at his feed tub banging away and nickering at me! He is SOUND at a walk and SOUND in a turn!!! Absolutely NO LEANING BACK. I think cooling down those feet and removing the isoxuprine did the trick........ for now.. LOL 

Such a great update!! He looked tons better!! You know we are all invested in this with you lol! Made my morning to see that 

Well, today vet thinks an abscess is brewing in RF foot. He is pretty 3 legged lame. Actually 2.5 legged since the other front foot is still suffering as well. My Shoer told me it was coming when acute phase was over. I guess the time has come. Hopefully he won't go septic , he is not a surgical candidate. 

Did you get an xray to see where the abscess is forming, when Mels really bad abscess formed it was in his heel bub and it would never blow, it just kept building in the heel area and his coronary band, you could tell where it was with all the swelling in the heel area, when his Vet xrayed it it was really deep and you could see where the infection had gone into his coffin bone so Dr. Huffman had to drill a hole just under his coronaty band and the nasty stuff shot out, you could see the relief in Mels eyes when the pressure was gone. Then he had to remove hoof wall to flush out the area and then was on IV's to get meds deep inside his hoof to stop the infection, it was a real mess. 

So dont wait to long to see if it will blow, sometimes they dont. 

I have no doubt it's in the heel. He  has always walked on his toe on that foot. Which has to be super painful with laminitis. The vet told me we would set up xrays first of next week. Vet said you can't always see an abscess on an X-ray so hopefully we can.