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 Scorpions R Us
Posts: 9586
   
Location: So. Cali. | Seems more common now that horses are showing positive for it. What were you horses symptoms that made you decide to test for it?
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 Hugs to You
Posts: 7550
Location: In The Land of Cotton | Walking like it was drunk. Confused looking. Instead of being the alpha, hanging in the background. |
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 Hummer's Hero
Posts: 3071
Location: Smack Dab in the Middle | This...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8VeAIf6o_c
After diagnosis, I was able to trace it back almost 2 years. |
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 Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | My mare was showing ribs, and if you looked at her from behind, she had muscle atrophy in her rear end. I put her on medicine for 30 days and she is fat and happy again. I must have caught it in the very early stages because she bounced back quickly.
She had no trouble with walking straight or with balance. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| Dragging rear toes, severe muscle atrophy over rump, wore out fast(really fast). Thinking back there were signs of it months before I realized it and tested him. He had two episodes of tying up, that I thought was just because I didn't have him conditioned well enough and pushed him to hard. I then noticed the toe dragging and then a month later the atrophy. took me a couple more months to convince the vet that I thought he had it and to send me to the university because he wasn't showing any neurological signs. Catch it as fast as you can!
Edited by FlyingJT 2014-01-22 4:56 PM
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 Expert
Posts: 1218
Location: Great NW | no two cases are alike. it depends where the protozoa take hold as to what your symptoms may be. What are you noticing? |
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| Stumbling was the first sign I noticed and then leaning hard against the back wall of the trailer or the divider making marks on his butt or hip from bracing so hard to balance while riding. |
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Expert
Posts: 1218
Location: Great NW | If her were mine I would get him tested. And just so you know sometimes the tests come back negative - but when the animals are treated with the medicine they improve - so you tell me? anyways, it could be that his axis is out - but I have not seen one with an axis issue with their balance that bad so I would bet on EPM. |
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 You get what you give
Posts: 13030
Location: Texas | The tests can be so relative, which is why you should diagnose based on a combination of clinical signs and a blood test.
The reason is- Not every horse makes a sufficient immune response against the protozoa. So, they may be REALLY symptomatic, or really weak, but have a low titer because their body simply isn't making enough antibodies against it.
Likewise, some horses may have a huge immune response over a mild case of EPM, and may look and act OK but have a huge titer.
Also, the titers don't really tell you where the horse is in its infection. They may have antibodies left over as memory cells for a past infection they kicked themselves, or they may be early in infection. Early or late in infection can give you a low titer because either it hasn't hit it's max infection or it's almost run its course.
One way vets look at it is to take a titer, if its concerning and there's clinical signs, treat, and take another titer later. That way you can see if the drug knocked down the antibody load which would indicate the infection is reduced.
My horse that was diagnosed with EPM had weight loss, she was really using her front end only during her runs, she tripped a couple times at rodeos but was still clocking. we were hitting a lot. Then she had muscle atrophy on her face. She passed all the tail pulls/leg cross tests. Treated her and she's fat again and her masseter muscle filled in. She had a 16 titer on the EPM Pathogenes test. Also remember every test is different so the numbers won't be the same. |
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Scorpions R Us
Posts: 9586
Location: So. Cali. | Thank you all for your input and experiences. I could got back to mid 2012 with 'possible' symptoms. But in the last year I've gotten head tilt, muscle atrophy, random off and on lameness in different feet/legs, really not wanting to work to the right at all, dragging of back toes, and now I have stumbling and bucking undersaddle when asked to slow down while out on trail. Not like this particular horse at all. Vet is hopefully coming today to pull blood to be sent to UC Davis for the IFAT test.
ETA: She passed a Neuro Exam in April (roughly) last year. Had a Lameness exam done in October and only showed sore in her back right hock, which she is due for.
Edited by Three*C*Champs 2014-01-23 11:31 AM
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 Expert
Posts: 2013
Location: Piedmont, OK | Backend soreness that nothing helped. Like from the middle of his back all the way down his rump if you touched him he would cave under pressure and he had extreme anxiety. But he never had any of the symptoms of being drunk or dragging his toes or muscle atrophy. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 806
Location: Arkansas | Bucking that was uncharacteristic. Sore back without being ridden and wasn't improving.
A vet said to lift his head up and ask him to back. He couldn't do it. He would act like he wasn't sure where the ground was. Almost, like he was trying to "feel" for it. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 941
Location: Kansas | 3 year old of the track started lugging on the bit. He had been very light and responsive. The next sign was his hair looking lackluster and he was losing weight. We didn't recognize this as EPM. This was a number of years ago before we really knew about it. He got very disconnected and out of sync on his hind end before we figured out what was wrong. |
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 Veteran
Posts: 206
Location: Downsouth | I sent u a pm!! |
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| If there is suspicion even without a positive test it will NOT hurt them to treat them. for EPM. |
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Scorpions R Us
Posts: 9586
Location: So. Cali. | Just wanted to update, per UC Davis IFAT blood draw, she is Negative! 
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 Jr. Detective
Location: Beggs, OK | Three*C*Champs - 2014-01-27 5:56 PM Just wanted to update, per UC Davis IFAT blood draw, she is Negative!
The one and only that I had UC Davis tested came back negative....and he was the WORST one I had. We are very fortunate to have a local vet that is very experienced with this disease. I have treated four now and have seen rapid improvement with ALL of them.
The UC Davis test cost me two years of trying to figure out what was wrong and ultimately made the horse a trail horse because he was so affected by the disease I didn't trust him to come back to 100% balance. He is a really nice son of Dr Nick Bar...and it makes me ill.
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| rachellyn80 - 2014-01-27 6:04 PM
Three*C*Champs - 2014-01-27 5:56 PM Just wanted to update, per UC Davis IFAT blood draw, she is Negative!
The one and only that I had UC Davis tested came back negative....and he was the WORST one I had. We are very fortunate to have a local vet that is very experienced with this disease. I have treated four now and have seen rapid improvement with ALL of them.
The UC Davis test cost me two years of trying to figure out what was wrong and ultimately made the horse a trail horse because he was so affected by the disease I didn't trust him to come back to 100% balance. He is a really nice son of Dr Nick Bar...and it makes me ill.
What did you treat them with? |
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Jr. Detective
Location: Beggs, OK | 5 days on diclazuril I.v. at the vet clinic.... with the exception of my 26 yr old mare, we opted to treat her with Rebalance for 30 days as it's not as harsh on their system. |
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Location: Big Blue Skies | Nervousness, hair coat dull, hard time backing up, head shaking, lower lip hanging, facial paralysis, stumbling. Had one get xrays, lameness exam and passed, three weeks later was falling down in the back end, another week walked like a drunk. Didn't test but got better within first month of treatment and ended up treating for two months. Difference was night and day. Had slight symptoms on another vet said treat it don't test and that horse started showing improvement within two weeks. Might be worth it to treat the horse with Diclazural which can run about $450 a month. I firmly believe a lot more horses have it than what we think. |
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