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 His personality seems good he doesn't  seem withdrawn from pain.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.