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Jewell my Quarter Horse mare that tied up is feeling and looking much better. My daughter brought me the mare from Wyoming, where she'd been riding her most of the summer to try her out for me. After finding out that Jewell tied up really bad about two weeks after arriving in Kentucky, Barbara talked to the previous owner. He said right after he bought the mare a few years ago she did get stiff one day after being out. A little bute/banamine and a few days off and she was fine. No more problems ever seen. So whether she had a small episode of tying-up at that time or not is hard to determine. Might have been just overwork, or it could have been tying-up.

So I got back the reports from Dairy One today that analyzed the three types of hay I have (Washington state alfalfa; Kentucky-grown alfalfa/timothy mix; Kentucky-grown grass hay). That was a really quick turnaround! Interesting all the information you can get from a hay sample and a good lab!

I'm going to sit down with the county extension agent and maybe Dr. Joe Pagan of Kentucky Equine Research and go over the results and determine the best diet for Jewell once we get the results of the PSSM test back from the University of Minnesota. I hope it comes back this week, but it probably will be next week before I find out if the genetic test is positive for PSSM.

My vet, Dr. McLeod, gave me a chart of Jewell's enzymes we've been testing. She said she'd never seen a five-figure CK (creatine kinase) before in Kentucky. LDH is lactate dehydrogenase. AST is aspartate aminotransferase. ALT is alanine aminotransferase. The normal ranges are in the headings for each enzyme.

Date                CK (70-348)           AST (173-330)           LDH (170-370)           ALT (10-49)
11/8/2009       40,976                     5,360                          5,740                           370
11/10/2009       3,933                     4,908                             738                           294
11/14/2009       1,255                     3,578                              462                          162

You can see she's doing well, but she's still got a ways to go. But, one thing Dr. McLeod mentioned is that we don't have a baseline on her muscle enzymes. We don't kow if they are "normally" elevated.

Either way, we should expect it to take two to four weeks for the ranges to return to normal. Then she can start on a light exercise program and we'll see how she does.

Does anyone else hate the time change? I feed in the dark in the morning, and I feed in the dark at night. Makes it really hard to get a good eye on the horses or get anything else done on my farm. (Okay, moving chickens is best done in the dark, but besides that ...)

But I digress from the topic at hand.

I  took off a couple of hours early last night to get sample bags and order sheets in order to get my hay tested. Based on the research at the University of Minnesota on feeding hay to PSSM horses (again, assuming that's her problem), feeding a hay under 11% nonstructural carbohydrate content (NSC) is recommended. And you can't know that by looking!

I've never gotten a hay sample to send off before, so I went to my friendly local county extension office. They provided me with the bags and instructions, although someone had borrowed the hay probe so I ended up having to cut open several bales of each type of hay to get samples near the middle of each bale. (Makes for a messy hay shed for a few days.)

Samples in the mail this morning! Should be back early next week. I had the Washington state pure alfalfa, the local alfalfa/timothy mix hay, and the local grass hay tested. Any bets on which has the highest NSC (sugars and starches)?

While I was at the extension office I borrowed the soil probe to get soil samples. We had a great, wet, warm (not hot) summer this year after two years of drought. I've seeded and fertilized the past two years, but hadn't tested, so was just--literally--throwing seed and feed into the soil without knowing what I needed.

The goats thought it was fun ... walking a grid across the field and trying to pull a plug of soil four to six inches deep (my farm has some good soil, and lots of rock ... good limestone rock). But as I passed some of the honeysuckle trees I'd stop and pull down branches for the goats to gnaw. Then off my herd and I would go to take a few more samples of dirt (and leaves).

Dirt is drying in a bucket in my kitchen, and all I have to do is fill the sample bag and drop it and the probe back at the extension office.

If you haven't made friends with your county extension agents, I would highly recommend it. If you have, what services do you most often use?

Dr. Carol McLeod called yesterday afternoon to say yes, just as we'd suspected, Jewell's muscle enzyme levels were high.

We discussed options, and we decided on the less-invasive hair follicle test for determining if Jewell is positive for genetically induced PSSM. Dr. McLeod visited the University of Minnesota Web site to download the papers and instructions on submitting the hair sample.

In the meantime Stephanie Valberg, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, of the University of Minnesota Equine Center, responded to my questions about Jewell and PSSM.

Quite a bit of information on PSSM can be found on the University of Minnesota Web site  as well as on TheHorse.com by searching under polysaccharide storage myopathy

"Basically there are many reasons why horses can tie up," said Valberg in her personal correspondence. "For Quarter Horses, 10% have the GYS1 genetic mutation for PSSM, so (the genetic test) is a good place to start. If that is negative and serum vitamin E is normal, then a muscle biopsy helps to look for other causes of tying-up."

There is a good flow chart for determining which test(s) is/are needed (based on your horse's breed) in the article The Gene for PSSM Has Now Been Identified! on the University of Minnesota Web site.

"Polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM) is a common form of tying-up in many horse breeds and is characterized by excessive and abnormal storage of sugar (polysaccharide) in muscle cells," the article stated. "We have recently found a mutation in a gene that is highly associated with the presence of abnormal polysaccharide in muscle biopsies in several horse breeds. The genetic test for this mutation is now commercially available to horse owners and veterinarians through the University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. We are calling this the classic or type 1 form of PSSM. This mutation is accounts for greater than 90% of PSSM cases in some horse breeds. This mutation appears to have its origins prior to the foundation of modern horse breeds, which is why it occurs in several horse breeds." The article "Glycogen synthase (GYS1) mutation causes a novel skeletal muscle glycogenosis" was authored by McCue M.E.; Valberg, S.J.; Miller, M.B.; Wade, C.; DiMauro, S.; Akmand, H.O.; Mickelson, J.R.

There is also a Frequently Asked Questions page about PSSM at the University of Minnesota Web site.

Dr. Valberg also recommended I go back to Dr. Joe Pagan, founder of Kentucky Equine Research, and ask him about the pasture grasses and get specific recommendations from him as an equine nutritionist on feeding, including grazing and hay.

Still looking for your experiences with PSSM horses. Several have sent me personal correspondences about their PSSM horses and how well they did with proper managment!

Yesterday I took off from work early in order to get a ride in my new mare Jewell while we had a day of warmer temperatures and bright sunshine.

My neighbor has been giving my musician husband riding lessons. I saddled up to go join them in her arena. Jewell was looking around as usual, then spied the mechanical gate walker used at Kentucky Equine Research to exercise the horses used for nutrition research. The fast movement of several horses and the mechanical noises had her on edge.

I walked her and stopped several times so she could see it from several angles, then entered the arena and walked her around there to see it again from that angle.

Then a couple of other research horses were turned out with full muzzles (they can't graze, but they can drink and get exercise). I'm sure they are a strange sight to an unfamiliar horse.

We worked, but Jewell was reluctant to move forward off my leg. Since we are still learning each other, I assumed she was just being obstinate. I should have known better.

We didn't work hard or long, but when I finished, she was very sweated up and seemed to be moving a little stiff. I dismounted and the first shadow of "Uh oh" creeped into my dull brain.

Was Jewell tying-up?

We had to walk home (I was leading her), and we took it very slowly. It wasn't far. She was stiff, her respiratory rate was higher than it should have been, but she didn't seem in excess pain or refuse to move.

She was sweaty and her respiration rate was still higher than it should have been when I made it home. My husband and I toweled her off as I didn't want to walk her to cool her out. I watched her for a while, still wondering if I was correct about my lay diagnosis. I turned her loose in the dry lot just to see if she still was moving stiffly, and she was. She loves to roll, so I put out a big pile of fresh hay to tempt her if she wanted to lay down. She wanted to, but didn't. When she postured to urinate and was almost too stiff to be able to posture, time to call Dr. Carol McLeod.

After going over clinical signs, Dr. McLeod said she'd be there in 30 minutes.

Her notes said: Mild tying-up. Heart rate 44. Respirations 32. Splinted abdomen (trying to hold muscles still so they wouldn't hurt), but muscles were soft (often horses that are tying-up have rock-hard muscles). Eating hay slowly. Mucous membranes were pink and moist.

She treated Jewell with IV Bute and Banamine, and said she'll come back mid-morning today to see how she is.

I covered her with a fleece blanket to keep her muscles a little warm in the cold night air at Dr. McLeod's suggestion (I don't have a horse blanket--yet). She didn't drink while I was there, but she was eating hay.

At 3:30 a.m. I convinced myself that going down and bothering them wouldn't be any help. At 6 I couldn't wait any more (and usually I'm at the barn by 6:30 anyway). She walked up normally, and she immediately started in on the hay I put out.

Now let me go back to last night after I had tucked Jewell in for the night.

I talked to Dr. Joe Pagan, one of the leading equine nutritionsts in the world. This mare was not a nervous sort (what we typically see in Thoroughbreds that tie up). My daughter had ridden her solo and with strange groups of horses over all types of territory. She'd worked her 20 miles in one day herding cattle.

He told me of an unpublished study by Dr. Stephanie Valberg of the University of Minnesota, one of the foremost researchers into polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM). Dr. Valberg had traveled out west and tested a large group of Quarter Horses for the genetic defect that causes PSSM. She found while quite a few had the defect, none showed clinical signs. The assumption was because of the low-carb diet that most of those horses lived on; dry pastures and alfalfa hay (which is low in structural carbohydrates).

I know the grasses in Kentucky have high sugar content. And our hays here are the same.

So, I sent an email to Dr. Valberg last night and I'll talk to Dr. McLeod today. We'll test Jewell and see if she carries the genetic defect for PSSM. Then we'll make our decisions from there.

For me, while it's only been two weeks, I've fallen for Jewell. I hate the thought of dry lotting her for the rest of her life here in Kentucky, and I hate the thought of having to give her up to go live back out in Wyoming with my daughter.

Anyway, here are a couple of articles on PSSM. TheHorse.com has lots more information, but I thought this might help you as it helped me.

AAEP 2008: Genetic Diagnosis of Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy

Researchers Examine Effects of Hay Carbs on PSSM Horses

Those of you with PSSM horses, what are your management options in case this is the problem?