Horse Sense (and Sensibility) : pain

Owners Don't Take Pictures of Sick Horses

Stephanie — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:06:00 GMT

One of the most important conditions to recognize in a horse is also one of the most difficult things to depict in photos: equine pain. Two reasons: Horses in pain can be very stoic, and aside from obvious lameness, gaping wounds, or demonstrative outward signs of colic—rolling, biting at the flank, no poop, etc.—pain signs aren’t very evident on first glance. This can make the search for a convincing photo of a painful horse difficult.

Second reason: Simply, horse owners don’t take photos of their horses when they’re in pain.

I cannot blame them at all. As an owner, when my horses were in the throes of discomfort, the very last thing on my mind was reaching for a camera to document their symptoms. Instead, I was focused on easing their discomfort, getting the vet out, and tending to their every need. (As a young staffer on The Horse, though, I do remember shooting a photo of my mare during a founder scare.)

We’ve run into the lack-of-pain-photos problem for years at The Horse, using and reusing images from our wonderful sources and photographers who have them on hand. In the meantime we’ve grown up some of our own form of ambulance chasers: photographers who know veterinarians well and, with the owners’ consent, are permitted to shoot photos during veterinary examinations.

But alas, when we were working on the February issue, which contains a wrap-up of the recent 2012 Laminitis Conference, we had a tough time finding exactly the type of laminitic horse photo that we wanted to use for the cover. One of our team members spent hours (and I mean hours) poring over freelancers’ stock sites and contacting veterinarians, hoping to land us a shot that would say “laminitis.”

As luck would have it (okay, not really), my mom’s Tennessee Walking Horse was dealing with a bout of mild laminitis over Christmas. So my sister and I went out and had an impromptu photo shoot. We shot all kinds of angles, with and without pads duct-taped to his feet and with and without a foot in a bucket of imaginary ice water.

In the end, Silky was a great sport. But while he pulled off the “I’m very sad standing with my despondent owner” look quite well, he simply didn’t look laminitic. My mom had been taking great care of him, and he just didn’t have the look of a painful horse (he was back to his normal self within a few weeks). Besides, we had posed him for a little while in gravel dust arena footing, and our veterinarians advised that laminitic horses should be standing in more comfortable footing (which he had in his round pen). He wasn’t really “pointing” as some laminitic horses do, and we used buckets instead of the more-common special ice boots people are using to treat cases these days.

We struck out on the laminitic horse pics in that particular shoot, but we did get some photos for other topics and also ended up with this gem. Meet Percy, resident barn cat:

Photo: Sarah Lynn Church

Besides a brush-up on what laminitis researchers are uncovering, here are some things I learned in the February issue:

Managing a high-risk pregnancy is complex; there are a number of things that can go wrong and compromise her pregnancy.
Besides passing a Pony Club formal inspection and keeping your gelding comfortable, there are other reasons to clean a sheath: You might detect a problem that could save his life.
Speaking of safeguarding a horse’s life, before loading your horse in the trailer, consider a number of horse trailer maintenance steps that could do just that.
A self-diagnosed bandaging geek, I enjoyed brushing up on the reasons to bandage and what’s acceptable and unacceptable in this practice.

There are several other articles filled with rich, helpful information. The single print copies of February are already sold out, but if you can view this issue immediately if you become a digital subscriber. (You can see the laminitic horse who ended up on the cover above.) Or, we’d love to have you join us as a print subscriber so you can begin receiving upcoming issues in the mail.

Readers of The Horse are a caring bunch, and I anticipate that next time one of them sees their horse exhibiting signs of some illness (after they’ve made sure the horse is comfortable, confirmed he’s not at death’s door, and called the vet) they’ll probably take a photo (or even a video), and send it to us, now that I’ve planted the thought.

Have you ever found your horse in pain? If an injury or condition wasn’t obvious, what was your clue that something was wrong?

Uveitis: A Little Bit of Hades

Stephanie — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:29:00 GMT

"I can relate."

"I know how you feel."

These are words that can either soothe or irritate, depending on your frame of mind and current situation. In a place of acceptance and healing, those words might be welcome. In a place of pain and frustration, you might be tempted to punch the person uttering the phrase, no matter how well-meaning he or she might be. Ever said these phrases to your horse? I can't say that I have, but if I had a horse with uveitis, I just might be this week, as I've been sidelined with the condition.

Uveitis, simply, is inflammation of the cellular layer of the eye that contains blood vessels, the iris, ciliary body, and choroid. In my case it is anterior (at the front) uveitis, also known as iritis. It's very painful because every time the pupil dilates and constricts, it feels as if someone's sticking a knife in my eye. And since the bad eye mimicks the good eye (in tracking and pupil constriction/dilation), simply covering the bad eye with an eyepatch doesn't solve anything.

This morning Dr. Brian Gilger (DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVO, an associate professor of ophthalmology at North Carolina State University and equine researcher) explained the horse/human similarity to me: "Horses and people have nearly identical uveitis, which is one reason the study of equine uveitis is important--i.e., anything we learn about the pathogenesis of equine uveitis is directly applicable to human uveitis. The treatment is a bit different, since the human eye can tolerate steroids much better than the equine eye."

Uveitis is not the kind of thing that generally lands a person in the hospital. It's something that rather, depending on its severity, confines you to the dark. Or, in my case, restricts you to the bathtub of your master bathroom, shower curtain drawn and towel blocking light streaming in under the door. (Darkest place I could find!) Generally, the answer to treating anterior uveitis in humans is dilation of the pupil, to allow the iris to relax and heal. Also, the use of corticosteroid drops, as Gilger notes, works for humans, but isn't tolerated as well by horses. If you get a headache on top of it all as I did, the pain is just compounded.

Take-homes from the past 10-or-so days (now that I'm not ready to punch anyone in the face who says, "I know how you feel."): To those who own horses with uveitis, I realize just how important your specialized care of these animals is. I recognize it's a little bit of Hades for each horse, whether it's a single case of inflammation or the recurrent variety. Simpy, yuck.

And, hats off to Gilger and all researchers examining causes and treatments for this condition.

Have you managed a horse with uveitis? Ever empathized with your horse when he/she was suffering from a condition? Tell me about it.

Lambasted

Stephanie — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 23:06:00 GMT

Kip Deville. Barbaro. Secretariat. All were champions, and all share the lamentable status of having eventually succumbed to an illness that haunts all horse owners: laminitis. Whether we've lost one of our own horses to the insidious disease, or whether we've ached for the caretakers, veterinarians, and brave horses that have battled it for months at a time, exhausting every treatment option, laminitis is something all of us opinionated horsepeople can agree on--we continually hope equine researchers will discover a cure.

My first memory of laminitis takes me back to first grade. I sensed something terrible the morning my parents drew all the shades on windows on the back side of the house that faced the barn and pasture and forbade me to look outside. The American Saddlebred they'd purchased on their honeymoon, Star (the first horse I'd ridden as a toddler), was going to be put down because she'd foundered and was beyond our veterinarian's help. The man operating the backhoe was at work. I was confused and my mom was in tears.

I recall watching the 1990 Kentucky Derby coverage a few years later, during which I saw tribute footage of a muddy Secretariat happily wheeling around his pasture (video taken before his death in October 1989). It was hard to believe such a vibrant animal had lost his fight.

Through my teenage years I would ride past Star's grave and wonder whether laminitis was something that was going to end the life of every horse it hit. Since then, and in my last 11 years at The Horse, I've had the unique opportunity to watch researchers from all over the country and world peel back the layers of laminitis, learning more about the metabolic processes that typify it, uncovering evidence about better treatment methods, and examining new ways to prevent the disease in the first place.

In the August issue we give an overview of some of this research under way at various institutions. As Christy West points out in her story "Laminitis Lowdown," members of the American Association of Equine Practitioners who were surveyed last year listed laminitis as a top concern requiring more research.

The vets agree—it's a nasty condition. Something I find encouraging is that Barbaro's plight in 2006-2007 caught the world's attention, putting laminitis research back on the map as a fresh funding option for not only our industry but also the general public. The banners, flowers, and carrots outside the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, Barbaro's treatment home, were evidence to me that we have the drive to help researchers find answers and to join them in their quest.

Vernon Dryden, DVM, CJF, the veterinarian who treated Kip Deville at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., summed it up best. Steve Haskin's Bloodhorse.com story announcing Kip Deville's death quoted Dryden: "I would run up and hug and kiss anyone who could figure out how to cure this."

Amen, Dr. Dryden, amen.

When you hear the word "laminitis," what's your first thought? Have you encountered laminitis as a horse owner?

(Excerpted from the August 2010 issue of The Horse: Your Guide to Equine Health Care.)