09/13/2021
This 👇is sssoooo true! There is no such thing as all of a sudden unless you have a serious injury (SLL) or a systemic response (SIRS).
Know the early warning signs (cresty neck, excess fat pads along the girth line, rib cage, hind quarters, around the tail and over the eyes, change in attitude/performance (lethargy) and swollen sheath or udder....PPID is already advanced when they have delayed shedding in the spring and an abnormally long winter coat). Tighten up their diets and get bloodwork done.
Often, people with a horse in laminitic crisis will desperately search for answers on how to get their horses more comfortable. The truth about laminitis is the pain will not stop until the trigger for the laminitis is found and removed, and once the trigger is removed, often comfort follows soon after.
When I get messages about what owners should do about their laminitis case, my first response is "change the diet immediately." The majority of laminitic cases, in fact 80-90% of laminitic cases, are caused by endocrinopathic issues. Other than checking ACTH levels for PPID, insulin issues are caused by diet and management. This means, that due to metabolic concerns, the horse shouldn't be consuming anything above 4% starch and 10% ESC+starch combined. This could mean soaking hay, removing the horse from ANY grass pasture - even if it's "overgrazed" or "just w**ds" - and removing possible triggers for laminitic pain such as grain, alfalfa, fat sources, excess calories etc. until the horse is comfortable. I have clients start the ECIR emergency diet which can be found online and is outlined clearly.
Sometimes, I get a short retort that "all my horse's bloodwork is normal" or "the horse isn't even overweight!"
Now, I am not a vet, and I am not refuting that the metabolic bloodwork might have come back in normal range. But, I have seen countless horses whose blood came back "perfect" who suddenly came up sound when their diet and management were controlled carefully, or pergolide was introduced for PPID cases. ECIR has followed this same approach for over 2 decades with great results, and has sifted through some difficult cases to find some sneaky underlying metabolic horses with good success.
This idea isn't far-fetched when we realize that only 15% of laminitis cases are triggered by the other two causes - supporting limb laminitis (perfusion issues due to overweighting one limb because of an injury to an opposing limb), and SIRS (systemic inflammatory response syndrome), which happens from triggers such as colitis, retained placenta, toxic w**d ingestion, grain room break in, infection/fever, etc.
Moral of the story? If your horse hasn't had a very serious injury causing them to completely offweight a limb, or hasn't had an infection or toxin ingestion (or other obvious cause of SIRS), treat them as metabolic. The worst that could happen is you're inconvenienced for a period of time in adjusting their diet. The best that could happen? It could be lifesaving for your horse.
