A Change

So as of the day this blog posts, Scarlet will have been getting dosed with reBalance for seven days. It’s not really enough to tell if it is helping him but it helps me mentally. He’s definitely not in love with it. I’m pretty sure he feels tricked when I go out there and don’t give him any treats. And it probably tastes awful as well.

Physically, Scarlet seems to have gotten slightly worse? It just seems like its a bit harder for him to move comfortably. He can still move and still gets down to roll so I’m concerned but trying to tell myself not to be too concerned.

My goal for this week was to find a new vet with whom I felt supported and would have easy communication. I got a couple of numbers from friends and made some calls. It was a bit difficult to make myself call (phone anxiety gah) but I did it.

The vet I ended up going with had amazing office staff and she called and spoke with me for twenty minutes about the situation before I ever had to schedule an appointment. I felt more supported in that call than I ever felt with the last vet.

Even more amazing. I spoke to her for the first time on Tuesday of this week. They got me scheduled for Thursday of the same week. (Shout out to the random client who allowed their appointment to be rescheduled for mine.) So quickly. And I was so grateful. I needed someone else to come out and look. I’d had another breakdown early this week. It just felt like I was watching Scarlet slowly slide into oblivion. And I’m really not ready for that. And I dread finding out that that is the only option.

On Thursday I took a half day off work and met the vet out at the barn. She started loving up on him immediately. He seemed pretty cool with it. Scarlet isn’t an attention starved horse but he doesn’t mind it. The vet began doing just some basic physical tests in his stall: making him cross his feet to see if he puts them back, visual acuity check, pulling on his tail etc. Scarlet just kinda stood there. She asked me if he was normally this chill as the leg thing can sometimes make horses frustrated. I told her he was. And he is. He can get spooky but he is really tolerant of you on the ground messing with him as long as monsters aren’t coming.

Then we had to take him out of his stall. I was a little nervous about that as I haven’t done it in about a week. I am just overly concerned with the drainage ditch in front of his stall. I can’t avoid it and I have visions of him tripping and breaking a leg or his neck or his head exploding when he falls. You know, normal worries.

He navigated the walking portion fairly well. We did a tiny bit of trotting and lots of tight circles. He didn’t like to walk with his head up or down but walked fine blindfolded. The vet even commented on how little he freaked out about the blindfold being put on. She tested his skin reflexes. We walked up and down a curb and up and down a slope.

She agrees (obviously) that he is neurological. She notices that he is very tight muscle wise and flexibility wise and that his hind is more the issue than the front, though he searches with his right fore sometimes when walking. We drew blood for the neuro panel and she suggested adding on an elecro magnetic pulse treatment and acupuncture to the visit that day. It was about $100 more than the rest of the cost. (Wow am I feeling the hit of the cost of everything right now…) We did that. Scarlet wasn’t too sure but he was okay to let us try it if we kept a steady stream of  treats. It was feeding time though so I don’t blame him for being distracted.

I now have some bute to try to see if it helps him move at all. I’ve got ten days worth so I really should be able to tell if there is a significant difference by then. I’ve also got some stretches to do for his neck and back legs. The vet also told me to start walking again as he can’t afford to lose muscle. Yes, ma’am.

The blood test is being sent to Cornell. We will be able to retest EPM, and test for four virus causes of neuro stuff. We will be able to at least eliminate some things based on those results. I was told it should take about a week. So I’m assuming I will hear back Friday or Saturday of next week.

She also said that she’s had great results with electro pulse and acupuncture for other neuro horses and suggests once a week for a month for those treatments. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s going to end up being just over 200$ a time between the cost for each thing and the farm call. Which really sucks. And I don’t know how much I believe that those things actually help. Some of it is woo-woo and some of it is not. I haven’t been fully convinced that these aren’t. I’ll have to see how Scarlet reacts. I believe I am going to wait until after we receive the blood work back to even try again. But in the meantime, what is your experience with electro pulse and acupuncture? Any studies done on those and their benefits/cons you can share?

Meds Started

So the vet contacted me on Friday and said he’d gotten the meds. He said I could meet up with him on his way in a town that is roughly 45 minutes away. I got this text while I was at work. It was safe to say that running out of work to get this dealt with definitely was not on the schedule for me. Luckily, I’ve got amazing friends at my back and Karen was able to meet him and get the meds from him.

I had been contemplating saying no to these meds last week but I didn’t. I still somewhat question why I didn’t. I think it all comes down to: they wont hurt, they aren’t stupid expensive, they might help, and I need to feel like I’m doing something.

So I got the medication (reBalance) started on Saturday. It’s kinda a pain in the butt, how it has to be fed. It’s directions state that it must be fed more than an hour before food. I did some research on it and it is supposed to decrease absorption if they have food in their tummies. Alfalfa is supposed to decrease it by up to 50%. So obviously that’s not something I want.

Saturday I made sure I got to the barn at 7am. Scarlet generally gets fed around 7:15 so I dosed him with the meds and then took him out to wait in an arena for an hour. Dosing him was okay. Scarlet’s never been a bad one to give wormer to. I just filled the syringe and put his halter on. Shoved it in his mouth and held his chin up so he couldn’t just spit it out. Its only slightly more viscous than water so I couldn’t let him spit it out.

He was good for about half an hour standing in the arena. He definitely was annoyed I wasn’t giving him grain but he stood well enough while I groomed him. Then I just let him chill. He rolled once (brushed him off again after that) and then got annoyed that he was in there and food was out there. He started pacing the fence line and calling out occasionally. I was sitting inside the arena with him. He’d periodically come back and nudge me. It felt like he was asking me “What’s up mom. Food is out there. We done here?”

I felt like a monster. He was definitely convinced he was going to die waiting for food. He was starting to pace the fence a lot more. It worried me given his his back legs definitely didn’t look like they were supporting him steadily. So I put his halter on and held him still (more or less) for the last twenty minutes for an hour to pass. He tore into his food like he was starving when I finally put him back in his stall.

I got permission later that day from the BO to get to the barn before it’s open to give him permission. So on Sunday I hauled my butt out of bed at 5:45, grabbed the meds and got to the barn before 6. I am so grateful to be literally 3 minutes away from the barn. I pulled all the leftover hay out of his stall and gave him the meds. He got it all early enough that by the time food got tossed into his stall, he’d have them for an hour. I then went back and crawled into bed to sleep in for another hour.

So this will be my life for a while. It’s not so bad on the weekdays as I got up at 6:15 anyway. So just another half an hour earlier. The weekends wont be as awesome but I’m going to try to just get back into bed after I’m done.

I am planning on looking for a new vet this week. I didn’t have the mental energy needed to call and ask questions last week. I needed some time to recharge before I did it. I feel a little better. I think feeling like I’m doing something and having a plan for the future helps.

So, I plan on talking with the new vet about what has happened so far and that I’m wanting to do the larger equine neurological panel so that I can retest EPM and hopefully get a better idea of what exactly is his issues (it will at least eliminate a few things). Any other questions I should ask them when I’m interviewing to see who I’ll go with?

Infuriating

So Thursday I make sure to have my stuff to work from home. I do my normal morning check of Scarlet and have a literal hour countdown going on in my head.

When 10:30 rolls around I go out to wait for the vet. Scarlet proceeds to uppercut my boob while begging for treats so I smack him for that.

11 rolls around. I’ve started doing stuff around the barn. Vets are always late so I’m not too worried. Annoyed because I’m a punctual person but not worried.

I get a call from the vet, he’ll be there in about 30 minutes. Oh but the two month long expensive meds for EPM were out of stock everywhere he checked. So he ordered a different one. Similar efficacy, 3-7 month treatment. Oh and it won’t be here till tomorrow the earliest. Do I still want him to come out since I’m not sure about doing the blood test?

FFFFFFFFFFFFF

Again, the communication with this vet is horrible. I’m probably going to call around to other vets to see what they say today. I do feel slightly on the hook for the medication he did order as I requested it. Luckily this one is significantly cheaper (~$150/m) than the others so it’s not as crazy.

As if dealing with Scarlet being neurologically unsound wasn’t enough, I have to deal with a vet who doesn’t feel like he’s working for me.

Worse but not The Worst

Mid week update as everyone’s support has been so important. Also, writing this out is like therapy and helps me get my thoughts straight.

Monday morning Scarlet stumbled a couple of times while walking. I wasn’t sure if it was him or something else that caused it. I tried not to think too hard about it. He still did our 10 minute walk without any other issues that seemed different. So I told myself that it was just a bad day. I had to or I wouldn’t have been able to get through work.

Monday evening (I’m out twice a day and have a friend who will check on him when she is out) I went out and Scarlet was dragging his back right toe. Not fully in a I can’t lift this manner but not the same way he has been walking recently. I could tell his back end was worse. It’s probably a minor tick more worse but I’ve been analyzing his movements super closely for the past two weeks. I know when something is different.

Monday I had called the vet around 1:30ish in the afternoon. I got a voicemail and left a message. I didn’t hear back so I called again around 4:45. Voicemail again. I was getting annoyed. We drew blood on the 23rd of Oct. It’s been close to two weeks. It seemed like way too long for any blood test.

When I confirmed that he seemed worse on Monday night, I decided I was going to be so annoying on Tuesday. I needed to speak with the vet. What I had told myself when I decided to wait for the results of the EPM test was if he got worse, I’d start doing the treatment regardless. So I wanted to start doing the treatment.

I had my phone on me the whole time while I was spending time with Scarlet on Tuesday. He seemed more or less the same as the night before. I pulled my phone out to check it and I’d had a missed call from the vet two minutes before. I had no idea how I missed it but I called back. Got the voicemail. I waited ten minutes and called again. Voicemail again. This time I left a message. Since I didn’t get a voicemail from the vet, the call might have been an accident.

I had to go into work so I called once I hit the parking lot (roughly 1 hour after the last call). I actually got someone on the phone that time. I told her what was going on and asked her to have the vet call me. So she said she would.

I finally got a call around 1:30 from the vet. And he starts the call off with “So his blood results are inconclusive”

Excusez-Moi?

Blood results? When did those get in? Unfortunately I didn’t think to ask that while talking (its so much easier to think of things after the fact). But he continued on explaining that he had antibodies in his blood but not enough to indicate that he was fighting an active disease versus just being exposed to the parasite at some point. So he had wanted to wait until 2-3 weeks after the first blood draw to test again to see if he had a higher antibody count.

From those words, it seems to me that he had the blood results early enough to have made that decision to wait himself. It’s two weeks as of today since the first blood draw. I may be wrong because I didn’t ask when exactly he got those back. But the wording and the way he talked about it made me think he’d had them for a bit. So I was furious about that.

We talked about using the EPM treatment regardless of the blood test being inconclusive. There aren’t likely to be side effects so I told him to order it regardless. He did tell me that I could go to San Luis Rey and get a full work up and figure out what it would be. But it would cost me at min $1500-2k. Just for diagnosis. I can’t do that. We don’t have the money for that, not after having just bought a house. And it might not even be something treatable. I don’t know how far I can chase this honestly.

So my plan right now is to start the EPM treatment on Thursday morning. I’m waffling on doing the further blood panel he offered which would test for a few other virus caused neurological issues as well as retest for EPM. It would be $400 dollars. So our costs are now $380 for the blood panel/EPM test, $900 for the EPM treatment and then another $400 for this new panel for a total of $1680. That’s getting quite expensive. I just don’t know. I also neglected to ask which diseases it tests for and what the time was for that test. I emailed to ask but I’m not sure about the blood draw.

The EPM treatment is getting started and I’m leaning toward waiting to see if the treatment seems to have any effect. What I’ve read seems to indicate that it works pretty quickly to at least show you some results. It’s hard to decide. I’ve got to think about all the possibilities and what is the best for Scarlet, for me and for the rest of my family.

The Eve of Being the Squeaky Wheel

I still have heard nothing from the vet. It is driving me up the wall. The only thing keeping me from completely losing my damn mind is the fact that Scarlet seems to be doing okay.

He is still moving fine, I can still do everything I’ve been doing for two weeks now. I even saw him actually cock a hip on Sunday night when I went to see him to check on him. So he seems to be roughly the same.

Dis my begging face.

I’m getting lots of sympathetic noises from the other ladies at the barn who know the deal. It’s nice but honestly I just hope I don’t see anyone that I talk to when I’m out there. Talking about it in person is hard. The more I talk about it the more I seem to be losing my mind. I don’t want to avoid the subject but sometimes I just want to cry instead of being strong.

I really really need to figure out what the results of the blood test are. I feel bad for the lady on the phone as I’m going to be bugging them literally every day until I get results. I do know that my vet cannot control the lab, but they can bug the lab themselves if they get tired of me checking on the results. I need to be able to make a decision on treatment and do something to make Scarlet better. So here comes the squeaky wheel.

Update

Same old same old. I called the vet on Thursday and they hadn’t received the results. The person answering the phone said that early this next week was a more reasonable timeframe as the EPM test takes a while. I’m not happy about this but I can’t exactly do anything about it.

Scarlet is doing quite well all things considered. We are taking a walk every morning and I check on him every evening. Being close to the barn is a life saver right now. It would be so much harder on me if I was far. The waiting is wearing on me. I know I will need to take care of myself mentally sooner rather than later but I honestly don’t know how. I can’t exactly stop myself from worrying.

All that considered, Scarlet honestly doesn’t seem to have physically changed at all in the almost two weeks since we found this. He is still walking. He can get down to roll in his stall as evidenced by shavings on his back. I can still pick out his feet. He can still manoeuver around to get to his food and water. So I’m not in a constant state of panic. I’m definitely at a low level simmer but I don’t think that will go away for a while.

So, as long as he can still move and be relatively comfortable and happy, I’ll be okay. I really want to know the results. And oh man am I going to be blowing up the vets phone next week. But we are okay for now.

Status: No Change

So far so good. Scarlet is still up, eating and able to walk around. In fact, he was in better spirits this weekend than Thursday or Friday. Of course, this could be me wanting to see that but I also didn’t see any sort of decline in his physical abilities.

As I thought, I definitely roller coaster-ed through emotions over this. Thursday and Friday had me a weepy, distracted mess for most of the day. It was really easy to fall into that bad “what if spiral”. There wasn’t anything backing up the bad thoughts, just me panicking.

I’ve been going out to check on Scarlet morning and night. I’m very grateful that I’m only a few minutes away from the barn as it makes this easy. No two hours of extra driving for me. In order to keep myself from freaking out every time I saw him, I started taking a ridiculous amount of pictures and videos of us walking. I’m not as objective as I need to be with this.

Scarlet is still roughly the same. He can still walk and move around. I can even pick out his feet, though I do them very quickly and make sure to not ask him to lift when his legs aren’t in a position to support him. We’re doing a ten minute walk each morning. I’ve noticed that it is easier for him to walk on hard ground. The soft ground moves underneath him and he can’t really compensate for that shift. So we’ve been sticking to the hard ground around the barn.

Still able to get down and back up from rolling

I’ve been trying to make sure I do whatever I can to help him out while we wait for the results of the blood tests. I noticed that he was having issues walking out of the stall since the opening has a bar across it. So I dragged a stall mat over. It’s still a bit of step to get onto the stall mat but he seems much more comfortable with it.

He’s also getting a little spoiled. It’s only been a week but he’s already starting to expect treats all the time. He’s been nudging at my gloves the entire time we are walking. Little nudges with his lip like he’s looking for a treat. I stopped to talk to the lady I share a tack room with and update her about Scarlet. He stood for a little and then started shuffling around and pushing me with his head. I’m going to have to deal with such a spoiled boy soon. I’m not even giving him much more treats than he normally got. He just isn’t having to do anything to get them. Normally treats mostly come after steps in our riding process (tacking up, checking the saddle, finished riding, etc). Right now, there isn’t much I can reward him for as I’m not asking much from him.

As far as bad things go, spoiled isn’t really that big of a deal. I’ll work him out of that later. If that’s the later I have to deal with, I will be just fine with it. So we are mostly fine. Definitely still have balance issues. Definitely still need to figure out what to do. Definitely waiting on the edge of my seat for the blood results. But hanging in there.

 

 

A Tentative Diagnosis

So Monday I went out and free lunged Scarlet a bit. I wanted some videos of the tripping so I could watch them back at slow speed. Scarlet walked fairly good when leading him around so I may have allowed myself a small bit of hope that he was better. Trotting put that to rest. He was definitely reluctant to trot off and tripped several times while filming. I’m putting a couple of video links right below this paragraph and I’ll stick the rest at the bottom of the post so you don’t have to be inundated with videos if you do not want.

 

Since he was definitely still tripping and my inexperienced with lameness self couldn’t figure out what exactly was wrong, I decided we needed a vet visit. He needed to get floated and shots anyway so I wanted whatever the earliest possible appointment was. It turns out that that was Wednesday. So I was pretty happy to take the time off and make my schedule work with that.

After a horrible 48 hours of waiting and Scarlet seeming just fine besides not wanting to go faster (ie eating fine, walking well enough etc) Wednesday rolled around and the vet arrived. He listened to me explain what I had noticed and then had me take him to the round pen. As we headed over there, he had me trot away from him. Scarlet tripped a few steps into trotting and got his feet under him to continue on. But ever time he trips I swear my heart stops beating.

We made it to the round pen and he had me wtc both directions. Scarlet was reluctant to go faster but he definitely listened to me and did it. He tripped at the trot to the right. To the left, he looked really really odd at the canter. He was carrying his hind end so far inside so that all his legs were on different tracks.

The vet had us stop and he asked us a couple of questions while we walked back to the cross ties. Where had he lived? (Sacramento, central coast, here) Had he ever been on pasture? (yes) He had his vet tech trot him away and toward us. Then he had her walk him by us and he grabbed his tail and pulled. Scarlet’s whole haunches swung sideways and my heart dropped.

The vet explained that there was something neurologically wrong. He could have collapsed him if he wanted to as he didn’t have the ability to balance. He was interfering in his legs when moving and would lose sensation and couldn’t catch himself other times. What he believes he has is EPM. We took blood to do a full blood test and run the EPM test. The better test is a spinal tap but that is difficult to do as you have to put a horse under in order to do so. So most vets run off of blood tests and physical symptoms.

So we are now waiting to see what happens. The treatment is fiscally feasible for me, but not cheap ($900 for a month of treatment). The vet is pretty positive that EPM is the correct diagnosis (he has had lots of experience in his residency with EPM and its common in norCal horses). Its generally brought on via another immunocompromised state as the body can no longer fight as effectively. The odd weather we’ve been having (cold then unseasonably hot) could be the stress needed to kick it off.

I was feeling pretty good about having done what I could do last night after the vet trip and the ridiculous amount of research I’d read. But Thursday morning I was not feeling as good. I started crying while walking Scarlet around. I had no specific reason for it. Scarlet was still walking fine and he went on a walk around the property with me for ten minutes this morning. But I was worrying about how fast EPM can deteriorate. Its completely variable. Scarlet is pretty good right now and would likely fully recover with treatment if it is EPM. But if he changed quickly what do I do? What if it isn’t EPM? What if I could have caught it earlier? There were a few things thinking back that may have been symptoms of it (difficulty getting him to canter, tiny nicks in his legs that are likely from interfering but I thought were from moving him to a new pen, etc). I was feeling guilty about that and it just all… bubbled up. Luckily, Scarlet is experienced with dealing with my crying and we continued on our walk.

I think I will likely roller coaster over emotions for the next few days while we wait for the blood test. I’ve got a few tentative plans if he gets worse or if the blood test comes back negative. I have a logical limit to where I have to stop paying to figure out what is wrong. I’m just really hoping that the blood test comes back positive because I know what to do then and I’ll have a plan and a good possibility of full recovery. I’m keeping that mindset and making plans for rehab strategies and supplements to support him afterward. This keeps me in a somewhat more positive mindset.

So for now, I’m keeping a very close eye on my boy and waiting for the blood test results. Its great that I’m so close to the barn because going out multiple times a day is so much easier. Also, my friend Holly is checking on him when she goes out. I’m doing what I can. I just need to repeat that until another step opens up.

One sweet thing that happened was I was talking to my husband and thanking him for being so supportive during all this. And he responded “Scarlet if family too.” I just about sobbed myself to death right then and there.

Also, shout out to L. and Karen for being there for my texts and calls. And shout out to Stacie for answering all my questions about her experiences.

Here are the rest of the videos: