Equine Cruelty

As a practicing veterinarian, we, as a whole, are often presented with animals that are neglected in some way or form. This can be a thin, underfed animal or even an animal that is overfed and experiencing health problems due to excessive weight. It all qualifies as neglect in my book to varying degrees. The economy has impacted everyone, especially animals. Their owners may be experiencing financial difficulties themselves, which often then manifest in the quality of care received by the pet or even the horse that once was a treasured family member. This past weekend, we received a call from our Sheriff's department requesting medical care for a neglected horse. The story we were told was that the owner was often out of town working and had put this horse in a stall for the past 6 months with little food or water. The story was confirmed by the neighbor that reported the incident. She had not seen the horse out on pasture in that time frame. The owner was no where to be found and the Sheriff seized the animal and brought him to our facility. This is what was presented to us.

As you can see, the poor horse was emaciated. He stood a little over 14 hh and weighed about 500 lbs wet. He was covered with dried manure, the mane and tail were matted and full of debris. You could visably see every bone in his body and his hooves were overgrown to the point of forming abscesses under the overlapping hoof wall. His spirit was depleted and overall he was weak, but yet seeking help. We admitted him, did some bloodwork, which indicated not only malnutrition but also severe muscle damage. We cleaned him up, trimmed the hooves and gave him a slow introduction to quality nutrition. The next morning, he was more perky but his spirit was still depleted. His walk was weak, but yet he had the energy to go outside and talk with other horses while nibbling some grass. The problem that developed quickly was that he would tire easily and would then lie down in his stall, but was unable to stand up. He was just physically too weak to even make more than one attempt to rise. We resorted to using an overhead hoist to aid his standing, which worked a couple of times with much effort on his end. After 48 hours in our care, he literally gave up on life. He had a good walk outside in the morning light, nibbled some grass, but then lied down in his stall and surrendered. Despite our efforts to help him get up, he physically and emotionally quit. In his eyes, you could see that his time had come and that he was "okay" with departing. I think it was most important to him to have had a couple of days in paradise, compared to his other living conditions. We let him go and helped him along. It is a real shame in today's day and age that this type of situation happens. There are no excuses in my book for this. It is also unfortunate that many of these cases go unprosecuted. In either case, I guess this poor gelding is finally at peace. Here is a picture of him after the bath and cleanup.

Curcumin Benefits

Curcumin... the powder gold from my perspective and the main herb behind my research and product development. A wonderful and powerful herb indeed. Life Extension magazine just recently released an article regarding the anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin for tackling the inflammation behind arthritis. It was cited how curcumin beat out most common pain medications in combating pain associated with arthritis. So, why is curcumin so remarkable on so many aspects? Well, the inflammatory cascade is very complex and complicated. Traditional therapeutic medications commonly only address a single target or event in the inflammatory cascade, which often leaves much to be desired in terms of results as well as often triggers side effects. Herbs, such as curcumin, often address multiple targets in the inflammatory cascade, often producing much better and more complete results. While various pharmaceutical medications often inhibit their targets close to 100%, herbs such as curcumin do not, but instead often modulate their targets by reducing their action back to a more normal level. By doing this, we are often able to obtain results clinically but without the side effects. All to often, if you listen to the TV commercials closely, you will notice the fine print side effects associated with some prescription medications. The reason behind many of these side effects is due to the level of inhibition on certain pathways that they impose. Curcumin does not appear to be this way, based on research, and instead modulates many pathways, instead of just one, in order to obtain results. The potential impact of curcumin on overall health is incredible, but the exact capabilities are beyond this blog. Let's just say that through curcumin's ability to reduce inflammation, there are clinical applications in the symptomatic control of conditions ranging from asthma to arthritis to cancer. Given that in today's research, the link with inflammation is being made to many diseases, the capabilities and potential for curcumin is endless. As a veterinarian, I have prescription medications at my disposal and use them often. They are wonderful tools to have for our patients, but all to often, we are left with a void or gap in the treatment of certain conditions. I feel that diseases of chronicity are all too often not addressed appropriately and more often than not, we are left with prescribing multiple medications for those patients just to keep them comfortable but not necessarily improving their quality of life. Herbs, like curcumin, to me are potential life savers when used properly. They not only potentially allow us to reduce the demand for various prescription medications, but overall, they improve the quality of life more dramatically for the patient and that is what is important. Again, just food for thought and my opinions. Tom Schell, D.V.M.

Ringbone and Arthritis

A common problem to see in our equine patients is what is termed ringbone. Many may be familiar with this term, but unfamiliar with exactly what it is. Ringbone is essentially arthritis formation in pastern region of the front or rear limbs of the horse. To be even more technical, the ringbone is defined as either "high" or "low". High ringbone is arthritis associated with the pastern joint while low ringbone is associated with the coffin joint. Even further, it is delineated as either intra-articular (involving the joint) on non-articular (not involving the joint). Intra-articular ringbone leads to more pain development due to being involved with movement. In many cases, we will clinically diagnose non-articular ringbone in a clinically sound patient, which in most cases is more a cosmetic deformity or swelling in the pastern region. There are many causes for ringbone formation, which are: conformation, genetics, foot balance as well as injury to the region due to excessive use. I would like to demonstrate a few factors in a case involving a patient seen at our clinic. This is a 15 year old warmblood gelding that had a jumping career for the majority of his life.

This is the x-ray image of the RF digital region of the warmblood. Here we can see several things. First, we need to look at overall conformation or alignment of the phalangeal bones, which are P1, P2 and P3. P1 is the bone directly below the fetlock joint, P2 is the middle bone and P3 is the coffin bone which is held inside the hoof capsule. In ideal cases, all three of these bones are in alignment with each other at an angle, which is shown by the red line. As you can see, the bones don't correspond to this line, but essentially have a concave type of architecture in their alignment. This type of alignment leads to increased stress on the joint, which then contributes to joint damage. The arrow in the photo helps to point out the new bone formation or arthritis that has developed in the coffin joint and surrounding area. In this case, the ringbone is intra-articular as well as extra or non-articular.

Here is the x-ray image of the left front digital region. Again, here we have a red line which indicates more or less what the alignment of the three phalangeal bones should be. As you can see, in comparison to the other x-ray, in this foot, the bones are more closely in alignment with one another. However, there is rotation of the coffin bone, which is indicative of laminitis in the chronic sense. The white arrow indicates intra-articular ringbone formation in the coffin joint as well, but to a lower degree than in the left front foot. So, the question comes as to how to treat this patient and reduce his pain levels. In this particular case, we have opted to change the angles of his feet by trimming to help align the bones and change the angle of P3. One has to be careful in terms of trimming and changing angles because many of these guys have adapted to their current angles and the arthritis has somewhat "fused" the joint in that position. The pain that these horses feel comes from not only poor angles but also movement of the arthritis or boney spurs as he moves. In most cases, once the arthritis has bridged the joint and fused, the pain is reduced dramatically. The hard part comes in getting that joint to fuse. That is another story. Aside from trimming, he is being managed on low dose bute therapy once daily in conjunction with a special custom blend of our Cur-OST EQ Green product. He is also receiving initial doses of Adequan to aid in overall joint health. When he presented initially, he was a grade 4/5 in terms of lameness but within one week, he was more comfortable at a grade 2/5. I hope this helps to improve the understanding of ringbone in horses. Best, Tom Schell, D.V.M.