Week 5 @ SVEC

            I have successfully made it through five weeks at Saginaw Valley Equine Clinic!  This week was once again very busy and ended with a couple of emergencies.  On Friday, we were called out to a farm to look at a miniature horse with colic.  Her owners found her acting painful and rolling in the morning.  Dr. Jones performed her examination and found that she had a heart rate of 20 (this was unexplained as pain normally results in a high heart rate), no reflux after passing a nasogastric tube and she could not palpate any impaction or distended loops of small bowel.  However, she took a sample of manure, which felt gritty and performed a swirl test (mix the manure with water in a rectal sleeve and let it settle and if there is sand it will settle to the bottom of the fingers).  When we checked the bag prior to leaving the farm, it had a significant amount of sand in each finger, leading Dr. Jones to believe she likely had sand colic.  Sand usually moves through the small intestine okay but once it reaches the colon, it accumulates and is very irritating to the intestinal mucosa.  The sand can be cleared from the intestines with a product called psyllium, which carries the sand out.  The mare was brought to the clinic for further observation and care where unfortunately things started going south.  She became more and more painful and had to be kept sedated to keep her comfortable.  We did an ultrasound which showed distended loops of small intestines and that finding along with her age (17 years) and pain level, it became more likely that she had a surgical lesion, such as a strangulating lipoma, as the cause of her colic and not sand.  Surgery was not an option for these owners, so sadly, she was euthanized.

            The other emergency had the potential to be very bad, but thankfully had a much better outcome.  This mare was in a paddock with another horse who started chasing her and she ended up going through the fence and ran into the road where she was hit by a car.  She was struck on the right side behind her elbow.  She had tried jumping over the vehicle so the point of impact was fairly small, but she was lifted up and thrown by the vehicle.  (All of those in the car were okay!).  For having been hit by a car, she looked remarkably good.  She had road rash on her legs and 3 of the areas were lacerated deep enough that they had to be sutured and she was understandably very muscle sore.  We also ran blood work, which came back normal other than an elevated neutrophil count which can be attributed to stress.  But there was no indication of any organ damage or hypovolemia.  Her ultrasound showed an enlarged spleen and also a swelling filled with fluid in the area where she was hit, likely blood from the contusion.  In this area, you could see the cranial lung lobe elevated.  Dr. Jones was concerned that it could have been loops of small intestines in her chest indicating a diaphragmatic hernia, but she was able to rule that out by verifying that the diaphragm was intact.  We got her wounds cleaned and stitched up and sent her home on Equioxx (an NSAID), SMZ antibiotics, UlcerGard (she has a history of ulcers and those are likely to return with this stressful event).  She definitely needs several weeks of rest but she has a great prognosis and should be back to barrel racing soon!