Weeks 7-8 at Stevens Equine

Hi everyone,

Well, the 3 week long Spring Spectacular show has ended so things have gotten a little less hectic lately.  It has generally been a hot couple of weeks so there were several horses that needed to be treated for dehydration.  For these, we often treated them with a 10 L fluid bolus with electrolytes via nasogastric intubation and 10-20 L of Lactated Ringer’s Solution through intravenous catheterization.  Sometimes vitamin B12 complex was added.  Along with the dehydration and likely related to it, we had some colic cases at the show as well.  These were treated similarly to be rehydrated with the addition of mineral oil as well, and were given Banamine and Xylazine then monitored.  Buscopan was also administered to help facilitate rectal palpation to help assess the condition.  As of late, two horses were referred to local clinics and had colic surgery.  Both are recovering well.

As usual, we have been doing a lot of lameness work.  This has helped continue to improve my familiarity with regional nerve blocks to localize the source of the pain, and some of the cases with more pronounced unsoundness have resulted in radiographs and/or ultrasound of the affected limb.  Although I am still trying to master holding the plate at the proper angle, this has been great for beginning to recognize pathology when I watch Dr. Stevens point out his findings to the clients.  Common findings lately have been arthritis, cystic lesions, OCDs (osteochondritis dessicans), and degenerative lesions in the navicular bone.

We also looked at a lame horse the other day that seemed like he may have some neurologic impairment, so it was neat seeing a “tail pull” test and tight circling performed with the horse to help assess his neurologic status.  With the tail pull test, that helps to assess hind limb strength, and the tight circling helped exacerbate any impairment by seeing if the horse’s limbs were interfering with one another and to see if he had excessive circumduction.  Otherwise, most horses have been intitially evaluated with the general routine of physical examination and hoof testers, jogging in hand, then flexion tests, and sometimes regional nerve blocks.

Although I have been getting a lot of hands on experience all summer, it has been great getting more opportunities lately to practice with some of the diagnostic equipment.  After using the ultrasound to examine distal limbs on patients, Dr. Stevens has allowed me to practice scanning limbs.  It has been great learning to identify the different tendons and their associated structures and holding the probe at different angles to get different views to help identify pathology.

Anyhow, I hope that everyone is having a great summer and staying cool!