Sick Horsey

I called the vet out Saturday 9/27/2008 to see Vikki. She seemed really sore in her left back or hip. I was thinking I'd call a chiropractor this week but when she hesitated to turn around and her leg shook when she put weight on it I kind of freaked out. She did get new shoes a week ago and was a little sore when the farrier lifted that leg all the way up but Sat, she didn't want to lift it at all for me. Plus she's lost a lot more muscle the past 3 weeks and I getting increasingly worried about that.

The vet said the soreness appeared to be in her hip and prescribed bute and light exercise for a couple of weeks. She took some blood-work to check for an ulcer since Vikki is a cribber and has had a lot of stressful changes the last couple of months (boyfriend moved, bully horse, moved to another pasture for protection from bully, move to LA). She also said Vikki is starting to get some points on her teeth but they are not bad enough to bother her (we do have a call into the horsey dentist for several horses at the farm). She prescribed bute, pain and anti-inflammatory medication, and light work for a couple of weeks.

The vet also mentioned that Vikki seemed pretty sore in several joints and she may be suffering from osteo-arthritis due to age, etc. That was a strange statement to me. Vikki has only been slightly off in the right hock and left knee before. She's very athletic and I certainly wouldn't put her in training if she couldn't handle it physically.

I relayed the vet's words to the farm owner, who is a nurse, and she stopped me and said "you said Vikki had a tic sore recently...did the muscle atrophy start before or after the tic...?". Right then I knew where her mind was...Lyme disease. The main symptom of Lyme disease is joint pain. The muscle imbalance did indeed happen after the tic sore but I assumed it was from not being worked (sore was at the girth). So I called the vet and asked if she could test for Lyme with the blood sample. I looked up Lyme disease on the Internet and in both horses and people the main symptom is

According to the Internet, the bacteria from a tic is transmitted 12-24 hours after latching on (and staying on). "A clinical case of Lyme disease occurs when a person is infected by a tick bite. Symptoms follow after an incubation period that may last between two and thirty days. However, on some occasions, the bacteria do not cause disease straight away. The bacteria can enter a phase in which they do not cause symptoms but are still present. They may still have the potential to cause active disease at a later stage."

Vikki's test came back positive on Wednesday but a positive test is not a definitive diagnosis in horses. Lots of horses test positive due to the antibodies in their system. Usually horses are exposed but develop immunity without getting the clinical symptoms. Vikki was under a lot of stress the last 3 months and that may have weakened her immune system enough for the Lyme disease to take hold. If it is indeed Lyme causing her symptoms, they should greatly improve after 2-5 days on the meds. The treatment is a course of antibiotics (Doxycycline) and/or immune system boosting treatments. So we'll see!