Update on Cometa’s Equine Metabolic Syndrome and Cushings

By Patty Wilber

We had a very mild winter, and plants that normally freeze and die, did not. We ended up with a bumper crop of foxtail (and orchard grass), but that’s another story.

I let the horses graze on the green foxtail (for an hour at a time) and that may have pushed our 29-year-old, Cometa, over into a laminitis flare. He tested positive for pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID) = Cushings, and also for Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS).

The symptoms, according to the University of Kentucky for PPID are:

Changes in hair coat, such as failure to shed fully and timely and long, sometimes curly hair once called hirsutism, now called hypertrichosis
Chronic infections
Hoof abscesses
Excess or inappropriate sweating
Increased water intake and urination, called polyuria/polydipsia;
Lethargy
Loss of muscle mass
Pot-bellied appearance
Infertility, or lack of estrus cycles, and abnormal mammary gland function
In some cases a predisposition to laminitis if hyperinsulinemia (high levels of insulin in the blood) is involved.

Cometa only had the bolded italic ones (until the laminitis episode), and the sweating and urination had been his norm for years. He sheds fine, has lots of energy, and did not show muscle loss.

For EMS, the symptoms (from UK again) are:

Insulin resistance (IR), now called insulin dysregulation
A history of or active laminitis
Increased adiposity (excess fat depositions in typical regions of neck crest and fat pads at the base of tail).

He has all of those. He has been “lumpy” for many years, also, so apparently our boy had been on the edge (or had) both PPID and EMD for quite some time!

His blood test showed:

High ACTH = PPID. High insulin and leptin are consistent with EMS.

He has adjusted to his new diet of timothy balance cubes, timothy pellets, and Nutrena Safe Choice Special care. This should help with the EMD, and indeed, he seems to be looking less lumpy! He also gets AniMed Remission and isoxsuprine to support his recovery from the laminitis, and pergolide for the PPID. He will be wearing the backward shoes for 6 months or so.

Eating his soaked feed, showing off his shine, and some lumps!

He lives in a good-sized pen next to Penny and MH. He is definitely feeling himself, as he and MH are sparring over the fence again. When he is done with breakfast, Penny sometimes is allowed to join him for the afternoon.

Jim is walking him 10 minutes a day, and Cometa strides out like he is on a Back Country Horsemen project, with places to go.

He got good marks on his last check-up and will have another one in three months. Hopefully, his feet recover enough to allow him to go back to work, because he clearly thinks he is still all that!

Looking pretty good for an oldster on a whole new life plan!

I started out to write about the effects of foxtail on other plants (foxtails produce phytotoxins!), but Cometa clearly wanted his story updated. Foxtail can wait a week.