Could really use some advice. Twenty six year old mare did not completely shed out her winter coat. She is normally a very sleek gal. Her coat is rough, long and simply will not shed even with baths and brushings. (She has been getting flax seed for months which usually makes horses shed out quickly.) She has always been what is termed an "easy keeper", meaning she tended to obesity. She never was used under saddle but showed for years in conformation classes. She is the third generation mare raised here. Her mother and grandmother both had similar tendency to become easily overweight. She tends to develop a "crest" on her neck (which is a sign of pending founder from too much spring grass) and was foundered many years ago. (Founder is heat in feet causing bone inside hoof to rotate, creating great pain, lameness and can leave them with deformed feet. Also called laminitis.)

She sweat easily and was averse to work. (Lucky for her she never was asked to.) Sweet and easy going otherwise. Her life long companion died last fall and her grief was obvious. She is now the last horse on the farm. She developed a friendship with the goat and seems OK as long as the goat is near. She has always had a mineral/salt block in her feeder but I have recently put it in a separate feeder where she still has free access because with the recent humidity, it was crumbling and I was concerned that she was getting too much. She has always actively sought it.

Feeling she might be hypothyroid, started her on Calc LM1, daily dose last eight days with no changes other than the clear watery eye discharge, that dripped down her face, stopped and the day after the first dose she had a thin, whitish nasal discharge from one nostril which did not return. No improvement in coat, nor any other changes noted.

Tonight, after being in the barn for about 2 hours, she began to whinney repeatedly (unusual). She was agitated/nervous, pacing in the stall. (Very unusual.) Had passed normal stool and urine. Had hay but wasn't interested. Somewhat wide eyed. Hot to touch (it is 70 degrees and a nice breeze, definitely not hot enough for her to sweat), was wet over entire body but not the neck or chest. Horses usually sweat first on chest/neck. Was going to give her Bell but she settled, relaxed and began to eat her hay after spending some time petting/talking to her. Did not give Bell. Two hours later she remains normal in all respects other than still damp over body (cold sweat). Not hot to touch any longer.

I don't know if this is an aggravation or a proving. The only time she may ever have sweat like that was when she foundered years ago but I really can't remember if she did. (It could be unrelated to Calc altogether and something else was bothering her.) Colic will produce similar symptoms but she lacked the full range of symptoms that usually accompany colic. Lacramation ceasing was an improvement. I have no recall of any nasal discharge over the years. Her coat has not improved as yet after 8 daily doses of Calc.

She had thyroid tests as part of a complete physical about 5 years ago and it was negative. Is it advisable to try to treat this without further complete tests...and is there success in treating hypothyroidism with homeopathy?

Edit: Hypothyroid in horses has cresty neck, overweight and rough coat (difficulty shedding in spring) as some of the signs.
Second Edit: After about 6 hours since showing heat/sweat symptoms the mare is calm in the stall. Warmth is now concentrated over the kidney area which is still damp. Area not tender. No anxiety or stress at all.

[ 17 May 2002, 08:11: Message edited by: gpm ]

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hello gpm,
it sounds like the fever episode is over.
not sure what is going on - but i'd stop the calc in case it is the causation of the episode.
what is a cresty neck?

Hi Anna,
A cresty neck is an excessive layer of fat along the top line of the horse's neck, with prominence in the center portion, making an arched look. Many have a crest naturally and it is the same firmness as the rest of their muscles. If it hardens up or grows more pronounced, it is usually a sign that they may be on the verge of foundering. If a horse without a normal crest develops one, it may well mean they are headed toward foundering. This would be from over feeding or more likely from the new spring grass. (Care must be taken each spring to limit pasture time when new grass is coming up. In the old days, grass founder was treated with antihistamines. I guess it's hormonal because one of the preventatives for founder was pregnancy.) Since this mare and her mother were both foundered early in their lives (neither had any lasting physical hoof changes) access to spring grass is always limited. She has had a very slight hardened crest for months with no continued increase.

There are other causatives for founder such as too much grain, putting up a hot horse without cooling down or letting them drink water when sweating after a workout.

I didn't take her temp last (couldn't find the horse thermometer) night but felt she didn't have a fever. I thought she was sweating from pain or anxiety.

Thank you.

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dear gpm

sorry to say the first thing is that i am not sure what to do. the reason being that i don't know how to translate the main symptoms into human form - ie. the cresty neck and the absence of shedding are not human symptoms in my repertory.
on the other hand, i wonder if in a horse the thyroid cartilage extends over the neck so that an inflammation signals thyroid involvement? do you know?
if so i could perhaps use the rubric Thyroid cartilage swelling of [sil and sulf]

looking at the case in a non-homoeopathic way, i note that the problem comes with the diet of spring grass - and grass contains a lot of silica [as does hay, so if there is no alteration in the amount of silica consumed forget that idea.]
it also occured to me that there is silica in hair and hoof too.

Hi GPM,

I have seen a number of human beings with what would be the corollary of a "cresty neck"--you must know the symptom in its human form, it appears like a very thick double chin, a layering of fat and retained water at the base of the neck which appears as a kind of "signal" of thyroid dysfunction. Its not exactly the same as a goiter, as that is very different; but this layer of fat around the neck isn't present in all cases where the patient is overweight. As for "not shedding"--you can't repertorize on that, but you can repertorize on the courseness of the hair. I think your assumption about the hypothyroidism is a very good one. There are many remedies which address this issue well.

I'm thinking more about the remedy Nat Mur--the salt she so actively sought out, and a good remedy for some "obvious" grief. Perhaps the death of her companion horse was an etiological pointer to the changes in her case? This is just a suggestion, and I'm mentioning the remedy for your consideration. Ignatia may also be a possibility if she's had any of the easily excitable emotional symptoms of the remedy as a result of that death.

Hope you can help this horse...
Divina

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Anna,
I don't know about thyroid cartilage causing the crest on the neck. I would doubt it because the crests are generally quite a lot larger than I would think a swollen thyroid would be by itself and this is on the top line of the neck.

I really don't know that her past foundering has anything to do with this episode, specifically, though all things are related. She was foundered many years ago. I don't believe founder (laminitis) can be translated into human terms because I think it is a species specific dis-ease. I was using only the disease name to search which only offered one rubric in only one Rep, the Complete that produced : ange-s., calc., cortico., cortiso., flor-p., kali-c., levo., rib-ac., sulfa., thiop.

I then just used "thyroid" and compared the results. Calc sounded most like her. Afraid I don't know enough about thyroid, hyper or hypo, to be able to search correctly. I actually wouldn't be able to do it correctly anyway. (Did you kind of guess?)

What I was trying to do was give a remedy thinking she was "hypothyroid" and not doing good case taking. In the horse, symptoms are intolerance to cold, slow shedding, long rough coat, overweight with cresty neck(could be underweight with poor body tone), lethargic and what they call tying up ( Azoturia, Paralytic Myoglobinuria, Monday Morning Sickness...a result of being worked hard for an extended period and then laid up abruptly). Of these, she has (for several months) all but intolerance to cold and tying up. I felt Calc covered those symptoms.

During the 8 days on Calc LM1 the only changes were discharge from one nostril and the stopping of the rather long standing lachrymator. And then the intense body heat and sweating the other night. She remained warmer to touch over her kidneys throughout the following day but with no other symptoms of anxiety, pain or sweating.

Her physicals are: big mare, bright chestnut, voracious hunger, tendency to fat, aging, long standing ring bone (calcium deposits at top of hoof [pastern] caused by banging her stall door demanding more food and leaving her walking back on her heels, causing strain on her her front leg tendons.

She is "breedy", "typy", meaning no matter how lame she may be she has that something extra that causes her to snap out those front feet, whip up her tail, arch her neck and float across the field. Like you see well schooled dressage horses do. She loves attention. She loved being shown in hand (first shown as at 4 months, winning the State Breeders Futurity) and really put on the dog for the judges. She is lonely, I'm sure even though the goat tries hard to be with her every moment.

She is kept (and has been for years since she was foundered) in a small field without much good grass (has free choice mixed hay but not rich alfalfa) and only allowed a few hours a day in the big pastures. Normally she would be waiting expectantly for the gate to open but after starting Calc, she has lost that consuming desire. She still craves her grain even though she gets very little.

Divina,
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Very interesting about the correlation to human double chin. With horses, that layer of fat on what would be the back of their necks, may already exist but will usually turn very hard when founder is eminent. Does the "double chin" harden in humans as the condition advances?

Peculiar that the cresty neck is a symptom for both founder and hypothyroidism.

I apologize for not posting back sooner. Very busy couple of days in the wildlife department, including a call for a 5 foot snake removal. Not one of my favorite events. Thank you both very much.

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dear gpm, how exciting with the snake.

for the dear old girl, i had a thought about kali-carb with reference to your post of your word search on founder. it has the characteristic symptom 'stiff nape' which could be as near as a human could get to cresty, perhaps?
kalicarb can also cover problems during rest after exertion.
kali carb also has dry hair in humans which can cause the hair to fall out...maybe it can cause the opposite in a horse - the hair not falling when it should?
i am by no means certain about kali carb.
are there any signs and symptoms associated with the recent increased nitrogen in the urine [=tying up, correct?], or was that just discovered by a routine lab test?
does tying up indicate a degree of kidney dysfunction, or simply increased protein metabolism? kali carb is one of the major kidney remedies of khorse.

i took some riding lessons aged 7 and gave up in tears, so i need to have all the horsey terms explained please, or better still explain everything in non-horse.

perhaps moira or another vet will drop in and give an equine anatomy and physiology lesson.

Denise,
Thank you for your help. I think I wasn't very clear. This mare has never tied up nor does she seem to have intolerance to cold. Although she hasn't those symptoms, she does have all the other indicators for hypothyroid such as rough long coat, not shedding out, etc. She really hasn't the pronounced cresty neck (you would have to feel it, she has that Mahmoud line neck, Araby, with dished face) but does have a little extra fat layer mid neck top line and I watch it constantly in case it hardens up since she was foundered by spring grass once, a long time ago. I have no way of knowing if she is still in grief. She has stopped looking for the old gelding. I made sure she saw he was dead before he was buried but she didn't seem to understand at the time. I think she is more lonely than anything. You know how the "lead 'em and feed em's" get when the population gets down to the last two......they were so devoted to each other. They were inseparable because they were the last two here.

I know I should get her another equine companion even though the absolutely wonderful little goat tries her best and is always at her side, it isn't the same. This was a pretty large horse farm years ago, so this poor old mare has seen them all go before her. She was the youngster. She stands in one the big pastures and does that heart wrenching looking off into the distance that I'm sure you've seen the old ones do. I really don't want to go through facing any more losses out in that barn but suppose, to be fair to her, I should get another equine senior citizen to keep her company. Then there will someday be another "last horse". Getting old is not golden.

I very much appreciate all the wisdom everyone has been so generous to offer. I have some reading to do.

Anna......snakes (exciting, you say!)and more squirrels with broken backs. Not a lot of fun around here these days! Love your choice of pictures.......roar Anna, roar! As an aside, go for dressage lessons. You'd love it.

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Sometimes on Earth, you can find something that resembles a little piece of Heaven. And sometimes on Earth, a little piece of Heaven can find you.

gpm,
I have a barn full of 'oldies but goodies' myself, as well as several older dogs I feel obligated too because they were part of my breeding program when I raised dogs and were too old for others to want when I got out of it....there has been continuous loss here for about a year now, most of it in the last couple months...I understand the spot you are in and am not sure what I would/will do when there is only one left...maybe you could find a boarder...this way when yours finally decides to move on you won't be back in the same delima? You know, that looking off into the distance for what has been lost has a kind of Nat Mur sound to it..you may still need to think about grief with her. When we lost our oldest mare to a surgical colic not long ago, all her siblings called all day
I'm sure they knew she was dying...I think it took a couple days for everyone to settle back to normal... I have also witnessed long term grief in horses, for example when my oldest son left home and his endurance horse. She was depressed for months...this was before homeopathy for me, and my solution was to start competing her myself...it worked...do I understand correctly that these symptoms did not manifest till after the loss of your mares companion? That at least would give you a never well since rubric... I think Anna might have brought this up before..... Denise

dear gpm, thanks for your encouragement.
ref dressage - not in this lifetime.

sorry to have misunderstood your earlier post and thanks to you and denise for explaining. pity you two don't live nearer.

i am wary of using the grief rubric, because, hope you don't mind my mentioning gpm, you sound very reflective for the good old days, and i am cautious lest that is being projected onto your horse.
if her hair is dry, there is a clear rubric, but you have not specifically said it is dry.
as well as kali-carb i think sulf is in the running as denise mentioned she used for her horse.
maybe graph, but unlikely if she is not cold, since graph has poor circulation to the skin causing the hair dryness.
possible phos as well?

sorry i can't be of more help.
and gpm, look on the bright side, you now have an ophidian friend. ...branching out...never too old etc...