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Hello dh,
A horse this age and this condition almost certainly has PPID which causes excessive peeing and drinking. Kidney failure should also be ruled out. It sometime occurs that you get a condition called medullary wash out where the kidneys lose their ability to concentrate urine exacerbating the PPID PU/PD. There are other possibilities, so back up one link to the article on this subject which explains these and other possibilities and how to diagnose them and treatment based on diagnosis. Let us know how this works out. Quantifying the amount of water, the amount of salt, and what the lab results are would all be interesting and useful to others in the future.
DrO -
I had the vet out in September. I collected a urine sample that morning in a clean bucket, and he took blood samples (from both horses, as I figured I might as well get a baseline on my 17-year-old Icelandic as long as the vet was there).
He came out on a Friday, and called me the next week with the results. Everything was normal, except that potassium was slightly high for both horses, which he attributed to the blood samples having sat over the weekend before being analyzed. He said the urinalysis was also normal.
By the time he came out, I had already started to note that Louis seemed to have slightly tapered off on his salt usage and wasn’t peeing quite the rivers he had previously. Since the vet was here (about a month now), he has continued to taper off until he’s back to what I would say is normal.
My vet suggested I find some loose minerals and just provide a daily ration of salt and minerals in the horses’ feed and take the blocks away. Basic loose minerals for equines are remarkably hard to find locally. I will have to ask the feed stores if they can order them.
Anyway, it was a strange little interlude. I will keep monitoring and probably have bloodwork done once/year to keep track, but for now he seems pretty good for an old guy.
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He seems fine in himself. He’s his usual “big dog” personality (he really is like having a very large friendly dog). His appetite is good, as usual. He’s growing in his winter hair coat, and in every way seems quite himself.
One thing the vet noted when he was here, which I had not noticed at the time, was a slight sheath swelling. This morning, however, I saw that it was quite swollen. It’s not impairing him in any way, but it does look rather alarming. It’s a very firm rather than spongy-feeling edema. We took the horses for a walk at lunch, just under a mile, and that did help reduce the edema somewhat, but not completely. He was eager to go as he seemed to think we were taking him to the “long field” – a hayfield up the road that the horses managed to get out and run to back in August. He was moving right along and giving my husband a bit of a workout. 🙂 Usually Louis is a bit of a slowpoke, but Dreki and I had trouble keeping up!
Having done a bit of reading, it seems that kidney disease is one possible cause, but his bloodwork just came back as normal.
One thing I wondered is whether too much protein might be causing an issue? The week before the vet came, I upped the amount of alfalfa pellets in his ration, so he’s now getting about the same amount of alfalfa pellets as senior feed.
Thank you.
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Healthy horses handle a little extra protein without trouble and many horses benefit from it. Swelling in the sheath can represent trauma, a dirty sheath, or a more systemic issue. I can say that it is a common problem that is often transient if the sheath is clean. I still am wondering is the horse continuing to put weight on.
DrO -
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