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Discussion on Witholding water after exercise?
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New Member:
vahorse7
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Posted on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009 - 12:37 am:
I was reviewing the 'Summertime, Caring for your Horse in the Heat' article and was surprised to see it recommended waiting to offer your horse water after exercise. I thought this practice has since been debunked and rather it's suggested to offer free choice water immediately after exercise.
Found this on the web: In fact, recent research has shown that withholding water after exercise may be more of a disservice because it prolongs dehydration. Horses are more likely to drink and replenish fluid lost in sweat soon after exercise when their thirst drive is high, compared to waiting until they are "cool" and have lost interest in drinking.
Just confused while doing research for a potential anhiDrOsis case... thoughts appreciated!
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Member:
rtrotter
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Posted on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009 - 7:58 am:
Lara,
Welcome to HA,I am sure Dr. O will chime in about the conflicting information, but I'd just thought I'd relate to what I do.
I have racing and training standardbreds that are in constant work and being exercised in all degrees of hot, warm and cold weather.
Many years ago, I worked for a trainer that never took the water away from any horse whether the horse came in blowing or not. The trick was taking the chill off the water by adding a little warm water to all the buckets and letting the horse drink his fill which was not as much as you might think. We never had a colicky horse and I have used this method in the thirty-five years since.
My worry always was that if I gave my horses very cold water it would give them a stomach cramp. I have also read where this may be an old wives tale. So I just try and find a happy medium and go with that.
Very recently, I started adding a mineral supplement to my one horse that never sweated, she now sweats like a normal horse. So your case could possibly be a mineral imbalance.
If you do a search on the 'Cersty neck experiment' you can see how another HA member used salt and minerals to solve one of her problems similar to yours.
BTW the word Cersty (sb Cresty) is spelled incorrectly in the subject line of the original post.
Rachelle
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Member:
scooter
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Posted on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009 - 8:28 am:
Lara, I am the one that tried the experiment with minerals, for cresty necks. It turned out my anhiDrOsis mare started sweating again when on these, even though it wasn't the purpose of my "experiment" but a very nice side effect!
She has had anhiDrOsis for years, I had tried all of the supplements that are suppose to work and they didn't help her one bit.
https://www.horseadvice.com/horse/messages/4/319937.html
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009 - 12:12 pm:
Welcome Lara,
I think you are right and that this section of the article has some older ideas of cooling out horses that need revision. While it does not advocate withholding water it does suggest you wait until the horse quits actively sweating if you did not walk your horse in. Also I think the amounts of water offered at one time is overly cautious.
While I would not say that these ideas have been debunked, a small amount of research and a large amount of practical experience suggests we can be more aggressive rehydrating the horse. After all I have been more aggressive with water on my own horses for at least the last 15 years and we do a lot of stressful summertime riding. However I am not willing to go all the way to complete free choice water for the over worked horse after a ride. The problem is that the horses stomach is only about 3 gals in size (8 to 15 liters according to Schumer and Nickel), I have seen horses that drained a 5 gallon bucket, and unexplained gastric ruptures do occur in the horse. I do not know of any that have occured during such circumstances but I don't consider the extra precaution detrimental to the horse. It should be noted this is in contrast to our recommendation that free choice water always be allowed while the horse is exercising.
I have edited the article to bring it more in line with these ideas and our other articles on this subject. As is our policy errors of fact brought to our attention are rewarded with free membership time and I have added a month of time to your membership. Thank you for helping us continue to be the best equine resource online.
DrO
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New Member:
vahorse7
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Posted on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009 - 11:05 pm:
Thanks, all and Dr. O! I'm very impressed that the article will be updated (and completely appreciate the 1 month gift).
I'm confident what I'm doing with my horse is safe now. I take him to his stall to untack quickly and he typically drinks about 1/2 to 1 gallon water (not cold) at that time. Since I am going down the path of anhiDrOsis, obviously overheating is a big concern for me. After a ride with interval training, I do not do a cool down walk before coming back to the barn. Rather, we trot all the back (but slowly) and then I treat the next 10 minutes as I would if coming off of cross country... quick untacking, quick to get the cold water on him and then do the walking out in the cooler barn and let the evaporation contribute to cooling, with revisits to the cold hosing until all vital signs are 'normalized'.
I'm sure I'll be posting here in the near future as I continue to figure things out with my horse. What started as an investigation to potential 'mechanical' issues with upper respiratory has now led me to other possibilities as well. Nothing definitive has been diagnosed as of yet.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Monday, Jul 27, 2009 - 8:23 am:
Lara, I see you are in VA not a state I typically associate with the development of anhiDrOsis: do you live close to the coast where the humidity is high? I know you were previously a member, is there more information on the diagnosis in earlier posts?
DrO
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New Member:
vahorse7
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Posted on Tuesday, Jul 28, 2009 - 8:38 am:
My earlier posts were regarding a different horse, different problem.
I'm in Northern VA and we do indeed have very high humidity, as well as temps in the 90s typical all summer.
I've had this horse, a 15.3h Welsh Cob, since he was 7 mos old. I started really bringing him along slowly when he was 5 and he is now 9. I've always questioned if he was sweating 'normally' but thought perhaps he really wasn't being taxed too much. Of course he's not going to sweat like a TB (I've had a few) so I keep that in mind. He's very thick as is typical for his breed, but not obese. I've had him worked up by our field vet and also at VA Tech equine medical center -- endoscope, BAL test...was supposed to also do treadmill endoscopy but we didn't make it that far because the vets did an initial diagnosis of mild small airway inflammation. Interestingly enough, they really thought the bronchoalveolar lavage would confirm this with high polymorph cells but they were surprised with the reading of 5%.
So a 'test' of ventipulmin for 3 weeks was done anyway. No improvement to his breathing was seen. By that I mean, he is a very rapid breather when exercising. Resp will get up to 80 after 5 min trot...100 after 10 min trot...120 after 10 min canter. We've been doing interval training 2x/week and I'm taking good notes. He is ridden a total of 5-6 days per week.
His recovery is very good when repeated cold hosing is incorporated. On a hot, humid day he will recover to resp 40s, pulse 60s within 10 minutes after an intense workout. On a cooler morning, he will recover to these same #s within 5 minutes. He is always down to resp low 20s within 20 minutes post exercise.
The standing endoscopy (2 different times) did show him displacing his soft palate a LOT. The vets didn't seem too concerned about this, saying some horses will do it during the exam. Lastly, he has had some faint, high-pitch whistling noise during hard dressage work only (on the bit at canter). Not always, but enough to get me looking into all of this when accompanied by his heavy breathing/panting.
Back to sweating...
The only day this entire summer that I can say I noticed him really sweating normally was one 65 degree morning workout after 3 days of unusually cool weather preceeding. He was sweating all over his body which seemed appropriate for the work we had done. Otherwise, he typically will only be slightly sweaty under the saddle and nothing else. So after the frustration of not definitively diagnosing any 'mechancial' issues, I started doing lots of research online. When I found an article that basically said some horses that are thought to have respiratory ailments actually end up having mild anhiDrOsis, I thought wow, that might really be it.
Sorry if the above notes are a bit disorganized, but this is where we're at now. I'm managing things well in the hot summer, continuing to work on his fitness but being careful to not overburden his body (we sometimes do a cold hosing mid ride, tack still on and then get back to work).
His vets have agreed that trying a supplement like OneAC makes sense at this point. I'm not expecting a miracle cure, but rather further clues to what may be going on. In the end he may really have nothing wrong with him, as one vet even said! But I can't rest until I've explored everything, as my gut tells me something just isn't quite right. I do think we'll end up on the treadmill for a full work-up soon.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009 - 12:22 pm:
Hello vhorse7,
Different chronic conditions are often not related. On the other hand I saw a horse two weeks ago with middle to late stage COPD with their first incidence of anhiDrOsis, with no exercise: body temp 105.0, RR 45, HR 60, no signs of infection, no sweating, responded to hosing with cool water. I think the COPD was a stressor that contributed to the anhiDrOsis.
When I see such confusion I recommend you write down a succinct problem list (more than 2 or 3 words a problem is probably too many). This problem list consists of the observable problems you can document. Next to each problem you put two or three likely causes of the problem. Explore each carefully and then put the most likely diagnosis.
Concerning the diagnosis of anhiDrOsis see Diseases of Horses » Lameness » Weakness, Exhaustion & Overheating » AnhiDrOsis & Deficient Sweating. We uploaded a new version of this article this morning.
DrO
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