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  Discussion on Lyme disease and DJD
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New Member:
Steggur

Posted on Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003 - 7:01 pm:

Hi. I have a horse that got diagnosed with very mild degenerative joint disease of the hocks and remodeling of the left sacroiliac. He did not respond to joint injections, bute, muscle relaxants and two months rest. we had him tested for lyme...negative titer...high blot. He did respond within a week to anitbiotics for lyme disease. his lameness and bad temper vanished. Just wondering what kind of info folks have learned about lyme in the joints, and how easy is it to get out of the joints once it is in there? Has anyone else had all the cdj treatments done to no avail, only to find some antibiotic pills fix it?
Sue
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003 - 6:46 am:

Hello Susan,
This was taken from an earlier discussion on the subject and looking at the literature in the last few years nothing has changed:
Lymes disease in horses is a controversial subject. Lymes disease is caused by the organism Borrelia burgdorferi. It is transmitted to mammals by ticks. If use to be thought that only the deer tick was responsible but the organism may be transmitted by other types of ticks.

We know horses can become infected with this microbe. Both experimental infection and serum antibodies to this organism in endemic areas have been found. The controversy is over what type disease, if any at all, is caused by Borrelia in horses. When horses where experimentally infected the organism reproduced in the blood, settled in the kidneys, and was excreted out the urine for several weeks, until the horse cleared became seropositive and cleared the organism from their body. The problem is horses that have been experimentally infected showed no signs of illness during the acute and recovery phases. Also many horses with high titers to the organism had no past history of infection.

In other species, I believe, Borrelia has been shown to cause recurrent fevers, polyarthritis, muscle soreness, and neurological disease. In horses from endemic areas veterinarians feel they see the same constellation of symptoms that are responsive to tetracycline, the best choice of antibiotic for this infection. There have been some surveys to suggest a higher seroprevalence in horses having some of the signs of Lyme's disease, some have not found a relationship.

So do horses get sick from Lymes disease? Possibly, but there is no proof yet and a lot of work that suggest the vast majority of the horses exposed get infected but show no signs of the infection.

Currently, it is recommended that horses suspected of this infection have paired serum samples run 14 days apart while being treated for it. A significant rise during the infection and treatment phase is strong evidence of disease due to infection with Borrelia. A high titer alone is common in healthy horses in endemic areas.

Since that last post further tests and serological surveys continue to support that normal horses do not develop symptoms of disease from exposure to Lymes disease. (Vet Pathol 2000 Jan;37(1):68-76
Experimental infection of ponies with Borrelia burgdorferi by exposure to Ixodid ticks.
Chang YF, Novosol V, McDonough SP, Chang CF, Jacobson RH, Divers T, Quimby FW, Shin S, Lein DH.
Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Science, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.)
DrO
Member:
Amara

Posted on Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003 - 1:11 pm:

that's real interesting info Dr.O

i live in one of those endemic areas, and have seen lyme disease in dogs, people and horses... most commonly in horses, at least, we call it that, treat it as such, and see a good response right away.. here we treat with doxycycline, even though it is more expensive, because the GI side effects are less, and because we've found it to actually "work better" (i.e. the horses get better faster)... i've used both...
i've seen "lyme" settle into joints, eyes, lungs, or at least, the effect of the disease is on those areas... left untreated it appears to have long term effects in those areas... one horse now has DJD/"navicular" pain, which immediately improved 50% when treated for lyme - unfortunately we tested/treated for lyme several YEARS after he started having pain, because at the time, lyme was mostly unknown... now its the first thing we test for when the horse aint going right...
we had another horse founder from what we believe was a case of lyme that he didnt respond well enough to with his first bount of antibiotics (there is some debate as to the dosage)(the higher the better seems to be the case).. his blot tested out strong positive both times, and we didnt see a lessening of his symptoms till he was on the doxy... 30 days after last dose of doxy (current recommended retesting time in this area) he came back neg.blot...
here we treat based on symptoms and western blot number... not blood titer count, because we've definately found that most horses have a titer, but are not acting "lymey"...

i see perhaps10-20 cases of "lyme" every year, and talk to several other people who are dealing with it..

i have to admit, even though they havent been able to develop lyme disease in lab. horses, there's something out there that we call "lyme" and treat as such, and get results from, in way too many cases every year!
Member:
Mwebster

Posted on Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003 - 6:51 pm:

I too live in an endemic area, and Lyme is frequently diagnosed in horses by a few of the vets here. Of the horses I personally know that have been diagnosed with Lyme, I don't know of any that responded to doxy, so I haven't seen the evidence yet that horses really get Lyme.

My older gelding, initially diagnosed with DJD in both coffin joints, was subsequently diagnosed with Lyme by my 2nd opinion vet. Great, I thought, something we can treat and he'll be cured! But he showed no response at all to the doxy, and we used the recommendation out of the Swedish study which is on this site, a dosage that was double what the vet was using in other cases.

Even in humans, I haven't heard of Lyme causing DJD -- or what I think of as DJD which includes bone remodelling at a joint, something that will be clearly visible on an xray. And I've done plenty of reading on Lyme, and met many experts, as my husband had to work quite hard to cure his own advanced case, which required IV antibiotics for weeks, and followup tests for the actual DNA of the spirochete (several that came back positive). So far as I know, no one has succeeded yet in obtaining a blood sample from a horse that shows a positive on that DNA test...
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Feb 13, 2003 - 7:08 am:

The attempts at experimental exposure have been very thorough, using natural tick vectors. The problem was so baffling they decided to see if they were using a poor methodology so they they compromised the horses immune system with steroids to see if they could get evidence of an infection other than seroconversion and yes horses with severely compromised immune systems became infected and organisms isolated. The only tissue to become infected was the skin where the horses were bit by the infected ticks.

It is not just the lab however that supports the idea that B.b. may not be a common cause of disease in horses. In one of the largest most complete surveys of horses with B.b. seroconversion (over 500) they compared the medical histories of those with a titer with those without. There were no statistically significant difference in the incidence of disease with the exception of a mild association with an increase in coffin joint arthritis. Because I cannot think of any reason that the organism would have a predilection for this site, I consider this as coincidental.

I am aware that people who live in areas where Lyme is endemic horseowners and veterinarians believe they see the disease. However you have to understand it is a fact that this is not clear at all. I have seen other diseases and treatments that everyone thought were significant, including me, only to find were shown to be red herrings. DrO
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