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  Discussion on Re-occurring colic
Author Message
Member:
Arvane

Posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2004 - 2:07 pm:

Hi Dr O and everyone,
I brought my horse to a clinic 4 days ago, after he had been showing intermittent signs of colic for 24 hours (banamine only helped for a few hours). The blood-test, heart-rate etc. were fine. They did the rectal and nasal exam and gave him mineral oil. The rectal exam showed only some minor impaction. He appeared fairly normal by the afternoon and started passing manure. I decided to leave him for the weekend since he hadn't got his appetite back. By Saturday he was eating hay and grass but no grain, so the vet was suspecting an ulcer (apparently he tries to eat the grain but loses interest, so it seems that it is bothering him). She put him on ulcer medicine Sunday.

Everything was the same until today, Tuesday (he was passing manure all weekend and eating a fair amount of hay but no appetite for grain). Early this morning he colicked again and when they did the rectal they felt some very hard clumps of manure in there. The vet oiled him and put him on some form of laxatives and he is now getting IV fluids. All the tests are still fine, and no reflux. The vet believes that he either has some impaction left in the small intestine from before, which has now moved to a place where they can feel it, or he has some kind of mineral stones which would require surgery. It seems strange to me that he could have been passing manure all weekend (and passed the mineral oil), all while having some blockage. I asked the vet twice and I'm quite sure I did not misunderstand her. Has anyone heard of that before?

He is not passing any piles since several hours now; they are waiting to see if surgery is necessary but they think he may be able to get rid of the impaction with the laxatives.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts to this, or if you know what these mineral stones are.. Thank you!
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2004 - 10:33 pm:

Sure impactions and stones can occur intermittentantly but the important thing here is that currently this is a possibility and you must keep an open mind for others. For more information on stones see, Equine Diseases » Colic and GI Diseases » Colic in Horses » Enteroliths in Horses.
DrO
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