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Discussion on Recurrent Diarrhea
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Member:
Quatro
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Posted on Monday, Feb 16, 2004 - 11:23 am:
Hi Dr. O. I have been dealing with this diarrhea problem with my older gelding since November, last year. I just started to wean him off the 2x day beet pulp, and adding senior feed. He actually had 2 days of extremely hard normal poop after intro of the senior feed, but mostly it is mushy, with scours running down his legs on occassion. I have asked the vet to come out and draw blood this week. What test should he be running with concerns of this nature? We did a fecal a while back, he said there were " a bunch of weird unidentified things, but nothing they were concerned about" this did not make me feel real confident, but we have few choices around here. After trying the metrodiazole for 3 days, my normally perky horse became lethargic, not eating etc. so I stopped feeding him the antibiotics. I try not to worry alot about it, because he is generally in good health and spirit, but I am tired of obsessing about the consistency of poop!!!What can we expect to learn from any blood work, and is it worth the expense, if he is in generally good health, with the exception of this mushy poop thing?
The vet has not pushed to do blood work, I have asked him, so I don't get the feeling he thinks we will learn much?
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004 - 6:24 am:
A horse with a chronic loose stool but otherwise healthy you don't learn a lot but it is the next step to rule out some chronic systemic diseases, disease of the liver, kidney disease, and inflammatory disease. Secondary diarrhea is associated with each of these but normally not the only clinical sign. I would run a standard chem panel (SMA-16), bile acids, and CBD. If it comes back normal it is several less things to worry about. I do suggest you send another sample to a laboratory that commonly examines fecal samples under a microscope and get those unidentified bugs ID'ed.
DrO
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