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  Discussion on Results of my horse's BAL
Author Message
Member:
gardener

Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 - 6:20 pm:

I took my horses into the vet to be a part of a study with a university student on Heaves. I got the results and was a bit shocked. My gelding was normal, but had 3.5% mast cells and I was advised >4%to be Inflammatory Airway Disease. My gelding never coughs or breaths heavy, so I was surprised. My mare did cough when fed bad hay last summer (I have since moved from that stable as we had issues on and off with the hay quality for the 2 years I was there). She rarely coughs now. She never breathes heavy. However, she had 57.75% neutrophils, and I was told >15% to be heaves, so she has heaves. The results have been forwarded to my vet, so I will discuss with him. In the meantime, I am in shock. Both horses are in a paddock and fed hay year round. I am guessing that a better choice for them would be grass. I am feeling extremely guilty about keeping them at the last stable I was at. Both horses were fed the same thing. The gelding is 11 yrs. old and the mare is 21 yrs. old. I guess I am lucky to have participated in this study so that I have these results long before I would have suspected. I understand that heaves can not be cured, but if I'm careful I can help manage her and hopefully keep the disease from getting worse. However, I don't know anything about Inflammatory Airway Disease. Do you have any info posted anywhere on this. I could only find a discussion. Can it be cured? How serious is it? I realize my horse is diagnosed as normal, but his results seem pretty close to abnormal. I am a bit stressed right now. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, May 5, 2008 - 8:39 am:

Hello Mary,
Inflammatory Airway Disease is a term for a chronic disease of the lower respiratory tract of horses that also includes heaves. For a description of these see Diseases of Horses » Respiratory System » Chronic Lower Airway Disease. You need to really concentrate on the fact that your horse is normal and quit the stressing out. I cannot find what the significance of an abnormal BAL finding is in a horse that is clinically normal. Many diagnostic tests are only significant when there is clinical disease present and is used to differentiate similar looking clinical findings. If these experimenters have proof to the contrary with the BAL I would be interested in the references.

To get to the article on heaves select Heaves & Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease off the navigation bar at the top of this page. If you have any questions after studying the articles you can bring them back here.
DrO
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