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  Discussion on Sweat marks on hips - Nerve damage?
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Member:
Talon7

Posted on Tuesday, Jul 12, 2005 - 4:24 pm:

Hi Dr. - I wrote you a few months ago regarding an 8-yr old gelding with a possible bladder stone - turns out he did have one and had a very successful surgery for it.

However, now there seems to be a weird result post surgery.

He had the surgery at the end of March and after 2 full months of (stall with a 40ft run) rest he was started slowly back to exercise - walking on a longe line then small short turnout and now full pasture. He has lots of energy.

We noticed at first, that he had his tail clamped down at the walk (he's a dressage horse and we notice these things) then after some messing around in the pasture, that is better. Now he has some weird sweat stripes (complete with dried white crusty stuff) on his hips/butt. They start at the top of his croup and go down about 12 inches. I had some infrared thermography done and the stripes showed up very cold, even after exercise.

Could there have been some nerve damage done during the surgery? Are there nerves internally that could have been messed with to create this?

Also, we have noticed that his topline really changed. There is a pronounced dip in front of the croup. What could have happened? He seems OK during longeing at walk, trot and canter, but I worry that his back might not be safe for riding. I have never had a horse go thru such major surgery so I do not know what to expect.

Thanks, Judy
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005 - 9:54 am:

How odd Judy, though the nerves to the bladder and the nerves to the hip and bladder come off in similar regions of the cord, the surgery should not have effected these other nerves, maybe the pressure of dorsal recumbency during surgery? Do you have the pictures from the thermograph and could it be the recent sweating in these areas cause these regions to be cooler. Also could you provide photos of the change in the top line?
DrO
Member:
Talon7

Posted on Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005 - 12:06 pm:

Dr O, My trainer thought the same thing, that it may have had something to do with the surgical positioning. Because of the area of the incision, the right side of the sheath, which was laid over to get to the midline of the abdominal wall, I would imagine that he pretty much had to have been on his back - I will have to ask the vet.

The thermograph was done both pre and post exercise. In the post exercise, you can see the warm butt muscle surrounding the stripe of deep blue(which had decreased in size). In the pre-exercise, maybe the dried sweat was showing up - but then, why are there odd sweat stripes in the first place when he didn't have them before.

I do not currently have the copies of the thermograph. One of my boarders does this as a profession and will thermograph our horses as a courtesy - she did save the pictures tho because it is such an interesting "case" and we want to see if there is any improvement with further work. I will see if she can e-mail them to me.

Good point about the before and after picts - need to get down there and get some done today.

Judy
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Jul 14, 2005 - 8:15 am:

I have seen horses that have sweating patterns as you describe Judy and we have had many reports in these discussions of horses with odd sweating patterns, I really don't have a good explanation of why this occurs. If you are correct that this was a change following surgery perhaps the pressure had some effect on the glands, blood perfusion, or nervous system of the skin resulting in the odd pattern? I have not heard nor seen such an effect before.
DrO
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