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Discussion on Stumbling and blocked tear ducts
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Member:
Revans
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Posted on Friday, Jul 30, 2004 - 6:04 pm:
I have a 4 yr old 16.4 TB mare - she stumbled everywhere when I first got her - I wasn't sure if it was from nerves (she had been beaten severly before I bought her, I witnissed the beating - then I bought her from a horse owner that should never be horse owner)I tried everything - my farrier recommended flushing the tear ducts - the vet came out - a very simple procedure - and the stumbling stopped - I highly recommend flushing tear ducts for stumbling - good luck! I noticed that this is a maintanence deal - I flush her eyes a couple times per year - or more often when needed!
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Monday, Aug 2, 2004 - 6:17 am:
Richard, what do you figure the relationship between the blocked tear duct and stumbling was?
DrO
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Member:
Revans
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Posted on Friday, Aug 6, 2004 - 12:45 pm:
When a person has a sinus infection or a head cold - our balance is off or we are just good enough to lie down until the infection passes - much like horses - when their tear ducts are blocked the fluids build up in the ducts and causes pressure thus causing imbalance to the horse (my opninion).
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 7, 2004 - 10:04 am:
Interesting thought and link but I don't think this is common richard. First I see many horses with blocked ducts that do not have any stumbling / balance problems (and vice versa!). Second an infection of the sinus or a head cold (which is a systemic viral infection) are not really analogous with a blocked tear duct. I cannot argue with your own experiences and will see if I can find something that I may have missed before but neither can I cannot find a medical or scientific reference for this.
DrO
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Member:
Dres
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 7, 2004 - 10:14 am:
Dr. O.. is one of the symptoms of a blocked tear duct.. constant tearing...?
thanks Ann
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Monday, Aug 9, 2004 - 7:49 am:
Yes the tearing is out of the inner corner of the eye. The eye is usually comfortable unless infected and the tears run along the bottom lid margin and do not accumulate over the cornea.
DrO
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Member:
Revans
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 21, 2004 - 6:59 pm:
Dr. O - My vet said the same thing - there is no phsyiological reason that blocked tear ducts would cause stumbling - but for Foxy and I it worked - after flushing her movement is clear as glass - my vet is perplexed why this has worked so well - but it has - I asked my vet if and when he comes up with an explaniation to let me know - I will post it!! Thanks a bunch!!
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Sunday, Aug 22, 2004 - 9:10 am:
It really is this lack of a known mechanism that makes this one hard to follow. But there is a logical explanation: what ever was causing the horse to stumble got better and it just happened you flushed the nl duct prior to what really fixed the problem.
What if you had cleaned the ears, or trimmed the feet, removed a tick, pulled the mane, sprayed the horse with the latest homeopathic preparation for stumbling. Actually some of these are related to stumbling but you see you are always doing stuff to a horse, so to draw a causal relationship from just temporal relationship support is always fraught with error.
On the other hand, next year we may see a report where 30 stumbling horses have their nl-ducts flushed and they all quit stumbling while the pathologist find a recurrent branch of the vestibular (balance) nerve traveling through the nl-duct explaining the reason! If so you will see it here. But at this time yours is the only case report I know.
DrO
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Member:
spinosa
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Posted on Friday, Oct 10, 2008 - 5:58 pm:
Is there an update on this?
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