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Nathalie Van de Voorde
Member
Username: Nathalie
Post Number: 2
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, Oct 25, 2003 - 7:30 am: |   |
I have no idea where to post this subject so since it probably has something to do with an infection I finally decided to place it here, please move it to the correct folder for me...
~Even though it has already been a few months by now I am still trying to find some answers and am hoping on this site maybe someone can give me an answer...
One morning (early June this year) around 7:30am I found my 2 yr. Old TB gelding in his pasture with a lot of swelling around his muzzle. His temperature at that point was 102.2F.
 
Immediately called the vet but she was not available for the next 2 hrs they said.
He looked and acted really miserable. I kept checking his temperature, which kept going up so I tried to bring it down while hosing his. After 3 more phone calls to our local vets his temperature went up all the way to 104.3F then she finally arrived. She gave him 20 ml. Dexamethason (Azium I believe in the US?) and 30 ml. Of Streptoprocpen (penicillin). Within 20 mins. His temp dropped back to 104F.
She said it looked like “Morbus Maculosis” also know as: Hippopotamus-head (at least that is how they call it over here in Holland) and she gave him about 50% to recover from this, the first 12 till 24 hrs. being crucial. The cause had probably something to do with some old infection still in his system?? I asked about doing some blood tests but that would not give any information she told me and left it with that.
Around 5:30pm that same evening his temperature had dropped to 102.6F and he seemed to feel a bit better over all.
The next morning it had dropped all the way to 99.06F and most of the swelling had gone. The vet came back and gave him another shot of penicillin (Duplocilline, 30 ml.).
Within the next few days he was all back to normal…
Does anybody have any more information on this disease or a different name I can use to do a new search? I am still trying to find out what it really was and how he could have gotten it in the first place.
1 more thing I might have to add is that he was born in the USA (VA) and I had him there the first 1 ˝ years of his life (I lived there most of that time) then when I had to move back to Holland I brought him back with me, he arrived in Holland February of this year.
The spelling of one/all of the medications might not be 100% correct b/c it is copied from the invoice I received from my dutch vet, so it might be dutch spelling, sorry for this.
Any ideas and/or feedback will be highly appreciated!
Tnx. Nathalie
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Melissa Boschwitz
Member
Username: Amara
Post Number: 69
Registered: 7-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, Oct 25, 2003 - 9:26 am: | |
i read somewhere that this is related to purpura? Dr. O, is this right?
in the past i have treated purpura (have only seen it in legs tho) with dex and antibiotics-it was an immune response because of a strangles infection...
has your horse had any recent diseases? i think purpura is immune response? |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM
Moderator
Username: Dro
Post Number: 9351
Registered: 1-1997
| | Posted on Saturday, Oct 25, 2003 - 11:58 am: | |
Is my leg being pulled? Looking in all of my equine medical texts including one recent European volume and doing a search in the worldwide medical databases, I cannot find reference to either morbus maculosis or hippopatamus head. Neither do your clinical signs jive with anything similar to what you describe.
On the other hand I occasionally see swollen muzzles in combination with symptoms like you describe. I suggest the poor feeling fellow had a droopy head with or without inflamation of other tissues of the sinuses or head. This resulted in a dependent edema that resolved once the horse felt better and held his head back up.
DrO |
Nathalie Van de Voorde
Member
Username: Nathalie
Post Number: 3
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, Oct 25, 2003 - 12:33 pm: | |
Lol, well at least now I know it was not that I did not know where to look for the disease then, there just is no information around. One of the first things the vet did was check his sinuses but she said they were all clear!
With just the word Purpura I already found some more info in a book I have here. There was also a picture from a horse with "Purpura Hemorrhagica". His face definitely looked much the same. There was some swelling in his legs yes but not as bad as with the horse on the picture. No, he did not have any diseases (unless they were so mild they just went by without even being noticed). The only "health problems" he ever has is when he hurts himself out in the field (he has quite some history of this yet in his 2 1/2 years of age).When I read the text and compare it with how quickly he recovered from whatever he had I was either very lucky or there was something else wrong with him.
Maybe another point I should mention, only 2 weeks after this whole episode he seemed to have a severe reaction to something he touched or maybe ate in the pasture. There was no high temperature but he was covered in bumps all over his body and his eyes looked like Mike Tyson's eyes right after a fight so swollen he could hardly keep them open. Of course I immediately called the vet again but when I described everything she thought it had to be an allergic reaction to something in his field. And to just keep checking his temperature. I gave him some Benadryl and sure enough a few hours later everything went back to normal. Of course I can't help but wonder if the 2 things are connected.
Thanks for your input!
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