Site Menu:
This is an archived Horseadvice.com Discussion. The parent article and menus are available on the navigation menu below: |
HorseAdvice.com » Diseases of Horses » Colic, Diarrhea, GI Tract » Colic in Horses » Discussions on Colic in Horses not covered by the above » |
Discussion on E.Coli killed horse | |
Author | Message |
Member: Sjeys |
Posted on Friday, Dec 9, 2005 - 3:53 pm: I wanted to get some input for a friend of mine whose horse underwent a tremendous amount of pain, a colic surgery and finally death before being fully diagnosed.Her 16 year old QH gelding was laying in the sun on a beautiful winter day with his pasture mates and seemed fine. A few minutes later, however, my friend looked outside and could see him covered in sweat; she ran outside and gave him 10 cc of Banamine, started walking him and called the vet. I saw him within a few minutes and was astonished at how much pain this horse appeared to be in and the sweat pouring off of him. We'd never seen anything like it in our experience; it looked like either a bad colic or some kind of poison, based upon symptoms. You could see he had his hind end tucked up under him when standing like he was in tremendous pain. There was no rolling but he did want to lay down. We got the vet there who did a quick rectal exam, told us he doubt he'd go to surgery but to take him to the equine hospital to be further evaluated. We had also given him 1.5 cc of Rompun, upon the advice of another vet, who thought he might be typing up. the rompun made no difference at all in symptoms. We got him loaded into the trailer (no small feat considering the pain he was in) and DrOve him down to our premier equine hospital. They did a rectal exam on him (or whatver its called on horses) and didn't feel a whole lot going on. The vet thought he was looking and acting like he was recovering from the earlier episode okay until she got his dehydration info back; it was a 59 and she said death occurs at 70. About this time, he started shaking and pouring sweat again; so they starting pumping fluids into him and got him into surgery within minutes. After the surgery they said his cecum was in the completely wrong place, like it had been twisted out of place, so they put it back and emptied it out. It was horrifically bloated (we got to watch the surgery). They said there was a lot of blood (it looked like chocolate milk) in his intestines. He survived the surgery, seemed to get better over 3 to 4 days, but his protein started DrOpping signifcantly on day 5, the diarrhea started and they couldn't keep him hydrated. His dehydration reading was 69; they called his owner to tell her they could not help this horse anymore and for her to be there for putting him down. About that time, he seemed to have a stroke or something else in his brain in that he began to become aggressive towards the person who came to change his IV bags. They then gave him some Demerol and he had what they termed a bad reaction to it, and started ramming his head into the stall. So they put him down (which he also had a terrible reaction to) and asked for permission to do the autopsy, since they were not sure what had happened with this horse. She called me today and said they found out that her horse had E.Coli (I'm referring to a bad strain of it and not the normal stuff )and it happens more than we think but usually the horse is found dead because it kills so quickly. Is there anything we could have done to prevent this? Is it contagious at all? Why did it happen? Are there other resources out there to explain this in horses? I have not been able to find much on the internet on this issue. Thanks for your help; my friend is devastated and I don't blame her; the entire thing was horrible to go through for both her and her horse's sake. |
Member: Christel |
Posted on Saturday, Dec 10, 2005 - 11:00 am: So sorry to hear about your friends horse.I lost a 7 month old filly a few years ago to either e-coli or salmonela- the culture was inconclusive. This particular filly had a very bad leg wound I had doctored for several months before I weaned her. I waited to wean until the wound was healed. She succumbed to the sickness 2 weeks after weaning. When feeding one morning I noticed that her stools were getting softer and runnier each time she pooped. I hauled her to the vet and by the time we got there her stools had gone from cow patty to almost clear liquid. The vet immediately put an iv on her. The next morning she had a little improvement but by the next morning she was dead. It is contagious, my vet had me disinfect her stall. I am not sure there is anyway to protect other than keeping horses healthy. My vet said those germs are always out there, just waiting for the opportune time to affect a horse. Horses under stress (my filly was definetly under stress) are the more likely victims. Even tho it is very contagious I did not have any problems with my other horses and haven't since. It was fluke thing with this filly, since then I have often wondered, if I had put off weaning a while longer if she would of come down w/ this. Id be curious to know if the your friends horse had been under alot of stress before he got sick. |
Member: Sjeys |
Posted on Saturday, Dec 10, 2005 - 1:37 pm: No, not any undue stress at all. He was a horse that was kept at home in a very large paddock with horses he had been familiar with for years. He was lightly trail ridden 2-3 days per week with 24 x 7 turnout. He literally went from snoozing in the sun to terrible pain within minutes.I am so sorry to hear about your filly; it was so smart of you to get help as quick as you did; but apparently e. coli kills within hours. The only thing that prolonged this horses' life was the colic surgery and cleaning out his intestines. She has add'l horses and is terrified that it IS contagious, but the vet hospital didn't say anything about contagion to her. She'll probably need to call them back now and catch them in between surgeries. |
Member: Christel |
Posted on Saturday, Dec 10, 2005 - 5:04 pm: Susan, I have been searching here and on google.E. Coli is inside us all, it is part of the good bacteria that digests food. It is when it gets out of the gut and into say the urinary part of body, does it do bad things- hope I understand that correctly. If you look here under Equine Diseases, Colic and Gi, then diarrhea, then click on the salmonela diarrhea it explains alot- it was mentioned somewhere e-coli and salmonella are very similar. Now that I quickly read that stuff I wonder if because my filly had been on a long term session w/ antibiotics, if that was not what caused her illness? Anxious to hear what Dr O says, scratching my head here. Chris |
Member: Sjeys |
Posted on Saturday, Dec 10, 2005 - 8:26 pm: Yes, e.coli is literally everywhere and is apparently part of the guts normal flora; the vet hospital said something about it "mutating" and becoming a strain that was deadly instead of the normal strain. Vet surgeon also told us it happens more often than we think; but most horses are found dead since it progresses so quicklyWe just want to make sure there's nothing else we can do if its a common as they make it sound. |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Sunday, Dec 11, 2005 - 9:50 am: Hello Susan,and my condolences to your friend. I think there is some misunderstanding here. Your friends horse died not so much because the E coli mutated as it did from the damage done to the bowel when it twisted. This damage occurs because of ischemia: blood does not circulate through the bowel and it does not get enough oxygen. The damaged bowel was sensitive to infection and that was what brought the horse down. The E coli was an opportunist is this scenario and not the cause of this horses demise. Had it not been E coli it would have been some other microbe. DrO |
Member: Sjeys |
Posted on Monday, Dec 12, 2005 - 12:18 pm: Hello Dr O.This is La Nora,I'm the friend of Susan's that actually lost the horse. Thank you for your input.....could you also enlighten me a little further on Cecum Colic. I am aware that it generally occurs when there is a feed change. The only change made was adding a flake of Alfalfa to his diet in the evenings due to the cold weather change, however this change was going on 3 weeks. Also, why was his Cecum found in another region of his body? Why was the wall of it so thick? The surgeon who performed surgery stated that in his 15 years of surgery he has never had to go "hunting " for a Cecum nor has he ever seen one so enflamed. |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Tuesday, Dec 13, 2005 - 11:12 am: There are several surgical diseases of the cecum, so the best person to ask about this particular displacement would be the surgeon.In general the cecum is not well tacked down so it sort of "floats" in the abdomen. Currently it is thought the most common reason that it twists or displaces is that a fluid or gas imbalance causes it to change position. It is the most common large bowel displacement of the horse. The wall can thicken in response to having the blood supply interfered with but in this particular case histopath of the wall would definitively answer this question. DrO |