More Headshaking Questions

[Eventaholic]

I discovered that one of my boss's mares was a headshaker in May, and after a lot of research began her on 10,000mg of MSM daily (after a loading dose of 20,000 for one week). She was symptom free within 3 weeks, and has barely snorted, blown, rubbed her nose, struck out at her face, hasn't had a bloody nose- nothing, in the past almost three months. Entirely symptom free through a barn change and beginning to work under saddle.

Sept 1 we (Mare and I are now a "we":D) moved to a new barn, only 7 or 8 miles away from the previous barn. In the past week she has began snorting when outside, lowering her head, strike out at her face occasionally, and apparently is showing increase face sensitivity re: her flymask (in May this horse wouldn't allow you to so much as hold one up to her face, but has been happily wearing one since mid July).

Has anyone had any experience with HS symptoms returning, or getting stronger for any reason?

Some theories I have, thoughts definitely appreciated:

Stress of moving? She did move to a new barn w/ some buddies in July (was rather stressful), and had buddies move home w/out her in August- was totally fine during both previous moves, no symptoms.

New food... she swapped to a higher fat/fiber/protein grain (she was on a really inappropriate grain before, b/c she wasn't in any work). She is also now getting an E/Selenium supplement and BOSS (for feet/weight gain... and she LOVES it). Any of these things ever "trigger" in anyone else's HS'er?

Any thoughts on what it could be, or what to do next? I'm going to try to up her dosage of MSM a little bit (12-13,000) and see if that has any effect. Maybe move on to the next wonderdrug?

*Sigh* I really thought we had figured it out.

[Watermark Farm]

Has she been vaccinated recently?

[Green Acres]

I believe stress can trigger HS as I have seen it in my guy. Watermark asks a good question - any vaccines recently?

I'm not sure where you are located but my horse started headshaking more last week due to ragweed pollen which is a problem in the fall where I live. I keep a check on pollen counts since my guy has allergies and I know ragweek is a problem for him.

Since each headshaker is different, I have found keeping a daily diary helps to determine what triggers my horse.

Some folks have found success using MSM and magnesium together. Yahoo has a great board for headshakers if you haven't found it. The link is:

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/headshakers/

It's a very frustrating problem as my guy suffers from April through October. :(

[Clever Pony]

I find my headshaker does react to stressful situations. I'd highly bet that is the reason.

I finally found a solution for my mare this summer after three years of attempting. She went on a combination of melatonin, cyprohetadine and carbamazepine. My vet did a lot of research for me to help me out in the last year and we finally found those three to be the most effective. The carbamazepine was initially started out on a maximum dose, three times a day, then we weaned it back to a smaller dose. She was entirely symptom free for the first time! I took her off everything to see if that one spurt of medications might be enough to last the rest of the headshaking season as my vet thought that might be a possibility, but today I noticed the headshaking coming back. I don't want to put her on medication for the rest of the year, so next spring I'll start her back on those three meds and then wean them back to a small dose and keep her on that. I think with that regime, we'll finally have our solution for the entire headshaking season next year!