Nostril in spasm. Anyone seen this before?

[sunico]

My mare's nostril is in spasm. I was lungeing her today, and when I stopped her to change direction, I noticed that (and this is going to sound weird, I know), her right nostril was... well... quivering. Fast, like when your eye spasms. I don't know if that makes any sense. Just the right nostril and a bit of the muzzle around that area. I lunged her a bit the other way then stopped her again, and it was still happening. Took her for a graze, looked again, still happening! I took her temp, it's normal, pulse & respiration are normal, she's eating a drinking, everything's normal. I left her in the care of my BO, who called me three hours later and then again a couple hours after that to say that it's still happening, but other than that she can't see anything else going on. Now, she does have uveitis, in her right eye, but hasn't had a flare-up since she was first diagnosed (since she started wearing a Guardian mask), but since the uveitis is in the right eye and this seems to be a spasm on the right side of her face (albeit in the nostril area and nowhere else), I'm grasping at straws, but I wonder if there's any connection...

Any ideas?

[matryoshka]

The only time I've had a horse with nostril/facial spasms was when he had West Nile Virus. He also had a temp of 104. And would stagger around. Hope your horse's problem is not WNV!

[twizzle10]

ditto on the wnv. I believe its called ataxia. thats one of the first symtoms I noticed
on a gelding that had wnv.

[matryoshka]

My boy recovered, but it took him a year to get his strength back.

[ddashaq]

I will third the West Nile Virus. That was the only really obvious symptom that either of the horse I have known with it showed. We caught it very early in both cases and both horses recovered fully without incident.

[sunico]

So after reading the above posts I got on the phone to the vet. Told him the symptoms (well, symptom). Told him the mare was vaccinated for west nile 4 months ago, told him that her temp was normal, she's eating/drinking/pooping, and isn't showing any other signs of ataxia or uncoordination, etc. He said that the nostril spasm alone wasn't enough to worry about yet, so I drove out to the barn to give her one last check before bed. She was unconcerned, munching hay in her stall. No further symptoms, so I'll check on her again first thing in the morning. Keeping my fingers crossed that she's fine through the night (BO will check in on her periodically between now and morning). :(

[Pancakes]

ditto on the wnv. I believe its called ataxia. thats one of the first symtoms I noticed
on a gelding that had wnv.

Spasming on the face isn't called ataxia... that's the "staggering around."

[Daydream Believer]

EPM will do a facial twitch also. My EPM horse has a permanent twitch now from a second attack.

[Flying Hearts]

I wouldn't jump to conclusions and even really begin to think your horse has EPM or WNV. I mean, why do people get those eye twitches? I have a friend who's eyelid twitches periodically when she is really stressed out.

But as an aside, I've had a horse with WNV. She spent 10 days in her stall, eyes glazed over, staggering around, not "there." And her nose/top lip would twitch quite a bit. As she recovered, the nose twitch stayed - although it happened less and less frequently. Slowly, over the course of four years it happened less and less and now finally (at the age of 26) it doesn't twitch anymore.

[sunico]

Update: 36 hours later, and the nostril is still spasming, or whatever the heck it's doing, constantly. However, still no other symptoms. Vet's coming out for something unrelated in the next few days, we'll see what he says.

[matryoshka]

If it was from WNV, the symptoms would likely have worsened by now, so that is unlikely. Thank God. Please keep us posted.

[caevent]

I have known a horse where this happened for months. It went away when an infected tooth was removed. Maybe there's something else that's making the nerves go haywire? Pretty weird.

[sunico]

Well, the spasms have stopped. The only thing I changed was that I started adding salt to her feed, but she'd only been getting that for 24 hours when the spasms stopped, so it could be irrelevant. Vet's coming to do teeth this week so I'll get him to pull blood. Thanks for all your ideas, everyone!