My Horse has EPM & is Spiraling Downward - UPDATE Post 63 (Tube is Out, Can't Eat)

[Horse with No Name]

Many jingles and hugs

[walknsound]

Hope he does ok! Prayers and jingles for you and your guy.

[DownYonder]

I also have an EPM horse, although mine was never an acute case. I did learn, though, that the Western BLOT is notoriously unreliable, with many false positives and false negatives. We diagnosed mine using the ELISA test from Pathogenes (after his Western BLOT came back negative). My horse had titers high enough to be diagnosed as positive for EPM, even though his neuro symptoms were fairly mild. We treated using Oroquin-10 from Pathogenes, which seems to not trigger acute treatment symptoms as much as Marquis. The acute treatment crisis is caused by massive die-off of protozoa and resulting inflammation, so I imagine in an acutely infected horse you would still see some treatment symptoms.

Sending many, many jingles for your guy!

[cloudyandcallie]

I am so sorry. At the first barn where I boarded C&C, a 7 yoa tb (I think he was 7, maybe he was 5 or 6) contracted EPM. He lost weight and muscle, and had sore hooves and a sore back before we moved to that barn. Within a year of our moving there, he lost more weight, etc., and finally almost collapsed while his owner was jumpinghim. The BO and his owner both thought he was a diffiicult horse. He was sick. That horse had ever sign of EPM, including muscle wasting on his rump, except for the seizures.

Marquis did stop the progression as soon as he was diagnosed. But his owner chose t o send him off since he was no longer able to show as a big grey ottb. It was sad. He was treated like a difficult, crazy horse, when he was ill and in pain.

I hope that Marquis stops the progression of this disease and kills the protozoa in your horse. I live in possum country, and my vet says that something like 2/3 of the horses here will test positive for exposure. I live in fear of EPM since Cloudy and Callie were paddocked right by that poor horse.

[Somermist]

Prayers and jingles.

[karasha]

I am so sorry. At the first barn where I boarded C&C, a 7 yoa tb (I think he was 7, maybe he was 5 or 6) contracted EPM. He lost weight and muscle, and had sore hooves and a sore back before we moved to that barn. Within a year of our moving there, he lost more weight, etc., and finally almost collapsed while his owner was jumpinghim. The BO and his owner both thought he was a diffiicult horse. He was sick. That horse had ever sign of EPM, including muscle wasting on his rump, except for the seizures.

Marquis did stop the progression as soon as he was diagnosed. But his owner chose t o send him off since he was no longer able to show as a big grey ottb. It was sad. He was treated like a difficult, crazy horse, when he was ill and in pain.

I hope that Marquis stops the progression of this disease and kills the protozoa in your horse. I live in possum country, and my vet says that something like 2/3 of the horses here will test positive for exposure. I live in fear of EPM since Cloudy and Callie were paddocked right by that poor horse.

I'm unsure how long my horse has truly had EPM. I've had him for 12 years, but for the last five years he has been a unreliable horse. He would be stiff, swap leads constantly and/or cross canter, sore backed, tender skinned, and if we were jumping he would be GENERALLY difficult to jump (hang his legs over the jumps, take off bucking after the jump). He also was quite one tracked. He just was not a very safe horse to ride. I called it quits and I retired him early to live a life in the pasture. He was a wonderful horse, just not to ride. I now wonder if this was something on the bigger scale that I just never realized.

This past spring we noticed he was loosing a lot of muscle mass...

[relocatedTXjumpr]

Good luck to you. I lost my 18 year old to EPM almost 4 years ago. Its an awful awful thing to watch and deal with.

My horse was pastured with 2 others and he is the only one who got sick...or was sick enough to need treatment...the other two never had any symptoms.

What you describe above was exactly my situation...horse was just NQR for a while...swapping behind, bucking after jumps, refusing to go any direction other than left...vet missdiagnosed and did hock injections, which...in the end is what magnified the EPM symptoms and pushed it so far so fast we were unable to control it with marquis. Looking back I should have gotten a vet involved sooner, I just figured at his age he was done playing show pony. I also should have been more avid that the vet do a full work up rather than just having him say he needed injections.

[cloudyandcallie]

I'm unsure how long my horse has truly had EPM. I've had him for 12 years, but for the last five years he has been a unreliable horse. He would be stiff, swap leads constantly and/or cross canter, sore backed, tender skinned, and if we were jumping he would be GENERALLY difficult to jump (hang his legs over the jumps, take off bucking after the jump). He also was quite one tracked. He just was not a very safe horse to ride. I called it quits and I retired him early to live a life in the pasture. He was a wonderful horse, just not to ride. I now wonder if this was something on the bigger scale that I just never realized.

This past spring he noticed he was loosing a lot of muscle mass...

Yes, see? If someone would have told you earlier to get the spinal tap, you might have known earlier. If it had been EPM, you would have started the treatment earlier.

Don't bash yourself up. Get the vitamin E and keep up the Marquis and hope for the best. And find a vet who knows about EPM like Sam Tetterton and John Malark do.

[fargaloo]

Hugs for you and your poor boy. There is hope so hang in there - we are all wishing you strength....

[teal tea]

Jingles from Tx.

[Paige777]

Jingling like crazy for you both.

[oliverreed]

Tons of jingles for you both. And hugs for you.

[rabicon]

Rabicon, are you treating with Marquis??

I did for 3 months actually then he went to pyrimethamine sulfadiazine paste for 3 months. One thing that they say really helps after studies is high doses of vitamin e! I didn't have one vet or the university he was at tell me thAt but with research found that it helps the inflammation tremendously at high doses and can help regenerate nerve cells coming from the spine where the nasty bug comes out of with epm. I would ask the Drs he is with about this. Its seemed to keep my boy from getting any worse and some of the after effects like one eye drooping on some days has gone away.

[trubandloki]

Jingles!

[leaf]

Draft sized JINGLES!

[elsbet]

Sending my jingles as well!!!!!

[Woodsperson]

I hope your horse has a speedy recovery.

I will say that I had a horse with EPM that did not respond to Marquis. He continued to worsen while getting the full dose of Marquis. About halfway through the 2nd month we stopped and started a month long course of Navigator (Nitazoxanide). He responded to the Navigator and is still around (and completely obnoxious) today. Unfortunately Navigator was withdrawn from the market due to its serious side effects. There was some talk that it was being reformulated, but I haven't heard for sure.

[rabicon]

My trainer also has a client who's horse was just diagnosed with epm. She said there is a new treatment out that is suppose to be better than Marquis because it targets certain aspect of the disease. Don't remember exactly what it was but maybe ask about it

[valkyrie36]

There is a new medication that they are about to approve for horses with EPM. Forgive me I don't know the name of it but I believe it starts with an L. It is not very expensive and has shown amazing results in curing EPM. Have you looked in to it? I know someone who used Marquis for months with no benefit and switched to this other medication and it started showing results almost immediately!! Vets can get it, even though it's not technically approved by the FDA just yet. Call your vet and ask about it!

[JackieBlue]

There is a new medication that they are about to approve for horses with EPM. Forgive me I don't know the name of it but I believe it starts with an L. It is not very expensive and has shown amazing results in curing EPM. Have you looked in to it? I know someone who used Marquis for months with no benefit and switched to this other medication and it started showing results almost immediately!! Vets can get it, even though it's not technically approved by the FDA just yet. Call your vet and ask about it!

Are you referring to the decoquinoate and levamisole cocktail that Dr. Ellison recommends? Levamisole will perk any horse up from the first dose.

OP, I'm SO sorry that you and your horse are going through this. My DWB gelding was diagnosed with EPM at the end of May and just finished 2 courses of Marquis + DMSO. There was a paper presented at the 2011 AAEP meeting that showed a dramatic increase in efficacy of ponazuril/toltrazuril when administered with oral DMSO. I can post a link if you'd like. Anyway, my boy had very scary neuro signs, was terribly ataxic, weak, lost 100 pounds or so of mostly muscle in no time.....and tonight, when he came galloping up to me at meds time (still treating for Lyme - it's common for these 2 pathogens to cohabitate.) he did 2 complete, perfect flying chaanges, one in each direction. Last night he stood up on his hind legs like a prairie dog to get a better look at the neighboring cows. He stayed vertical for at least a solid 30 seconds, but maybe even a whole minute. Strength, balance aand coordination definitely coming back. I wish the same sort of recovery for your boy and I'll be thinking of the two of you daily.
Have you tested for Lyme? My guy started to improve some on Marquis + DMSO, but then seemed to hit a plateau and had some really odd symptoms, so tested for Lyme and he was positive. After exactly 7 days on oral doxy, he was his old self mentally, eating and drinking normally and as happy as ever. The neuro stuff hasn't resolved that quickly, but his progress has been steady since adding the doxy and he's close enough to 100% that if you didn't know him well, you'd never think he wasn't quite right. A Lyme test might prove helpful if your vet thinks it's a wise idea.
Feel free to pm me if you have any questions or just want to commiserate. {{hugs}}