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Pre-Surgical Information
Spaying or neutering your pet is a big step! There is a lot to consider
when we are planning your pet’s surgery. Here is some information to help
you make wise decisions.
Click here . . .
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Special LibraryOur Special Library
is a collection of informative articles on a variety of health topics.
Click here . . .
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Discharge InstructionsClick here for
information on how to care for your pet at home.
Click here . . .
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Laminitis
Be warned: Laminitis is a complex subject.
While we all agree on what bad things happen
in laminitis, there is widespread disagreement
even among the experts why these bad things
happen, and the confusion is even worse when
we get to talking about what to do for a horse
with laminitis.
Laminitis, or Founder, is a common disease of the horses
foot. It is especially common in ponies, although
horses of all breeds can be and are affected. The
disease can be mild or life-threatening, a one-time deal
or a chronic problem. Let's start with the anatomy
and mechanics of the problem and see if we can't shed a
little light on a complex subject.
  Horses do not just stand there on their feet.
It looks like they just stand there on the ground with
their weight passing down the bones to the soles of
their feet to the ground, just like we do. But
that is not the case. Horses really hang suspended
from the inside of their hooves. The coffin bone,
which is the last bone on the end of a horse's leg, does
not bear (much) weight on it's bottom surface.
Rather, it is suspended inside the hoof by some really
tough living tissue called the laminae. The image
at the right shows the inside of the hoof. The
laminae hold the coffin bone to the inside of the hoof,
and the majority of the weight passes down the hoof wall
to the ground, largely bypassing the sole. The
image at the left shows the broad, rough top surface of
the coffin bone. The laminae attach to that rough
surface and mesh with the corresponding inside surface
of the hoof.
 If the Laminae were to break down for any reason, it
would be a real problem. The coffin bone would
tear loose from the hoof, kind of like what happens when we tear a
fingernail off. We're talking severe pain.
This is what laminitis is. The laminae break down,
allowing the coffin bone to tear lose, and all kinds of
bad things happen. In the image below, the laminae
are shown in pink. As they break down, the coffin
bone can sink in the hoof and or rotate inside the hoof.
There is severe pain. In severe cases, the coffin
bone pokes out the bottom of the foot.
There are probably thirty known causes of Laminitis and
several unknown causes to boot. There are
some strong genetic predispositions to getting
laminitis. Most ponies will develop laminitis at
some point in their lives. Morgans, Arabians, and
Appaloosas seem to get laminitis a bit oftener than
other breeds. Easy-keeping horses that are overweight
tend to get laminitis more often, and horses that
accumulate fat in their neck are more prone to laminitis
than thinner horses. Horses with Metabolic
Syndrome are at especial risk of getting laminitis, as
are horses with Cushing's disease. Not
surprisingly, a lot of horses with cushings or metabolic
syndrome are overweight and accumulate fat in their
necks.
There are some well-known environmental causes of
laminitis. Too much soluble carbohydrates will
cause laminitis in horses that are susceptible to start
with. Soluble carbohydartes are found in things
like grains, especially corn and wheat but also in
barley and oats, dairy-quality alfalfa hay, and
early-season pasture grass. Bedding horses in
barley straw can cause laminitis, as can allowing them
to graze fallen crab apples. Any soluble
carbohydrate source can cause problems.
Other Causes of Laminitis include bad things like severe
infections, like uterine infections post-foaling, bad
pneumonia, or severe colitis. Certain drugs can
(probably) cause laminitis. Concussion can cause
laminitis. And sometimes laminitis just happens
for no identifiable reason.
There are two main theories as to what exactly causes
laminitis. Disturbingly enough, the theories are
exact opposites. Even more disturbingly, the
experts are fairly evenly divided between the two
theories. One group believes that something
happens to increase the flow of blood to the laminae.
The other group believes that something happens to
decrease the blood flow to the laminae. Who's
right? Nobody knows. It is quite possible
that they are both wrong, so we are not going to dwell
on scientific speculation here. We'll stick to
practical things.
Horses with Laminitis have pain in the toes of their
front feet. The will be reluctant to
 move
at all, and when they do they walk stiffly with their
front feet camped out ahead of where they would normally
be. They will tuck their real legs up under
themselves to take the weight off the fronts. They
will be sensitive to hoof testers near the tip of the
frog. They will have bounding digital pulses.
There are many signs we look for to diagnose laminitis.
Laminitis can range from mild disconfort to debilitating
pain.
There are many ways to treat laminitis. Which
treatment or treatments we may choose depend on the
severity, the duration of the disease process, and the
individual horse. There is no one way to treat
laminitis. However, there are some general things we do in most cases.
Click here to go to our Laminitis Discharge Instructions.
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