SAD DAY..

Those of you who have been on this forum for awhile may remember the vet thread I put out on my colt last year who was diagnoses with PSSM and all I went through with him and getting him back to health..

He had a really bad episode of this on Tues and went down again. He had not had any trouble since a year ago. This time he could not get up. All the IV's and things we did to save him did not work this time.. His kidney's failed and we had to put him down.

I loved that colt. He crew to about 15H as a yearling and was so beautiful. And of course was so fun to be around and so loving. I will miss him so.. I know he is in a better place and running and playing with all the others who have passed on from this life.

PSSM has become such a problem in QH that they now have a DNA test to run to see if your mares and stallions are carring it. Please get your horse tested.. I have no idea where this came from. Only that Chad's (Little Drum Roll Please) death was not a pleasant one.. I will miss him so..

Im so sorry Bluejay.

Im so sorry about your colt... Its very sad...

sorry about your little one always hard when you have nursed one and grown sooo attached.

Lynn, I know you share my sorrow after what you went through with yours.. I had all the plans for this one too. I know it will get easier as time goes bye.. All my kids are grow and gone and the horses and pets we have are my kids..

I'm sorry, I lost my little Phenom APHA colt (yearling) a couple weeks ago and I know it's hard...esp with those little ones we were able to pray over, fix and keep going a liitle more. I think God gives us the special ones for only a short time before he needs them back. Hang in there, we're thinking of you.

Awww Bluejay. So sorry to hear that he's gone.

denise

OH Bluejay ,I'm so sorry to hear this. ((HUGS)) He's in a pain free place now. It sounds like he was growing like a weed.

I'm really sorry for your loss Teena, he sure was a beautiful boy and I know you will miss him greatly.

He made you love him, doctoring him, getting your hopes up and bless his heart, he broke yours. Im sorry.

PSSM ? Anyone have a horse with this?

http://forums.delphiforums.com/PHJ_forum/messages/?msg=118322.1

Thought of maybe you could help this person. Sadly you have experience in this matter.

I would love to help this person out. I do not have access to that forum. Please give them my email address. I know I can help them get through this without including my horror stories. I would hope that I can help them avoid them.

I am so sorry to hear about your colt, I have often wondered about him. My thoughts are with you.

I sent her your email address.. Id hate to see her go threw what you did.

Heres a few of replys, Theres about 70!
"university of minnesota has alot of current info. very helpful people. i manage my guy with low starch pellets, therapeutic vit E (10k IU) daily, and no longer event. if i cannot work him, his feed gets cut in half. very manageable with guidance from vet/feed nutritionists. good luck."

"My old barrel mare was diagnosed with this. I changed her feed to a high fat/fiber low stach/carb diet and no alfalfa, lots of turnout (24/7) and she never had another problem. I also give her electrolytes before and after I ran her. I fed Triple Crown Complete. I loved it so much I switched all my horses over to it and still feed it today...5 years later. Good luck and it is manageable!"

"I completely agree with redduns diet. We took this mare off sweet feed and good grass hay and she never had another episode."

"my two year old was diagnosed with this last year. We swapped her to Ultimatum ( low starch feed by Purina) . She lives in a stall and gets some turnout. We do exercise her everyday. If we miss a large time frame working her , we make sure we get her back in shape before hard exercise. So far she is doing GREAT !!!! She only had the one episode ) that lead the testing.. no more. We swapped her feed and changed her to regular exercise seemed to work great for her !!
There are MANY MANY horses with this .. these horses can and do return to a very normal life even as a serious competing horse"

From what I understand there are 3 bloodlines associated with this condition. Do you know what they are? For some reason the bloodlines have not been published.
Did you know of this comment Bluejay??????


http://www.addl.purdue.edu/newsletters/2000/summer/eer.shtml
We describe a gain of function mutation in the skeletal muscle glycogen synthase gene that is responsible for a novel myopathy, and is highly prevalent in multiple breeds of horses because it arose before the founding of many modern breeds.
Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (PSSM) is a novel glycogenosis in horses characterized by abnormal glycogen accumulation in skeletal muscle and muscle damage with exertion. It is unlike glycogen storage diseases resulting from known defects in glycogenolysis, glycolysis and glycogen synthesis that have been described in humans and domestic animals. A genome wide association identified GYS1, encoding skeletal muscle glycogen synthase (GS), as a candidate gene for PSSM. DNA sequence analysis revealed a mutation resulting in an arginine to histidine substitution in a highly conserved region of GS. Functional analysis demonstrated an elevated GS activity in PSSM horses and haplotype analysis and allele age estimation demonstrated that this mutation is identical by descent among horse breeds. This is the first report of a gain of function mutation in GYS1 resulting in a glycogenosis.

Keywords: Genome-wide association, horse, glycogen storage disease, glycogen synthase, gain-of-function mutation, polysaccharide storage myopathy

Unfortunately it can happen in many more breeds than that. It is most prevelent in Draft horses, but has been seen in ponies, Walkers & even mules. Most times it is misdiagnosed & too many people are not willing to have a muscle biopsy to confirm or disprove it.

According to Molly McCue at the Univ. of MN, she told me in an email that "Some DVMs recommend a “pound of fat per day” (2 cups) but based on our research, it is not necessary to provide that much fat, as long as the diet is low in starch and the horse is getting enough fat to meet his energy requirements." According to their website, PSSM horses need about 15-20% of their digestible energy as fat. They also recommend feeding Ultium right there on their web site.

The Ultium provides 12.4% and the cup of oil per day provides more than enough to meet the recommended 15-20%.

We don't work our horse very hard, so if we did, we would feed more corn oil. We only ride about an hour at a time, 3-5x per week.

I did try feeding cocosoya as well as corn oil. There was no difference in palatability

Anyway, I know this is long, But Bluejay, I thought you may be interested in some of this information, More than likely you have seen this, been told this but I thought you might find it interesting.

I haven't heard of the bloodlines they may have traced this too. But, would love to know. I am going to test the mare. Let me know if they mention it.

The diet is the key with this. I changed Chad's diet. Tested the waters. Well, you know what happened. This adds to the heart ache for me. I really feel like I caused this whole thing. Chad was too young to have the muscle biopsy. They have to be at least a year old. And I was also tolt to be sure they need to be a 2yr old or older

The high fat low carb is the diet. I did tons of reaserch on this and found the fat in some other products because I did not want to deal with putting a lot of oil on his feed. The type of hay does not matter. I fed Nutrena Empowered. It's 22% fat like the high fat rice bran is.. But, you cannot feed the rice bran unless you are feeding alfalfa since it's so high in phosphorus. These horses should not be fed grain period.

A gal that works at the bank here in town has a gelding that has this. They just pour a cup or two of corn oil over his hay and he has a normal life. She said he looks better then he ever has and they do all the barrel racing and other games.