The barn just called. Isis may be having another episode of EPM (neurological disorder), like she did back in June. She isn’t as bad as she was then, but she still isn’t “right.”

I’ll write more when I know more. I’m on my way out to the barn now.

Update: It’s not EPM. It’s choking.

Update 2: After the vet visit, Isis turned out to be okay. The mild choke was cleared within a minute or two of tubing Isis. I’ll write more later. Been a very long day.

The Marquis prescription for Isis’ EPM finally was filled on Friday evening. Four tubes of paste: the most expensive paste I’ve ever bought for her. I found it at a better price than other places but it was still amazingly expensive.

Isis was on banomine from the last vet appointment to Saturday morning. It’s odd how being on the banomine changed her personality. She seemed subdued or dulled. The barn owner thought she seemed mellower — maybe from relief of some constant low-level pain we hadn’t been aware of. Isis didn’t seem “with” me when I was handling her. She let me do whatever but she wasn’t focused and playing like she normally does.

She got her first Marquis treatment just before the farrier arrived in the morning. It’s a paste, so she was very good at taking it. The tube’s width makes it awkward to handle.

We are also doing a test: she’s going barefoot for a few days. If she is ouchy, we’ll put her back in shoes. If she isn’t, then her feet will have a chance to return to normal before she starts back in work in a few months. It makes me nervous to not have shoes on her. She was thin soled and shoes helped that a lot. I just hope that we aren’t making a mistake by pulling her shoes. I have to keep an eye on her comfort level and how she is walking.

We will see how she does. The vets are optimistic because we seem to have caught things early. I hope so. Marquis isn’t a cure — it’s more like a treatment that helps put the EPM into remission.

Some good news at least. Isis is still only showing mild symptoms. We’re going to start her on Marquis (oh-my-god-expensive EPM treatment) for a month and then retest her for EPM titers. If everything goes well, the treatments should only be needed once. If the titers are positive, we may have to repeat the Marquis treatment.

Isis is going to be on banomine (anti-inflammatory good for soft tissue) until Friday or Saturday, whenever the Marquis prescription arrives. The banomine should help control any swelling until she can be started on Marquis. Her banomine dose will start at 1,000 pounds and then be reduced to half that on Friday and Saturday morning. Her last dose will coincide with her first dose of Marquis.

My vet said that when Isis had her episode on 12 June, the vet thought EPM was very low on the list because of Isis’ acute onset and quick recovery. She said it was the strangest case she had ever seen. (Which fits in with the way Isis seems to do things — spectacular onset and then a near-miraculous recovery.)

Here’s hoping…

I’ve posted here before about my mare, Isis (aka the Bay Wonder Mare or the Miracle Mare). On the evening of Friday, 12 June, Isis began to act strange. She lost her coordination and staggered about like a drunk person. She walked into walls in her stall. She was unaware of her surroundings. The worst part was that she didn’t know me (heart wrenching — I’ve had her since the day she was born). No recognition in her eyes. She didn’t respond to sounds or movement, as if she was suddenly blind and deaf.

We took her to the vet hospital that night. A neurological exam showed some definite problems, more so on her right side than her left.

She progressively improved over the next few days on her own, without treatment. Saturday she perked up when she saw me. She backed away from me in the stall (something she has never done) instead of following me around. On Sunday, she hollered when she heard my voice. That was such a huge relief.

By the following Monday, she seemed to be fully recovered. The vet took head x-rays and sent off a test for EPM. The x-ray results were normal, as was the neurological exam.

Isis seemed to be doing well. But something wasn’t quite right. Her personality seemed to be back and probably 95% of her coordination. The vet said that on a neurological scale of 0 (normal) to 5 (really bad), Isis was between a 0 and a 1. I was told to give her plenty of rest, no work, and have my regular vet check Isis in two weeks.

She’s been home for a week now. I’ve been out to see her about every other day. She’s seemed pretty normal. She trips a little more than usual. She isn’t quite as coordinated.

When she first came home, she was leery of anyone coming up to her stall. (She showed the whites of her eyes.) Not surprising, considering how many unfamiliar people came into her stall and poked her during her stay at the vet school. She seems to be over that now.

Monday evening the vet called and confirmed that Isis has a greater than 95% chance of having Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis (EPM, see http://vet.osu.edu/462.htm), a degenerative neurological disease caused by Sarcocystis neurona protozoans being in the horse’s central nervous system. The disease is spread by horses ingesting the droppings from possums (see http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/drfenger/). The “good news” is that EPM is one of the only neurological conditions that is treatable. The most common treatment is Marquis, an expensive paste (~$800/month) that is given to the horse for 1-3 months. If the treatment works, it should return her to a “0″ — basically completely normal.

This morning the barn owner called me and said that Isis was not acting right. She was distracted and startled when her halter was put on. Isis is usually very focused and interested on whomever is in the stall with her.

The vet is coming out today at 1:30. I am not sure what quite to do. I’ve never dealt with a neurological disease. It’s one more thing to learn about.

I hope she can recover from this the same way she has from everything else.