RE: Lyme Aftemath?

["Snodgrass, Bonnie" <snodgrab@ncr.disa.mil>]

Just some food for thought:

A friend's horse was diagnosed with Lyme disease. My friend is a pharmacist.
Her brother has a chronic case of Lyme disease which has proven to be
resistent to every form of treatment under the sun. He appears to improve
then relapses once he's off antibiotics. He now has permanent disabilities
from the disease. He was originally misdiagnosed so treatment was delayed
for a long time. My friend has done a great deal of research into the
disease and treatments for it. When her horse was diagnosed with Lyme
disease the vet prescribed a short treatment with antibiotics. Pam had found
thru research that antibiotics frequently are not given over a long enough
period and at too low of a level so the disease is not completely arrested
and the symptoms return. So her horse was put on a 3 month treatment (not
the 3 week course originally recommended by the vet) after much discussion
back and forth. Another problem is keeping the level of medication
consistently high enough in the horse's system. Her horse's medication level
was increased after a short period. I believe she insisted on a blood test
to check the medication levels? 

Her horse did recover but developed gastrointestinal problems because of the
prolonged antibiotics. ABC Pro-Bio helped him with that problem but he
probably would have benefited from being on it from the start rather than
after the fact. 

I recently read in either Equss or The Horse magazine a interesting article
about a research project involving EPM  treatment. Non-EPM horses given the
typical medication course for EPM will often display the same physical
"syptoms" as EPM even though they are perfectly healthy horses. The
medication is evidently hard on the horses system and causes real physical
problems. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. More to think about.

Bonnie Snodgrass

-----Original Message-----
From: Beth Glace [mailto:lb@nismat.org]
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 6:45 AM
To: C Eyler
Cc: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Lyme Aftemath?


Hi Cindy,
I was interested to see your message since I was just about to repost 
to ridecamp to give an update of my ongoing saga with Lyme disease.  
Briefly, Klassy had was dx with Lyme last March, and received 3 
courses of oral antibiotics.  Her titer dropped from 440 or so to 110 
by last September.  We had done lots of longing and line driving her 
last summer, and slowly returned to riding by September. She has been 
ridden very consistently 3-4 days per week since that time, maybe 
working 3 hours weekly on average, rain or shine.   I've noticed that 
she is getting quite winded lately.  This is not something that 
happened pre Lyme.  I just had her titer redrawn and it is back up to 
300, indicating that the infection is still active, or that she is 
reinfected.  AAHHHHH!!! I can't say that the Lyme is causing her 
fatigue, but I have to suspect that it is contributing to her 
limitation.  Either she has deconditioned significantly or it is the 
Lyme; since her work has been so consistent [50:50 walk:trot during 
our rides for the last 6 months], I think the Lyme is slowing her 
AGAIN.  For those with horses dx with Lyme, it seems to be very 
important to keep retesting them even after the titer has fallen.  We 
will put her back on another course of antibiotics this week and hope 
for the best.
Good luck Cindy, and let me now how things progress,
Beth 
> My concern is that he is STILL huffing and puffing during those brief
trots
> or when climbing steep hills.  Can't remember him ever being this
> short-winded (no other signs of respiratory problems).  I've had this
horse
> for over three years, and he just seems not quite right to me.  But then,
> he'd never had such a long layoff before.
> 
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> 
Beth Glace, MS, CDN
Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma
Lenox Hill Hospital
New York, NY


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