Re: Photic head shaking

[Julienne Rha <Julienne.Rha.B@bayer.com>]

Hi Angie,
I don't think this is dietary related.. at least not with Harley.  He's been at
two or three different barns where he exhibited the same symptoms (these were
in different areas of Northern California.  There are some foods (and
medications) that make horses hypersensitive to light (clover sounds like one
of them) but I believe photic headshaking is different.  At this time it is
believed that a large nerve that runs down the face of the horse (called the
trigemital nerve) is hyper-responsive to any sort of UV light stimulus.  This
causes the horse to avoid any sort of light at all - they'll be standing in the
shade in pasture - and I'd see Harley in the sun with his nose and mouth area
twitching because of the irritation he was feeling in his face.

As far as the two other horses at my barn:  one was diagnosed with photic
headshaking before Harley and I arrived in August - he's been headshaking for
most of his life (he's 16, chestnut paint), and the other horse was recently
diagnosed a few months ago (Throughbred, gray, 6 years old).  Harley's in
pasture, the paint is in a pipe pen on one side of the property, and the
Thoroughbred is housed on the other side in a barn stall.

No major drooling to speak of..

Julienne






"DDA.RFC-822=rides2far@juno.com/P=Internet/A= /C=us" on 05/24/2000 07:34:35 PM
To: Julienne Rha/BRKL/PH/US/BAYER@BAYER-US-NOTES
cc: "DDA.RFC-822=ridecamp@endurance.net/P=BAYER/A=TELEMAIL/C=US"@X400

Subject: Photic head shaking

>The term is called 'photic headshaking'. The symptoms
>are>seasonal and usually begin for Harley late winter/early spring and
are >worsened>with exercise/moving around.   We are usually okay with a
regular >Farnam fly>mask on rides (which blocks about 70% of the UV
rays), but on really >bright

Hate to mention clover again...but my chestnut with a wide blaze had
horrible photosensitive reactions....literally a big scab half way up his
face and scabby socks in the rear when he was on lots of clover.  I tried
sun block, painting him with purple medicine, keeping him inside by day,
etc.  Turned out he had photosensitive reaction which is increased by
clover. "Photic" headshaking sounds like it might have something to do
with photosensitive doesn't it?

Took my horses who had problems off the field that was overloaded with
clover and no more problems.  In the spring, the horses drooled
profusely, does this happen to yours?  They'd open their mouths and a cup
of slobber would just dump out.  If you have several horses in one barn
with the problem I would be suspicious.

Angie

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