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Selenium problem



Hello ridecampers,

Have a problem, and want to pick whats left of everyones brains......

My mare Rayna, has had an ongoing battle with low selenium levels.  Four
years ago she cramped at a ride.
Just cramps, probably due to the extreme cold, and lack of buttrug, at mile
42 of a flat fast 50.  I had been riding her over a year at that time.
The next spring she tied up major, 8 miles into a flat fast 50.  And I mean
major!  Her rear heels would not touch the ground for over an hour.
Circumstances beyond my control left us stuck in the desert for over three
hours before someone came out to tell me no one was coming to get us.  At
which time I slowly walked her back to camp, where I was told by the vet she
needed no treatment.  How much I have learned since then!

She was walking out fine by this time, after a very slow start, but her
muscles were like rocks across her hips and croup, almost to her hocks.  Her
urine was textbook, bloody coffee.  She was obviously in pain, very upset.
After liniment, massage and bute, she settled down to her normal crabby
self.


FYI:  Rayna has completed other races, both 50's and 25's, flat and
mountains, and is trained extensively in the mountains here at home.  She
has 24 hour turn out, and is fed two pounds of oats, excellent quality grass
hay, a little alfalfa (2-3 #) along with all her supplements, corn oil (two
cups) and molasses.  When the pasture is good, she doesn't get grass hay,
but still gets the alfalfa.  I feed beet pulp as well.

I had blood drawn a week or so after we got home.  Red cell a little low,
muscle enzymes off the charts, and Se at 75 ppb.

Put her on Vit E/ Se supplements, did some research, upped everything, and
tried again several months later.  She was lower! 60ppb

  At that time I cut her back to 14 (from 28) mgs of Se, and upped her Vit.E
to 5000 IU, as well as supplying her with methionine (2800 mg)

Had her tested two months later and she was at 99.  I was thrilled, and
assumed she would continue going up at a decent rate.  Waited about 8 months
and ...........

WRONG!!!!!!

She is now at 49!!!!!  (Range is 170 - 400 ppb)

What the HELL is going on here!!!!!!

Jack (the vet) has theorized that perhaps she is naturally low.  Is there
any info to back this up?  With a Se level that low, shouldn't she be in a
constant state of tie up?

I have never had any problems with her, other than at a few rides, where she
had been hauled long distance in a straight load trailer (always the common
denominator)  Never anywhere else.  The last time was after a flat fast 50,
where her urine was bloody coffee colored But she showed no other symptoms,
NONE.


Jack also said that her pac cell volume was low, 34, scale is 35 to 52, and
that her phosphorous was a little low,
(and I don't have the actual number, he's sending me the whole report)

So, I have a question.  If the spleen is responsible for red cell production
(?), (and is also a repository for the emergency suppy), could it be that
hers has been damaged badly by the tying up, and the red cell problem is
keeping her from absorbing the Se? Or am I totally screwed up on my
anatomical usage here? (Probably!)

Anyone have ANY other input here?  I am at wits end, trying to do right by a
damn good horse and nothing seems to be working.  There's got to be an
explaination for all this, and hopefully a way to correct it, if it needs
correcting.

Julie, Rayna the Mountain Monster, Jynxie the Wonder Pony, and Decker the
Rookie
Brush Prairie, Washington



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