Touchstone Integrated Equine Bodywork LLC

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intersting read

Heute mal wieder etwas aus dem Klinikalltag – die Schlundverstopfung.
Dabei kommt es zu einer Verstopfung der Speiseröhre mit nicht ausreichend gekautem und zerkleinerten Futter. Häufig berichten Besitzer, gerade von älteren oder ganz jungen Pferden und Ponies, dass sie Wurzeln, Rote Beete oder Äpfel in Stücke oder Scheiben schneiden, damit diese besser aufgenommen und gekaut werden können. Leider führen die kleineren Futterstücke dazu, dass sie weniger gekaut und vielmehr gleich geschluckt werden. Dadurch bleiben sie im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes „im Halse stecken“. Auf dem Endoskopiebild seht ihr, wie sich ein Stück Rote Beete im Schlund verkeilt hat. Dann kommt es zu typischen Schlundverstopfungssymptomen wie speicheln, würgen und Nasenausfluss, weil der Zugang zum Magen verstopft ist. Durch krampflösende Medikamente und schieben einer Nasenschlundsonde versuchen wir dann den „Übeltäter“ in den Magen zu befördern. In vielen Fällen gelingt dieses auch, aber es gibt auch leider immer wieder den Fall, dass wir die Speiseröhre nicht mehr frei bekommen. 😥

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Excellent article written by another MMCP .

Our newest blog post is out today,
Mysteries of the Autonomic Nervous System by Megan Dushin.

If you’ve seen Jim Masterson or a certified practitioner demonstrate The Masterson Method®, then you’ve seen what some common “releases” look like when a horse lets go of tension. A horse may lick and chew, shake his head, scratch himself, sigh or snort, rest a hind leg, yawn profusely, or otherwise look like he’s released tension. At first it may seem like magic, but here’s how Jim explains this phenomenon:

"Horses survive by blocking out pain and discomfort. If they show lameness at the first sign of discomfort, their survival is threatened. We’ve learned from experience that if you work beneath their natural blocking/survival response, you can access that part of the nervous system that releases rather than holds on to tension. The horse will “tell” you when it has released tension with visible changes in behavior such as licking and chewing, sighing, snorting or sneezing, and yawning."

When I first experienced this work and started looking into it, I was excited to learn that these are signs that the horse’s parasympathetic autonomic nervous system is activated. That’s a mouthful, right? It basically means they’re chill. When we use light touch and/or movement while staying “beneath their natural blocking/survival response” we help them become aware of and release tension without being threatened by our presence. Scientifically it is believed that these releases – licking and chewing, yawning, etc. – are signs that the horse is shifting from a state of stress (sympathetic, sometimes called fight/flight) to a state of relaxation (parasympathetic, sometimes called rest and digest).

To read the entire blog post you can find it here,
http://ow.ly/g7jX50BHhBq

Interesting read

Owning a horse with neurological issues. In case this might help anyone else, I thought I’d share my experience.

Des arrived here aged 4, and for the first 3 years I lived with him I just couldn’t work out what was going on. My supposedly fleet of foot Veiga Lusitano was a clumsy lummox. I thought maybe he’d just never learned to think for himself. I spent hours trying to get him to be more coordinated and pay attention to things which related to him.

He would trip going in and out of stables. On the moor I felt like I had to constantly manage him as he was always stumbling. I figured it was down to his lack of attention and tried to help him focus.

He had a series of clanging accidents, including falling out of trailers, getting stuck in rugs, and falling over in the field. Because he is so athletic and also a high octane kind of horse, I put them down to this. He had repeated long stretches out of work due to these accidents so we never really got off the starting blocks in terms of training.

I was starting to lose confidence riding him, especially over challenging terrain as he just wasn’t able to manage where his feet were. Body workers were often concerned about how short he was on his left fore, but no amount of treatment or in-hand work improved things. And he was so often out of work due to accidents it was hard to maintain much consistency.

Then, in what seemed to be the space of a couple of weeks, he went really ‘odd’. He just looked weird in terms of how we was moving, and was struggling to hold his feet up for the farrier. I called my vet, who did a couple of tests and swiftly said, ‘I think we need to X- ray his neck’.

It turned out Des had compression of his spine at C5/6. The specialist vet who came to see him told me I got lucky having such an insightful vet to pick this up. So, thank you again to Richard Stringer for this spot. I think in the 4 years since Des was diagnosed vets are more aware of the potential for neurological issues, so hopefully they get diagnosed more quickly and frequently now.

Des has two prophet thumbprints on his neck which when I bought him I was told were ‘lucky’. Our growing understanding of anatomy reveals that any dent in your horses neck is not a lucky charm, it’s a sign of damage and should be paid attention to.

I am very fortunate that the steroid injections in Des’s neck brought him right. This is not always the case. I was also very fortunate that the approach to training that I am studying in - the Ecole de Legerete- helps to strengthen his weak postural muscles and improve his balance. It also does not create further damage to his neck. He has almost no body work now, instead the work he is in keeps him strong and with my vet we monitor how he is.

Owning and training a horse with neurological issues is not straightforward, and I know not all horses respond as well as Des did to treatment. It also means you must take absolute care of your horses neck and refuse any training approach which encourages compression of your horses spine. I mean, you should refuse this anyway. Compression of the horses spine, especially when they’re young, is a possible cause of neurological issues.

What is really sad is that not only are we creating horses with neurological issues through damaging training practices, we’re also breeding from them and giving them rosettes. One of the ‘symptoms’ of Neuro horses is a hovering front foot fall, which on high quality dressage horses can be considered desirable. It’s really, really not. It means the messages aren’t getting from your horses brain to his feet.

Some signs of neurological issues;

*Lateral pacing in walk
^Weak postural muscles (neurogenic atrophy)
*Lack of coordination (ataxic movement)
*Irregular lameness

It is not always easy to spot, and is hard to distinguish from other possibilities. I know it is a limiting factor in Des’s training and has to be taken into account. Thankfully, Des thinks he’s always marvellous so it has not affected his self belief.

NB - the comment about prophets thumbprints is not meant to relate to a potential sign of Neuro issues. In my horse they correlate to his site of injury, but they could be totally harmless changes to your horses cervical muscles. They are not something which will be used to assess your horse, but they might tell you something, if you care to look.