Here is a candid look at HyPP and how it can effect a horse. This woman posted looking for suggestions and tips on how to care for her HyPP horse. Very few people including HyPP breeders are able to administer this level of care to their HyPP horses. Keep in mind this woman tried everything she could to give her HyPP horse the best possible care including putting the horse on medication. However some cases of HyPP can cause massive suffering despite the best care and this post is an example of that. To view the post below off the HyPP group where it was taken from click here.
From: "paintedskyefarm Date: Tue Feb 4, 2003 10:52 pm Subject: Getting very worried!!
Well, Sunday night Pickle went down again with a mega hypp attack. This time he was down for over 4 hours.I started out giving him Karo, sugar syrup, and calcium gel (plain w/o K). Gave that several tries and an hour later he's still flat out. He could still move one front leg and was perfectly able to bang his head on the ground until he had his front teeth bloodied but the rest of him was absolutely paralyzed. I had 3 liters of fluids w/5% dextrose and some injectable calcium on hand for just such an event so I set the catheter and gave every drop of every thing we had available. He showed absolutely no improvement so I got back on the phone and had my vet come out with more fluids. She gave him 3 more bags plus some more calcium which was all she had in the truck and then went back to the clinic to gather more supplies. Thank God, by the time she got back in approx 20 minutes, Pickle was finally on his feet. This attack was really weird though, because instead of seeing the tremors sort of fade away when he got up, they just kept going for another hour or so, even though we hooked him up with even more dextrose solution and walked him constantly. Eventually, at 3:30am I was able to tuck him in for the night. I think he rested better than I did, 'cause I was up every hour on the hour until feeding time at 7am checking on my boy. This was the first attack in right at a month, and the first since he started acetazolamide 1250mg BID. He is also on ranitidine for suspected ulcers 3600mg BID. He has not actually been scoped but after starting the ranitidine, his appetite definitely improved. He had been doing so well on the acetazolamide that I was beginning to think about putting him back to work. At this point though, I'm not sure he's stable enough to chance it. I have sent feed and hay samples in to a lab for analysis, but that probably won't be back for a couple of weeks. He's currently eating Buckeye training formula (.9% K) mixed with oats to help average down the K. He absolutely refuses to eat plain oats and will actually go "hungry" for days to avoid them. His hay is alfalfa with some grass flakes tossed in to give him something to munch on 24/7 because of the ulcer problem. I don't want his tummy being empty at any time. He's turned out a minimum of 2 hours daily but usually 6-8 hours unless it's pouring down a cold rain here (he's under lights and so has no winter woolies to guard against it).
I am really hoping that something shows up amis in the hay analysis. I know that sounds weird, but if they find some off the chart K levels then I can change that and get this horse on track. We're having a devil of a time getting hay this year (as are all the other horse people in the US), so it'll be difficult to find replacement hay for him. But I suppose if I have to, I will scrounge some up somewhere.
I am wondering if the discomfort of ulcers is stressing him enough to cause episodes?
If anyone out there with a severely symptomatic horse has any suggestions, I would surely love to hear them. I really hate to say this because I truly and deeply love this horse, but I'd honestly rather bury Pickle than have to keep seeing him go thru these episodes. He's back off feed again and has been pretty lethargic since Sunday. Actually he was VERY depressed yesterday, but seemed a small bit improved today. This is how it always is when he actually goes down with an episode. The darn thing doesn't end with him getting up. It makes him feel awful for nearly a week! Lydia