Hi - I started my horse on the EPSM diet, suggested by Dr. Valentine, 2 years ago (Dec. 2005). I did not have a biopsy. We made the assumption that he had EPSM because of his shaking hind legs during shoeing and hoof picking. Once I put him on the diet - no grain, increased fat (natural glo, cool calories), vit E and Selenium - he got much better about his feet.

In June, 2006, he injured his left hind suspensory. After the conservative recovery approach (shockwave, stall rest, hand walking, swimming) he was still lame, so underwent the fasciatomy and neurectomy surgery June 2007.

He was on stall rest for 2 weeks and then a slow, yet progressive rehab leading to under saddle work in Oct. 07.

We have been working slowly and consistently under saddle since Oct and we are now walk, trot, canter with numerous walk breaks, over a 40 min period. We work under saddle 4-5 days/week. We hand walk 1-2 day/week and lunge only 1day/week for a total of 7 days /week.

He gets turnout daily for 2 hours in the morning. He has been in this routine for 1 year.

His suspensory is doing well, however, approx 6 weeks ago he began displaying a stiffness and reluctance to move forward. He also began a very labored breathing under saddle with abundant sweating with the same amount of work.

In response/reaction to this apparent physical deficit, I increased his fat by 3 quarts of Naturalglo to a total of 9 quarts and began adding 1/4 cup rice oil to the ration. His total fat each day is 9 quarts of naturalglo, 2 cups of cool calories, and 1/4 cup rice oil.

Over the last several weeks, his muscle strength has declined, sweating has increased, and resistance to handling hoofs is worse than 2 years ago.

My vet is coming out on March 7th for a biopsy and assessment. What else should we consider?

Having your veterinarian check him out and get a biopsy is a very good plan. In the meantime, if he would accept more rice oil and a bit less Natural Glo you will be providing a better fat calorie to starch and sugar calorie ratio. Rice bran is relatively low in starch and sugar (about 22%), but this will still add up and it is only 20% fat. Oil is 100% fat. Two cups of Cool Calories has the same amount of fat as 1 cup oil, so I think that more rice oil (or other oil) might help here.

I forgot a key piece of info. The reason I went with the Naturalglo is because he refuses to eat corn, soy or canola oil. I just began introducing rice oil, which he seems to tolerate right now, but it's VERY expensive.

Do you have any tricks to getting horses to ingest corn or soy oil?

Thanks, Dr. Beth,

I got some Alfalfa pellets and more rice oil. I cut the Natural glo by 1/2. Today I gave my guy the alfalfa and 1 cup of oil. He ATE IT!!!

I'm going to slowly increase until I can get to the 2.5 cups of oil. I'm wondering if he'll get "high" from the alfalfa.

Great news - hopefully he'll keep eating this. If it takes a bit of something "sweet" like oats or even sweet feed, or a tablespoon of molasses, bits of chopped carrot and/or apple, etc. to keep him eating more oil that shouldn't be a problem for now. Alfalfa shouldn't make him "high" - its a rare horse that is really sensitive to alfalfa itself rather than to extra calories. Good luck!