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Barrel horse with EPM

21 10:03:08

Question
Yes she is on medication for it, three different kinds to be exact. She is very unstable, the vet suggest we keep her in a stall until she gets her balance back. But she tends to get anxiouse when She sees me riding or doing anything outside her stall. Also she is losing her hair. I asked my vet and he said that is normal. but is there any Vitamins or supplements I can give her to help.

Answer
Anything you add to her food will be for support, there isn't anything that I know of that will help cure the EPM.  What you should focus on is keeping her body in the best condition possible to avoid the need to add weight or rebuild all the muscle when she pulls through.  We increased the protein level in our grain to help with muscle atropy and also added some corn oil as a top dressing.  You want the cheap corn oil, the stuff that is bad for people because it has more fatty acids to help with weight gain and coat condition.  Start with a 1/4 cup with grain morning and night for a few days, if there isn't a problem with diarreah then you can move to 1/2 cup for a few days then to a full cup twice a day.

Like I said, our mare was affected in the front end more than the back and never really stumbled like a classic EPM case so she could be a bit more active.  You need to use your judgement on activity, maybe just some small circles in the stall at first will let her know that while the soul is willing the body is weak.  She may not realize that her hind quarters are not following commands from her brain.  Brandy would stand and paw with her front hoof, the vet said that with the EPM she really didn't know where that hoof was and what it was doing because the brain waves were interupted in mid-stream.