How I discovered Buddy has metabolic syndrome

Buddy had an appointment with the vet yesterday. He was supposed to come sometime between 12 and 4 p.m., so I went to the farm and worked around while I was waiting. I spent most of the day digging up those damnable burdock weeds that are growing in the pasture.

The vet never came, so I checked my messages and found out that he had several emergency calls, so I had to reschedule. That sort of thing happens, no big deal. I’m just thankful that I didn’t have an emergency. I hate horse emergencies.

Buddy and Utah were going to get their spring shots, and I was going to have him check up on how Buddy is doing.

Last fall the vet did blood work and we decided that Buddy has metabolic syndrome. Even the vets don’t know much about this condition yet, and it’s definitely beyond me. But here’s how I understand it: it’s sort of equivalent to a human becoming diabetic. His system isn’t getting the glucose from his food into his cells properly. Instead, he is storing the sugar he eats on his body in weird fat deposits here and there. The condition is also linked to problems with his feet, including a tendency toward laminitis.

Practically speaking, this means my horse cannot eat grass. Completely counterintuitive, right? Horses are supposed to eat grass! Well, Buddy has to wear a grazing muzzle when he’s out, in order to limit his grass intake. He can eat hay, and the vet suggested a specific kind of feed that provides for Buddy’s complete nutritional needs while being a low sugar/carb feed. Plus he gets a supplement that contains magnesium, which seems to help for some reason.

It took me a long time to figure out what was going on.

He started to develop a cresty neck–just a little extra thickness on top. It started very slowly. His crest got very hard, he developed puffiness over his eyes, he became reluctant to pick up his feet, and he seemed to become a rather big guy. None of these things would have meant anything to me, until he started to walk very stiff-legged on his front legs. That’s when I finally put all of these symptoms together–he wasn’t cresty because he was a handsome guy, he wasn’t just muscled-up, he wasn’t just being stubborn about his feet. His feet hurt him. He was accumulating weird, kind of hard fat pads on his shoulders and butt. And he was walking like a stove-up old man.

Last September the vet checked Buddy out and pulled some blood. He said he probably has arthritis (he’s 18 years old.) Because of his high sugar levels, the vet said he is probably metabolic syndrome–sometimes called IR (insulin resistant) and sometimes called pre-Cushings.

It was hard for me to see because it happened so gradually, but the stiffness in walking was what really got my attention (finally.) I feel like a horrible horse owner because I didn’t realize what was happening. But I’m not! And I’m writing about it in some detail here so if anyone recognizes anything similar in your horse you will have the benefit of my experience.