When Karen contacted me she had owned Frankie, a 9 year old Quarterhorse gelding, for 2 years.  She bought him from a woman who had owned him for 3 years, who in turn had bought him from a stock station for her daughter to ride. The daughter quickly lost interest so Frankie had been turned out onto large scrubby, drought affected land with some cattle.

Karen was interested in Frankie as he was quite well bred and she wanted to campdraft him.

Karen told me that Frankie was in a poor state when she got him, so she set about cleaning him up; feeding, worming, teeth done, chiropractic check and then introduced some light work. He seemed pretty quiet, and all was going OK.

As time went on he seemed to be more and more resentful, he didn’t want to go forward, his ears were often pinned back. Karen took him to a trainer who had him for 4 weeks, and then advised her to sell him. Over time Karen had her vet check him out and do the usual diagnostics, nothing showed up but the vet gave him a course of ulcer treatment. Even though she noticed very little difference in Frankie, Karen wasn’t ready to give up on him.

It did seem to Karen that he was getting worse.

Frankie was napping, pig rooting, kicking, hard to girth up and rug, he was starting to scare her a little.  Karen sent him to another trainer who had a good name, particularly with stock horses. This trainer sent him home after a week and referred Karen to me for a hair assessment.  The trainer felt that clearly the horse had problems that no-one had been able to detect.

“Get him assessed, get him treated, then bring him back, “ he said.

Frankie’s story unfolded, becoming clear through the assessment process.

He’d had a good start up until 1-2 years of age then he had been affected by some sort of chemical spray which had left him with liver insufficiency. This was probably why he didn’t measure up to the hard work on the station.

During the hair assessment I found that his gut was underactive for approximately 2 years – this was when he was out on the scrubby pasture – then his gut became acidic in the 2 years prior to that. His gut wasn’t comfortable and periods of pain were increasing. Hence the girthiness, not wanting to be touched, not wanting to go forward, ears pinned, nippy.

Mentally/emotionally he had been switched off since he was 2yrs old, but he was doing the best he could. The ulcer meds would have helped on some level but they were just scratching the surface of Frankie’s imbalances.

Frankie’s nutritional ratings showed he was wheat intolerant – this is always significant. Wheat is an acidic grain, it can cause intestinal inflammation, damage to the gut membrane, behavioural issues and much more. Click here to read an indepth blog post on this topic.

NB: 99% of processed horse feeds contain some wheat or by product, this is often not listed on the ingredients label as unfortunately wheat intolerance in horses is still not a commonly accepted condition.

Karen had sought advice from the nutrionalist from one of the big feed companies what to feed Frankie when she first got him, and that advice would have been fine if his system hadn’t already been negatively affected by wheat.

What we did next was to start by removing all wheat and wheat by-products from Frankie’s feed.

The first half of his Herb/Flower Remedy extracts treatment which he tested out for indicated that his liver would be toning, doing a mild level of detoxing, reduce inflammation, soothe and heal the gut membrane. The Flower Remedies he chose let us know that he doubted himself, he felt gloomy much of the time, he felt ‘stuck’ as nothing was changing for him and he worried about himself.

I checked his progress in week 5 of the first 7 week treatment. He was already looking like a different horse, his coat was softer and starting to shine, his eye was brighter and he was calling to Karen when she approached with his mixture.

After the second half of his treatment he was moving like a different horse. The trainer was rapt, and Karen finally had the horse she could work with, who wanted to work with her.

Cranky Frankie became Fancy Frankie!   A smashing story of the changes top quality, tailor made, herbal products can make in a horse.

This case demonstrates the value of accessing and then treating at core level, rather than putting a repetitive band-aid on the symptom – get to the root of the problem and heal the horse. 

If you have a niggling feeling that something is not quite right, or you haven’t gotten to the root cause of particular problem, a Hair Assessment may give you the answers you’re looking for.  Click here for information on our process.

Angela Davison

The post Cranky Frankie – the Horse that Wouldn’t Go appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.

Angela had only been in practice treating humans for two years. All the medical and herbal books literature said don’t mess about with septicaemia, get to a hospital, but they had just been sent home!  She was at her wits’ end,  searching through notes and books from her Herbal Diploma Course.  Suddenly, she remembered some teachings by the eclectics from the early 1900’s in which they successfully treated all manner of really nasty infections.  Using this knowledge, Angela created a powerful Infection Mix (now marketed as Bug Buster) to try and boost her partner’s immune system and halt the rampant progress of this acute bloodstream infection.

‘I gave low ‘trigger’ doses every 10 minutes overnight and into the next day’  says Angela.  ‘By 10am he looked a little better in the eyes, his temperature – whilst still too high – was much lower than the prior evening. By 1pm he felt strong enough for me to help him to the shower. Removing the clothes I was astonished and excited to see sores with pustules had erupted all over his body. This felt like it was the toxins in his body making their way out through his skin.

I increased the time between doses to hourly, then two hourly and so on over the following two days, finally reduced to one dose morning and night which he remained on for ten days. His body was a mess with pus erupting out of small sores all over his skin (even in his ears!) but despite this he was feeling and looking better and better. His temperature was normal by the end of the first 24 hours of treatment.  By day 4 his skin had totally cleaned up and his former energy had returned.’

Bug Buster is an extremely powerful formula.  For some it has been the difference between living and dying. I have thousands of case histories demonstrating its effectiveness in ridding the body of all manner of infections, including a number of bone infections in horse, human and dog.

We now live in times where infections are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. Bug Buster can be used as a stand alone motivator and stimulant for the immune system and can also be used for 7-10 days after a course of antibiotics works as an active or preventative treatment.  Find out more here.

Angela Davison

The post Bug Buster – A Powerful Mix appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.

Today’s horse is the product of millions of years of evolution, during which survival depended on its ability to sense and respond to the environment in which it lived. This included escaping predators, being able to sense the temperature of its surroundings and identify food. While the need to escape predators may not be a requirement for the modern horse, their physiological response to fear is still to run.

To achieve this the various systems and organs in the horse’s body must be linked so they work together. The adjustment of an animal’s response to changes in the environment and the complex linking of the various processes in the body that this response involves is called co-ordination.

The two main systems involved in the flight response are the nervous and endocrine systems. The first operates via electrical impulses along nerve fibres and the second by releasing special chemicals or hormones into the bloodstream from glands.

From an anatomical perspective the nervous system is made up of the Central Nervous System (CNS) (brain and spinal cord), and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) (cranial and peripheral nerves), and from a functional perspective it is divided into the Somatic Nervous System (voluntary movement), and the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which controls involuntary (visceral) functions demanded for maintaining the overall physiological balance of bodily functions. In clearer terms the ANS is responsible for the involuntary bodily functions of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, digestive system, urinary system, reproductive functions and mobilising the body’s resources under stress. To achieve this it must be in balance.

OUT OF BALANCE

Any trauma, accident, drugs, chemicals, physical or mental abuse, including a horse being put under too much pressure, or an underlying genetic predisposition, which makes these types more susceptible, may cause the ANS to be out of balance.

The ANS of the horse is controlled by two branches:

1) Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) – fight or flight.

2) Parasympathetic nervous system – rest and digest.
The parasympathetic system is in constant opposition to the sympathetic system. It can be likened to two sides of a coin. On one side there’s the fight/flight/let me out of here response, and on the other side the rest, relax, eat, and digest.

SNS dominance

Real or imagined circumstances can quickly trigger the nervous response. When the sympathetic side of the ANS is dominant – on a short trigger – this is when the horse cannot help its inappropriate response to everything or anything. At the highest end of this scale you see a horse in a blind panic, eyes boggling, escaping or trying to, even at the expense of hurting itself and others, sweating profusely, heart rate and respiration through the roof. When in the
paddock they walk the fence.

The Nervous System continued…

The very best of horsemen or women know they have to wait until the adrenalin levels drop and the horse starts to settle before attempting to work with a horse exhibiting these symptoms.

The horse cannot help its response; it is involuntary, as there is an imbalance of the ANS.

Many horses suffer ANS imbalance to a lesser degree. They are regarded as being nervous, highly strung, inconsistent, or said to have poor temperaments. These are some of the nicer things said about these poor souls. Often the best of trainers have problems with horses with ANS imbalance. The trainer may feel like at last they’ve found the key to a particular horse then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the horse falls to pieces again and can’t concentrate on the job at hand. The lesser trainers blame the horse, saying it has an attitude problem, instead of realising there may be a fundamental physical problem.

Stress shuts down digestion

Horses with SNS dominance often suffer from an overly acidic gut, which may be ulcerated; they may not be able to gain or hold condition – absorption of nutrients is poor; they may lack interest in feed. Some horses only show the latter symptom as they internalise their anxiety. This makes it clearer to understand why only treating the gut is often a short term solution for these horses. Classically, using herbal medicine, you are looking at treating the
horse, dog or human for six to nine months to help the autonomic nervous system balance. Over this period you can expect either subtle or obvious improvements as the triggers decrease. If your horse is suffering from anything but a minor ANS imbalance then seek the services of a fully qualified horse herbal practitioner.

AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM – ANS

Divides into two branches:

Settle Petal helps to balance the ANS. Or for an individual approach and treatment plan – send me a hair!

Angela was one of Australia’s first female jockeys before retraining as a Classical Herbalist, Cranio- Sacral and Equine Bowen Therapist. As well as creating a range of Herbs for Horses (go to thehorseherbalist.com), Angela pioneered a unique hair assessment system for horses in the 1990’s and has formulated many hand-blended proprietary herbal formulas to address the core of most human and horses complaints. Angela is also the author of ‘Flower Remedies for Horses, Pets and People’. www.thehorseherbalist.com

courtesy of www.hoofbeats.com.au

Sophie

The post The Nervous System appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.