Countryside Equine Medicine and Dentistry

01/27/2024

I hope 2024 is going well for everyone, wanted to share a new service I've added in the past week.

Insulin dysregulation (ID) is a common endocrine disorder in horses, with its most serious side effect being laminitis. As pasture grass starts to come in here in a month or so, laminitis occurrence will noticeably increase. In order to manage the risk of laminitis, blood testing is available to diagnose and track a horse's insulin sensitivity, enabling us to make medication/dietary changes as needed.

In the past, these blood samples needed to be sent to the lab. In the past couple months, however, a point-of-care insulin test has become commercially available, which I now offer. This will enable us to make more immediate management changes, and lower the cost of the testing. For those of you interested, here is a study demonstrating the new test's results compared to reference laboratory findings.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9999392/

If your horse has a previous history of laminitis, is a bit overweight, or previously been diagnosed with Insulin Dysregulation and/or Cushings disease (PPID), monitoring their insulin sensitivity status periodically can be very useful (and is now much easier to accomplish).

If you have any questions about how to utilize this testing, please give me a call.

The Wellness Ready Test (WRT) is a lateral flow, stall-side assay that measures equine insulin in whole blood and requires validation before recommending clinical use. We evaluated intra- and inter-assay precision and linearity and compared the WRT with ...

08/24/2023

Short update on scheduling:
Recovery is coming along very well, I am now off crutches about 3 weeks early, and starting to walk some. My normal scheduling will resume Monday Oct 2, until then my wife and I will be continuing to see patients as her work schedule allows. Thank you all so much for bearing with us throughout this process.

I’ve had lots of questions, so I’ve included an xray I took today.

I Corinthians 9
24Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

07/21/2023

As some of my clients have heard, I sustained a fairly serious leg injury that required surgery about 2 weeks ago. Thus far, recovery is coming along as expected.

Unfortunately, I will be non-weight-bearing and on crutches until mid-September. For the next 8 weeks my wife, Dr Fisher, will be handling some appointments with my assistance. We’ll be having to work around her work schedule, so my ability to schedule will be restricted to certain days and primarily late afternoons/evenings.

In the meantime, I’ll be available by phone as normal for advice/consultation. If your horse requires an appointment sooner than I will be able to accommodate, I will help refer you to an appropriate veterinarian.

I anticipate returning to a normal schedule in mid-September.

I’m taking the opportunity of this enforced down-time to catch up on some interesting continuing education, and to do some reading.

Psalm 34
1 I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.

James 1
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

06/01/2021

It's been a successful breeding season, every mare is in foal

05/04/2021

Sneak peek of what should be a fancy looking Andalusian/Warmblood baby

03/27/2021

11/11/2020

This is an interesting case from earlier this morning.
A 12 year old horse that developed a draining abscess on the side of his jaw that you can just see in one of these pictures.
The culprit was molar 1 in the middle of the arcade. Judging from how deteriorated the roots are, my guess is that he had an impacted baby tooth that did not shed properly and messed up the development of the permanent tooth. On the picture of the tooth you can see the exposed area where feed was collecting where the crown had fractured. This infection had finally worked itself through the jaw and out through the skin so that the owners became aware of the problem.
After extraction, I put a plug in the socket to keep feed out of it while it heals. That is the pink compound seen in the picture of his mouth

11/09/2020

I have two favors to ask of anyone who might be able to help.
There is an old Pony in the Guyton area who needs a trailer ride a few miles down the road to his new home. Also, this old guy is in desperate need of a body clip. He is a very friendly Pony and easy to deal with.
If anyone is able to help please let me know and I can put you in contact with the new owner

09/11/2020

Asthma in the horse is a very common condition, especially here in Coastal Georgia. This is one of the most common diseases of the horse that I am confronted with daily.
As all of my clients with an asthmatic horse know, we have talked about the fact that steroids are needed to control the symptoms of asthma. However, we've also talked about how using an inhaler like people do would be preferable. Up to this point, the inhaled therapies for equine asthma have been incredibly expensive.
A new inhaled therapy for asthma has been in use in the UK for a couple years now, and I have been excited for it to become available here in the states, because the initial approval data and usage in the UK so far have been highly positive. This inhaler is going to be available as of next week.
While minimal, I have counseled owners about potential long-term issues with having to use steroids to control asthma. This new therapy should help to alleviate those concerns. I will actively be looking for situations in which I can use this new inhaler. If you currently have a horse with asthma that we are controlling with steroids and are interested in trying something different, please let me know.

05/11/2020

I was able to save up and upgrade my Ultrasound last week. The one extra ability this machine will provide is a dramatically increased ability to image deeper into soft tissues---it will see increased usage while working up colics and other abdominal issues. Its image quality improvement for reproductive and tendon imaging is really exciting.

04/07/2020

A bit boring, but here's one from yesterday. Not sure what behavior leads to this, but I fix this exact same injury probably once every 6 months