All about EPM & Sarcoids: Perseverance Pays Off!

The year I turned 50 was difficult for Siena and Gryphon, my two competition-age horses. After we spent 90 days (late May-late August) treating Siena's Lymes with minocycline (17 pills per feeding, $1,600 total), she continued to act fearful and hesitant at the trot and canter, even though technically sound.

My friend Teresa McCarty suspected EPM, so my local vet did the standard neurological exam of turning her in circles, etc. He didn't see much of a physical issue, but I insisted on getting her tested. Yep, she came back positive.

Hoping I'd caught the EPM early, I began treating Siena with Rebalance (cheaper than Marquis) and spent September & October administering 2X daily syringes of a sweet-smelling but nasty-tasting clear liquid that she came to hate.

Gryphon at Big South Fork - left chest
strap loose so it didn't rub his sarcoid.

I learned there's a link between ulcers and EPM - those nasty little protozoans are able to cross the blood/brain barrier at ulcerated areas - and also that Lymes and EPM can create a double whammy. If you suspect something similar might be going on with YOUR horse, go to www.panthogenes.com, print the form and mail it with a red top of your horse's blood to save a bunch on diagnostics (thanks Jennifer Smith for this tip!)

Meanwhile, Gryphon's chest sarcoid grew from the size of a walnut in May to baseball size by July (the Xterra ointment my vet prescribed seemed to piss it off). Located just to the right of the breast collar center strap, this big, red, bloody blob made me embarrassed to compete him.

My vet's next attempt to eradicate it involved chopping off as much as he could using local anaesthetic (afterwards I spent 20 minutes holding gauze to Gryphon's red spurting chest until the clotting process finally took over). The little guy then suffered through two rounds of chemo that caused patches of hair to fall out, so that he reminded me of the Velveteen Rabbit. He made it though a tough 55 miles at Big South Fork in September, then the damn thing started growing again and I feared it might be cancerous.

Most of the remaining sarcoid mass was subcutaneous, so my vet now suggested a trip to Blue Ridge Equine for complete sedation surgery (estimated cost $2,500).

Welcome at Fort Valley,
thrilled to be back on trail! 

I'd already spent over $5,000 that year on my two horses, so partially motivated by cost savings I instead tried the treatment suggested by longtime endurance vet Dr. Stan Alkamede of Ontario, whose company developed Novavive, an immune system booster that offers a more modern approach to combating sarcoids. I bought two 5 ml vials for about $400 and with help from Teresa, divided it into four 2.5 doses given at weekly intervals. Following Dr. Stan's instructions, we sedated Gryphon each time and perfused the area in and around the sarcoid using a fine gauge needle, finishing up just before Thanksgiving.



Teresa and me at Black Sheep Boogie, well bundled
since it was only 19 degrees at the start of the ride.

While G&S were out of commission, we got our competition fix on borrowed horses. For Ride Between the Rivers in August, Lisa Green graciously let Teresa and me use her wonderful mares Breeze and Amana. Then Barb Horstmeier let me swap out 3 year old Chrome for her 12 year old mare BR Welcome Tarika, who'd been on an 18 month layoff. Once we got Welkie fit, she completed the Sand Hills and Fort Valley 50s in October with me aboard, followed by  the Black Sheep Boogie and JD's 50s in November with Teresa aboard.

Princess Siena sails through JD's 50.

 

The 2017 AERC ride season ended on a happy note, with Siena achieving a Top Ten finish at JD's with energy to spare. And with short days giving me little opportunity to see my horses in daylight, it was almost Christmas before I noticed that Gryphon's sarcoid had miraculously disappeared. You need to give it several weeks to take effect, but Novavive WORKS!

On a windy, below-freezing afternoon just before the New Year, Teresa and I packed up her 5 little dogs, along with Siena, Welcome and Gryphon, and headed to Florida for 10 days. We spent the first weekend at Leah Greenleaf's ride, with Solstice Pecile doing a lovely job aboard Siena. The next day, New Year's Eve, was the warmest of our entire stay. While the horses rested, we trekked to Cedar Key with the dogs for a wonderful afternoon of walking around the quaint bayside town, then enjoyed steamed shrimp and tropical drinks at a dog-friendly outside bar.

Snorkeling at Devil's Den on New Year's Day.

Bob Gielen again gave us a place to spend the week, and facing cold and rainy weather, Teresa used his electric hookup to ensure we stayed warm and toasty each night. I normally hate cold water, but on New Year's Day, Teresa's excitement at having Devil's Den in Williston practically to ourselves helped me take the plunge into this subterranean river to enjoy paddling around with a snorkel tube, fish and a turtle surrounding us as we hovered above the scuba divers, their lights shining in and out of subterranean caves.

Siena's front legs were a little puffy after the deep sand of the Greenway ride, so we rested her and competed Welcome and Gryphon on the Friday of the Goethe ride. The next day, I volunteered as an official while Teresa crewed for our friend Alisija Zabavska, who finished 2nd in the FEI 100. Meanwhile, Virginia was enduring an arctic blast, with single-digit temperatures and a heavy snowfall just before we returned, grateful that our endurance adventures had provided a temporary reprieve from winter.