The Horse Doctor

I did this last year and thought I would give you a glimpse of the reality that is my life. It's long but funny and since Beth thought it was funny she included one of my previous posts (the Costa Rica story)... Merry Christmas Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! It's time to put on your reading glasses, pour yourself a glass of Christmas cheer & feel better about your life. First a disclaimer, my mind has finally failed & I can’t remember the stories I wanted to write for Polly & Mac (which were great but will now be mediocre). As a result of this, I have now acknowledged that I must write things down for next year & Alan was a large contributor this year so there are some “bodily function” & adult content stories. Consider yourselves forewarned! That said, Alan's folks & family are doing well as are mine except for my dad whose artificial hip got infected & had to be removed & can't be replaced until the diabetic ulcer on his foot heals...

Here is an interesting ....wrong word....idiotic article that was recently published called " There is no such thing as West Nile Virus " . The AAEP sage Dr David Ramey found this and posted it on the AAEP list serve. The author" Ramiel Nagel is an alternative medicine author devoting his time towards helping free the world of disease consciousness." It seems Mr Nagel is a full on member of the Tin foil hat society and black helicopter conspiracy group equating West Nile Virus with the easter bunny and santa Claus.....and all caused by evil drug/pesticide compa nies. " Pesticide manufacturers, pharmaceutical giants, the U.S. government, industry scientists, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), State and County government agencies believe in their own fairy tales. But they find those children's stories too boring and too happy. They wanted something dark and sinister. So they rewrote the fairytale and thought of some scary name that evokes fear of the unk...

I was listening to Bill Bennett this morning and he said he didn't think horses would just walk on the beach......YES they do on Cumberland Island Ga.

Treating horses for parasites has been a staple of barn management since...oh I guess, forever. People have put just about any toxic substance into their horse to "git rid of worms". Virtually all of my clients use some form of rotational system whereby they use different products every 4-8 weeks thinking they are preventing drug resistance. "Unfortunately , parasites have risen to the chemical challenge. Anthelmintic resistant cyathostomes (small strongles) now are highly prevalent and even where drugs still are effective , the egg reappearance rate ERP following treatment has become significantly shorter"." Today horse owners continue to follow recommendations that are based on knowledge that is 30-40 years old and frequently use anthelmintics that have become totally ineffective due to the presence of drug-resistant parasites" It has been know for a long time that most of the parasites on a farm are actually in the ground as eggs and larvae (about 90-...

My brother Doug must have way to much time on his hands. He put together a political video take off of Brother where art thou. I think it's really funny.....good voice to.

It appears that we have gotten much better at predicting when and where asteroids will impact on the Earth. A fairly large one just exploded over the Sudan recently and it was tracked and the impact was predicted by experts and several amateurs as well. From the Honolulu Star Bulletin " Asteroids routinely hit the Earth's atmosphere but the impact by one over northern Africa Monday was the first time astronomers saw one coming and accurately predicted the time and place it would hit, a University of Hawaii astronomer said yesterday. That successful prediction bodes well for a Maui-based system in development to warn against potentially hazardous space rocks, David Tholen said. The impact occurred at 4:46 p.m. Hawaii time Monday over northern Sudan. A colleague compared the asteroid, called 2008 TC3, with the size of a Volkswagen, he said." These hit the upper atmosphere all the time but the...

In the past, an injury to your horses suspensory ligament frequently meant the end to their athletic career. Treatment consisted of enforced rest and anti-inflammatory medications, sometimes for a year with inconsistent results. In the last few years several newer treatment modalities have been developed to treat tendon/ligament injuries in the horse. Extra corporeal shock wave treatment and Stem-cell implantation have been the most popular. Recently a newer treatment called PRP for Platelet Rich Plasma has been developed. PRP has been found to contain the following growth factors promoting tissue healing- transforming growth factor beta (TGF-b) platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) insulin-like growth factor (IGF) vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) epidermal growth factor (EGF) fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) Many of these factors have been shown to enhance one or more phases of osteogenesis. PDGF, EGF, and FGF-2 have been shown to stimulate proliferation of osteobl...

While I don't shy away from politic on this blog it is far from my primary focus as many blogs are. During an election year...and it seems every year is an election year, the venom spit out on the blogosphere gets worse with each passing day. Now political campaigns use the web and blogs like pamphlets and buttons of years gone by. I have been bothered by the incredibly sharp edge to these ads this year and by the focus of the mainstream press in particular. I saw a recent poll showing that a majority of Americans now view all Journalists as partisan and actually have to much influence in our political process...unfortunate. To be clear here I am good friends with John McCains son Andy and his family. They grew up in Jacksonville and we still see them even though they now live out of state. Yesterday the Obama campaign released an add attacking John McCain for being out of touch because he can't even send an email. Here is the add What I find amazing is that there is nobody at...

My kids did Capoeira in school . It is a type of Martial arts dancing that my boys thought was really fun. This video is hilarious and shows why you should never show off.

I was at the Zoo this morning to do an echocardiogram on a 16 year old Florida panther. This is the 1st that I've been able to work on up close and personal. They are really remarkable animals. It compares in size to the Jaguar I did last week. Big feet and really big teeth. While the panther has soon health issues it was still the highlight of the day.

We just got back from a week long trip to Costa Rica. I heard from a friend that American airlines was going to change their reward miles program so I should use them now. We wanted to go back to Costa and take all the kids and allow me to surf during the BIG season. We flew into San Jose and rented a 7 passenger SUV and headed into the mountains. We went up to the Arenal volcano and went to hot springs at "Baldi ". The kids said it was one of the highlights of the trip with many pools throughout the lush gardens that averaged 104 degrees from the volcanic heat. We then headed up to the Hacienda Guachipelin , a hotel/ranch up on the side of another volcano. Here is one of my emails back during the trip that i was asked to post....remember that I did these at night after dinner and several Imperial's (local beer). It's day 3 on the Adventura Costa Rica. We are at the Haciedna Guachipelin for another nite. Today we were up at 7am and really stiff from the climb up and...

There has been a report of piroplasmosis at an Ocala area Hospital. Here is an excerpt from the FAEP report. " Equine Piroplasmosis (EP) is a blood-borne parasitic disease which is caused by two organisms, Theileria equi ( formerly Babesia equi) and Babesia caballi . It is primarily transmitted to horses by ticks; however, the disease can be spread mechanically from animal to animal by contaminated needles. The disease was eradicated from Florida in the 1980's and the tick species generally believed to transmit this disease in other countries have not been identified in Florida in many years. This disease is not directly contagious from one horse to another but requires direct blood transfer. Human infection with equine piroplasmosis is extremely rare. Acutely affected horses can have depression, fever, anemia, jaundiced mucous membranes and low platelet counts. Equine Piroplasmosis can also cause horses to have roughened hair coats, constipation, and colic. In its milder ...

I had an interesting call this week about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in horses. I know there is much debate about the issue in people and actually a lot of research that is still remarkably inconclusive. When you do a google search for chronic fatigue syndrome, horses , you come up with 432,000 hits. Almost every page references reports from Dr. Walter Tarello in Italy. If you have read anything I have written then you know I'm a skeptic and with this one my bullshit-ometer is redlining. I have read his publicatio ns and have some serious questions as to scientific method and the conclusions made ( much less how it even got published). I do not doubt that these cases are sick, they have fever, weight loss and lethargy. What I do doubt is the diagnosis and the way it was arrived at. "After staining with the Wright technique, slides were microscopically examined (x100) showing the presence of micrococci-like organisms on 5-6% of Red Blood Cells, and the absence of alternative ca...

I came across this video that is absolutely shocking from C-SPAN. I'm sure the high gas prices are hurting everyone, but I can tell you first hand that it is brutal for Equine Veterinarians. With four Vets driving into 5 counties the fuel costs are staggering and forcing us to increase our trip charges. I find it odd that we are virtually the only country that so restricts the amount of domestic energy production. We complain about electrical shortages in California, yet they have not built a new power plant in over 20 years. We complain about high gas prices but haven't built a new refinery in over 30 years and currently are at maximum production. Each year we import more of our energy and transfer more and more of our wealth to other countries. I don't know if the final answer is increased coal production (we have 27% of the worlds coal deposits), nuclear, wind,solar, hydrogen our geothermal....but I think we need an "ALL OF THE ABOVE " approach for now. Over ...

For several years we have had the ability to use stem cell therapy in our patients. We harvest fat cells from the Gluteal region of the patient and ship them to a company Vet-Stem that concentrates the adult stem cells and ships them back to us for injection into damaged tendons and ligaments. There are now many new uses being developed such as intra-articular injection for treating arthritis or OCD lesions. Stem cells are the precursor cells for all cells in the body. They are called pleurepotent stem cells and are the first cells that appear during embryonic development. They then mature into the various organs and tissues of the body from brain and bone to skin and hair. It is really quite amazing and the signaling process has yet to be fully understood. What we do know is that adult stem cells are present is significant numbers in adipose tissue and bone marrow and behave in similar ways to embryonic stem cells. When these cells are injected into tissue they develop into cells th...

The Forum today was a big success and very well attended. I thought I would post the work sheet here for those that are interested. It's a simple list to help you set up a disaster preparedness plan for your farm. Disaster Preparation Work Sheet Jacksonville Equine Associates LLC Store forms in a secure waterproof folder or on a CD or Thumb Drive and take it with you. 1.Farm location- Flood zone. www.msc.fema.gov __________________________ print map and attach to plan 2. Follow storm progress -Internet- www.wunderground.com/tropical/ -TV- local stations -Radio- local stations, have extra batteries should power go out 3.Evacuation Plan- Locations- http://www.ssh...