Shropshire horse lucky to survive rare illness, says vet
A horse was lucky to survive a rare illness which carries a high death rate, a Shropshire vet has said.
Mark Baines, vet at Fyrnwy Equine Clinic in Baschurch, said equine atypical myopathy – or sycamore poisoning – is a "very severe disease and highly fatal" and it was "pleasing" to see Molly pull through.
Molly, who is owned by Newport care assistant Donna Martin, contracted the disease late last year after she was believed to have eaten seeds from a sycamore tree's distinctive "helicopter" leaves.
The disease quickly kills the muscles and has a fatality rate of about 75 per cent, but vets had told Ms Martin that her five-year-old horse had a just a five per cent chance of survival after she was diagnosed.
Against all odds, she is now on the road to recovery two weeks later.
Mr Baines said: "In my experience it is a highly fatal disease. I would say it is reasonable to quote a 90 per cent mortality rate. It is a very severe disease and highly fatal and there are not that many horses that survive.
"It is quite a rare condition, however. In a big practice we would see about 12 cases in a year. This year we have actually seen more than normal and if we are lucky one will survive, so it was very pleasing to see one pull through.
"I think the key things to know about the illness are the disease is almost exclusively around in late autumn.
"If you go back 10 or 20 years, we did not understand what was causing the disease. We would just see these horses collapsing in the fields around October time. Now we think it is being caused by sycamore seeds which would tie in nicely with when all this occurs.
"Therefore, I would say to horse owners, at that time of year make sure the horse has got plenty of food and hay. It would discourage the horse from going to eat the seeds and leaves on the ground.
"Once they get it, the treatment is only supportive but there is no cure. For the ones who survive the saving factor is the amount of seed ingested. For ones who eat a lot there is no hope."
Ms Martin called in vets on January 2 when she arrived at Molly's field outside Newport to find her standing still, with her head hanging to the ground and sweating. The horse's heart rate and enzyme-count were far higher than normal.
Vets hooked Molly up to a drip to help drain the toxins and, against all odds, Molly's condition began to improve and now two weeks later it is likely she will survive.
