"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." ~ John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
This blog is for the record...
Wongawol Darrah is a fourteen year old black-brown heritage Waler mare. Rescued as a two year old from a drought stricken station near Wiluna in WA by the charity we were concerned with, in late 2005, she was purchased by my husband and myself from a previous owner around 2008.
Having been involved with Darrah’s rescue, we were drawn to this gentle, good natured mare from the start, and were thrilled to be able to purchase her as a potential broodmare and riding horse.
Up until February 2012, Darrah never had a sick day in her life with us. Not one illness, nor any incidence of lameness, injury, etc. She was as tough as they came. Prior to living with us, there had been only one nasty incident that we knew about – Darrah and an old pony mare, led by a young and very cocky Quarter Horse, had broken through a fence and into a open shed where all three consumed a large amount of chaff laced with grasshopper bait. All of them became extremely ill – the pony mare nearly died and Darrah was sick for quite some time. After she came to live with us she never showed any ill effects from this episode, however the theory is that this incident severely compromised her immune system and was the key to her later health twist.
In February 2012, Darrah turned up in the paddock with a partially closed and runny eye. We had checked the horses the previous afternoon and she’d been fine. The symptoms seemed clear – Darrah had the beginnings of an eye ulcer, probably from an impact injury like bumping into bush or a stick or something. We had dealt with several similar and one particularly nasty eye ulcer/s in our horses before and so we knew – or thought we knew – what to expect.
We pulled out the Optichlor ointment, popped some in her eye and put on a good fly veil to protect the injured eye from the sun. In the past, within a few days the eye was almost back to normal and within 7-10 days (applying ointment every day), it was fully healed.
One week later however, Darrah’s eye looked no better. It was still running and she could not cope with any sunlight on it. We phoned our vet and asked her to visit. Our vet was an experienced equine vet, and we knew several others, so we had a wealth of knowledge and help available.
Our vet diagnosed an underlying problem – Uveitis. This was basically an inflammation of part of the eye that was harder to treat and intensely painful. It causes horses to squint on the affected eye to protect it from sunlight and interferes with normal tear flow causing excessive running from the eye. It can occur on its own or secondary to a problem elsewhere in the eye. Our vet stained the eye to confirm there was no ulcer present and then started Darrah on medication for uveitis. The mare responded well to this treatment and was comfortable with the eye open after 4-5 days of treatment. But then she started to appear to be uncomfortable again.
Our vet returned. She re-stained the cornea and a superficial ulcer was seen in the middle of the eye. Uveitis can cause horses to rub their eyes on their forelegs as a response to pain and irritation – had Darrah re-injured the eye? Whatever the cause, we had to direct our attention to treating the ulcer straight away.
Our vet’s regime for Darrah’s corneal eye ulcer and uveitis was to treat it with Atropine (1/day), Chloramphenicol (3-4/day) and Gentamicin (1-2/day), as well as serum taken from Darrah’s own separated blood. Large injections of Vitamin C were also given. Our vet was confident this would clear up the problem, the blood serum in particular being a powerful healing agent.
Over the next few days, despite treatment, the ulcer got rapidly worse.
Our vet returned and the fight to save Darrah’s sight began in earnest. A treatment regime was put in place. For the next two weeks we medicated Darrah’s eye every two hours during the day. A lavage tube was inserted to make the job easier, as Darrah was not only in pain but was (as good natured as she is) becoming upset with anyone trying to get anything into or around her eye. Our vet visited several times to assist and check on the eye…no improvement. The ulcer grew almost exponentially and became what is known as a “melting” ulcer. Our vet was scrapping layers of ulcer off Darrah’s cornea, much like an approach to a skin wound where damaged and devitalised tissue is removed to facilitate treatment getting to the target site. More serum was used.
By now Darrah was also on bute paste twice a day to relieve pain and inflammation, and was started on a course of Gastrozol (oral paste for the treatment and prevention of the recurrence of gastric ulcers in horses), to alleviate the possibility of stomach ulcers from the bute.
Our vet was as unhappy as we were with the lack of positive progress. We had all realised by this stage that Darrah’s response to treatment was not normal. It was almost as if the mare’s own immune system had set up a negative auto-immune response and was attacking not only her own eye, but also all the medication and even the serum being administered. Lab results from one of the corneal scrapings showed that wasn’t any bacteria in the eye and only a small fungal growth. Our vet was expecting an aggressive type of bacteria known as Pseudomonas to show up… but instead results showed us that the ulcer was almost ‘sterile’. (ie. not caused by bacteria, which was why the antibiotics weren’t helping).
So, was this negative auto-immune response as a result of Darrah’s poisoning years before with grasshopper bait? Our vet was reading everything she could, consulting fellow vets and laying awake at night trying to think of what else she could do.
By this time we had also started to use Young Living’s essential oils on Darrah. The therapeutic grade plant oils – now used in hospitals in parts of the United States and elsewhere, with much research behind them – were antibacterial, antimicrobial, antifungal and also soothing for Darrah. Their use in everyday life dates back to 4500BC.
Our vet later emailed me…
“…Things in vet medicine come in runs and since I've treated Darrah's eye I've had two more corneal ulcers to treat! The first one was the same size as Darrah's and central on the cornea and the second one was smaller and up and under the top eyelid as a grass seed was stuck up there. Both ulcers were treated with atropine (1/day) and chloramphenicol (3-4/day) as per Darrah's regime. I re-stained both cases after 36 and 72hrs of treatment (as I had become amazingly paranoid) and both had healed to the size of pin heads in that time. Both only needed a few more days of treatment with the chloramphenicol (1-2/day) and have made a full recovery. I know this information is probably of little comfort to you, but I thought I would share it to let you know that when ulcers are just ulcers they do heal really quickly - it adds to my suspicions that there might be something else underpinning Darrah's case....”
At this point Darrah’s eye began to ooze pus as well. My beautiful mare was now also receiving intravenous antibiotics as well as intravenous Vitamin C and she was miserable. She had completely lost sight on that side. The only time she cheered up was when she received the oils or had some Equine Touch – a form of equine massage – to help relieve stiffness and tension, and improve circulation. Our vet asked if we could take Darrah to her vet nurse’s property in Augusta to treat her through the nights as well. After much consideration we consented…what else could we do? Fortunately Darrah travelled well - she was trusting and well trained.
Two days later our vet contacted us. Still no progress. We were sad but not overly surprised, as we had begun to reconcile ourselves to what appeared to be the inevitable. Our vet consulted with a second vet, also a friend of ours and a very experienced equine vet. It looked as if the battle was lost as the antibiotics weren’t working and Darrah was in pain – eye removal (enucleation) was considered for pain relief and quality of life reasons.
The sad thing was, Darrah did not like being one-sided. Some horses are born blind or become blind and adapt. Darrah was stressed with sight in only one eye. She would startle easily and spin in circles. She stood for long periods of time unwilling to move. This might have altered in the long run, but she wasn't happy.
In the mean time we visited Darrah with our business partner and friend, Elizabeth Denniss, who applied essential oils topically in the form of ‘raindrop technique‘ (RT) along the mare’s back, to help boost her immune system and fight infection. Elizabeth also gave us advice on the best oils to use and mixed several oils to drop around Darrah’s eye socket. Darrah was actively seeking certain oils by sniffing them and basically trying to eat the bottles. (Please note we have only ever used – and continue to use - Young Living therapeutic grade plant oils.)
A couple of days later our second vet joined the first at her Augusta property with a plan to re-asses and possibly remove Darrah’s eye. However after observing the eye, the second vet involved commented on the similarities between what was happening to Darrah and ’pink eye’ in cattle. Darrah did not have that condition, but the ulcerating eye had begun to behave in a similar fashion. The two vets called us and strongly recommended one last attempt be made to save the eye by stitching it closed for a full six weeks. “Let go, and let nature,” as the saying goes. The second vet had successfully helped young cats with cat flu (which can cause rupturing of the cornea) retain their sight by the same method. The theory was that the body needed time to stabilise the damaged cornea and establish new blood flow to the affected area so that it could heal from the inside out.
We decided to give it a go – have the lavage tube removed, the eye stitched closed and bring Darrah home. Our vet assured us that if anything got worse, both she and our second vet would come immediately and remove the eye.
Back home again, we were supposed to keep Darrah on low grade antibiotics (Trimethoprim sulphonamide), however she refused to eat it mixed in her feed, and we did not want to just keep injecting her. Her temperament was exceptional but she was already becoming difficult to handle due to the amount of invasive treatment that had been thrown at her. We had been studying the essential oils for some time prior to Darrah’s injury, and decided simply to keep applying Young Living (YL) essential oils to her. Elizabeth performed a Raindrop treatment on her once a week. I also applied oils on her coronet band and around her eye, although to begin with Darrah was still very sore and sensitive in that area.
Over the next six weeks her nearside eye socket area was at first a bit swollen, leaked continuously and also pushed out a lot of pale “custard” like material which was the layers of dead tissue slothing off. It wasn’t pretty, but we wiped Darrah’s face daily and continued with the oils. Every week we sent digital photos to our two awesome vets, to keep them updated. We were assured that the eye was behaving as it should.
Towards the end of the fifth week, Darrah broke a couple of stitches in the eye and we could see that her eyeball was totally white with a reddish centre. The eyeball itself had lost a bit of pressure but it looked reasonably healthy. I began spraying a YL Lavender oil and rainwater mix into and around Darrah’s eye as well, as YL Lavender is so effective at healing eyes, being highly antibacterial, etc.
On 2nd May, Our vet came over and the stitches were removed. Even though the previous week the eyeball had been totally white, once the stitches were removed we could see that it had already begun to go dark again around the edges, indicating contraction of the ulcer and evidence of healing! Success! Our vet was thrilled and our second vet said it was just what she expected – Darrah still had no sight but she would regain it over the coming months as the white receded. The eye had begun to heal itself. It would not need to be stitched closed again. It would be “like looking through a dirty window”.
After approximately 7 months of slow but continual reduction of the remaining ulcer, and regular spraying with YL Lavender + water, Darrah got an estimated 40% of her vision back in her nearside eye. She is today a healthy, happy, active herd member and one of our wonderful lead mares.
We believe that a combination of treatments were responsible for Darrah’s return to health and we sincerely thank both our vets for their professional approach and openness to alternative treatments. It helped us to understand that - sometimes - stepping back and assisting nature to take it’s course is the right action to take.
Photos (c) KAW
Author's note : This blog is a personal account of injury treatment - it should not be used as a treatment guide.
Always seek professional advice and supervision when treating your horses for illness or injury.
