Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

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Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:34 pm

Not Lynx but a family member's horse. She went to go get him for a ride from the pasture and he was breathing extremely heavily. He was warm but not really sweating to match the level of his breathing. She hosed him down for about 15 minutes and then he started to cool down.

I'm thinking this is anhidrosis? Can it just develop or get worse with age? Of course it's a holiday weekend but I encourage her to text her vet. He's supposed to be on electrolytes but she is not sure if he's been getting them either so she's checking on that.
I will upload a video showing his breathing.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:35 pm


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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby heddylamar » Sun Jul 03, 2022 11:05 pm

Before hosing, did she check the temp of his feet? And take his body temp?

If hand walking and cold hosing his chest don't drop the temp, try an ice bath for his front feet. You'll need to start with room temp water, and slowly add ice once he's standing with his foot in the bucket. Shallow ground feeders are the best for this.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Sun Jul 03, 2022 11:34 pm

She did not take his temperature. And she didn't mention his feet. She did cold hose him and said he seemed a lot better after about 15 or 20 minutes. Then she put him in the indoor arena and let him hang out and roll inside. He lives in the pasture and the only shade is trees no shelters.

She thought he seemed better but it's concerning that she found him this way in the pasture. Just seems extreme. :/

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Chisamba » Mon Jul 04, 2022 1:24 am

Too many unknowns.
What was the air temp
Do you know if he had been running before she found him?
What was his body temperature
Does he have any symptoms of an infection like erlichiosis?

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:03 am

Chisamba wrote:Too many unknowns.
What was the air temp
Do you know if he had been running before she found him?
What was his body temperature
Does he have any symptoms of an infection like erlichiosis?

Unfortunately I wasn't there but she did not take his temperature. It was 95°, although that is not abnormal here and we really don't have much humidity. I had rode my own horse an hour earlier in the same type of temperatures and everybody was fine. Her horse was in the pasture (different barn.) I think the concerning part was the lack of sweat given how hard he was breathing. I'm wondering if he was running around but she did not see that and the other horse the pasture seemed completely fine.

She did not mention any other symptoms but I told her to keep a close eye on him the next few days.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Quelah » Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:15 pm

Yeah that breathing is abnormal if he hadn't been running around. Taking his temp and measuring his respiratory rate are always good places to start. And for this horse probably a good thing to track on a daily basis for a minute. If he or any horse is overheated, the best way to cool them down quickly is cold water on the big muscles. Ice water if that's available. I used those half size buckets, half the size of a 5 gallon bucket and would just keep pouring water over them from mid neck to tail and splashing it at shoulders and haunches. This has been well established through studies. I've spent enough time in the 10 minute box with Advanced level Welsh Cobs at combined driving events to know the truth of it. For a single horse I'd go through 50 gallons of ice water in the box, just keep pouring it over them. Don't have to bother scraping if you can keep pouring the cold water on (this has also been established through studies). Hope your friend's horse is ok and this was a one off.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby blob » Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:57 am

It's worth also assessing if he was breathing hard because he was overheated or because of asthma.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby heddylamar » Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:11 am

Quelah wrote:Don't have to bother scraping if you can keep pouring the cold water on (this has also been established through studies).

I'm at a new barn, and they don't know the — now decades old — science behind this :?

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Quelah » Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:48 am

heddylamar wrote:
Quelah wrote:Don't have to bother scraping if you can keep pouring the cold water on (this has also been established through studies).

I'm at a new barn, and they don't know the — now decades old — science behind this :?


I hear you! I was at a combined driving event a few (only a few) years ago. A...well I guess I'll call him patron of the sport...came into the 10 minute box with his very fancy pair of big imported WBs. It was hot, they were hot. I was there grooming for a friend but she'd come and gone from the box so I was just watching. It was looking very much like the big horses weren't going to come down in time so I asked if he wanted help? Yes please!!

I had left over ice water with alcohol in it (it wasn't an FEI event) two muck tubs worth, so I started dumping buckets on them. One of his crew said "Don't put cold water on them, they'll tie up!" I said if I DON'T put cold water on them, they likely WILL tie up.

These were folks with international experience. Traditions and wives tales are hard to change!

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:37 pm

Thank you guys. I guess yesterday he still seemed kind of hot again just in the pasture although wasn't breathing was hard. No one has seen him running around but that doesn't mean he wasn't. Still I think it seems like something is up. She's hopefully calling the vet today (she has another emergency with her child yesterday, poor thing.)

Thanks for the suggestions and advice. Definitely was alarming.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Chisamba » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:11 am

Warning,
many divergent thoughts.

Quelah wrote:Don't have to bother scraping if you can keep pouring the cold water on (this has also been established through studies).

I'm at a new barn, and they don't know the — now decades old — science behind this :?[/quote]

I don't know which which better but I do know..

The science behind this study was wrong. And proven wrong but like the stupid Facebook post about 52 thoroughbreds, Wil live forever.

Thermographic imagery only tells what's happening at the surface not internally. The only effective study would need to include internal body temp monitoring and to my limit knowledge I have not seen such a study done. If you have access to such a study I would love to see it. I am not picking a fight, but you could put a fur coat over a horse and get the same Thermographic image because the outside of the coat would not reflect the internal temperature.


They theory behind scraping is similar to the understanding that hot water freezes quicker than cold water but probably was the best when people did not have access to gallons and gallons of cold water. If you are endurance riding in the desert you might cool your horse differently from if you have water on tap.

Evaporation is actually the fastest way to cool the interior. In evaporation the hottest molecules evaporate quickest leaving the remaining internal coolest.

This had been shown over all over again in lab settings and has also been successful incoming horses dogs and humans. the scraping theory exists because it gives the horses coat a moment to evaporate before adding the next layer of cool water. Scraping however is most effective with room temperature water. So it's very effective if you do not have ice.

If you have ice water, the theory is that the transfer rate is quicker than the evaporation rate because the water is so cold. So long as you can mark the water flowing this is true. But if you do not have enough ice water to douse, again scraping is better because the water closest to the skin takes skin temp and almost acts like a insulator between the cold water and warm body. So again scraping needed unless you can pour bucket after bucket of CO tinually moving cold water.

Now as far as other medical l issues caused by cold, Ike shock, heart palpitations embolism, and yes, rapid respiration, there are very sound medical reasons why unless it's deadly they treat heatstroke and with room temperature and gradually decrease the temperature to avoid shock

Sorry Q, only the first part refers to your quote.

I recommend more respect to ' old wives tales' they often have good logic behind them.

I remember when the old wives tale of putting honey on wounds and burns was Considered absurd. And leeches and maggots abhorred.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Chisamba » Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:24 pm

The continued troubles is beginnig to sound like anhidrosis Lsp

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Wed Jul 06, 2022 4:07 pm

Interesting discussion!

Yes i agree it does sound like Anhidrosis at this point.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Chisamba » Wed Jul 06, 2022 10:27 pm

So I did find an interesting Australian study of an unfortunately insignificant number of test horses where they did monitor internal temperature and put the horses on a treadmill and doused them with six buckets of water every eight. Minutes scraping one set and not scraping the other. As I suspected I under those circumstances scraping did nothing to help. If I had an unlimited supply of cool water I wouldn't bother to stop and a
Scrape. If I had a limited supply I'd pray evaporation helped. Once on a trail ride in FL a kids horse dropped and died in within minutes. I had no water to help. We all ripped off our saddles and fanned vigorously to no avail. It was a truly upsetting experience. Anhidrosis is not to be ignored

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby blob » Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:20 pm

Gosh, what a horrible and terrible thing to witness, Chisamba.

I used to ride a horse with anhidrosis and we kept a bucket with water by the arena gate and we would just toss water on him every 15 minutes or so in the summer.

Even with horses that sweat on hot days, I often hose off before I get on, so the horse has something to start off evaporating. Maybe it doesn't do much, but it seems to help.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby exvet » Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:13 am

We've dealt with a couple of anhydrosis cases within our herd over the years. I have had success in treating them to get them through the summers here. I have also had them eventually transition out of it with appropriate nutrition, treatment and acupuncture. And to Blob's point about preparing horses for work and keeping them 'cool' during the hot days, we also soak feed and feed hay cubes soaked in tons of water to hydrate those who will be working hard that day - no matter who they are or what their specific training plan is......again to keep them hydrate and cool. Hosing is another mainstay before and after the ride. We'll keep buckets of water around the arena and a fan for those getting particularly hot even if sweating.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Lipsmackerpony88 » Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:52 pm

Wow, I've never put so much thought into cooling horses down, good info. Mostly because I am pretty heat intolerant myself. I do sweat but not as much as most people. So I have to keep my rides pretty short or easy in the real heat anyways.

I'm so sorry to hear what you witnessed Chisamba. How traumatic.

I will definitely relay some of this information to my sister-in-law. He is an eventer, although is having a pretty easy summer. But even more important to keep him cool. I definitely can envision some traumatic experiences that could happen. I think he's also mostly on just hay maybe she needs to revisit his nutrition all around.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby khall » Thu Jul 07, 2022 8:56 pm

Hot and humid SE here. Dealt a good bit over the years with anhydrosis. It’s scary and dangerous.

We start any non sweaters early on one AC (there are other products out there we just use this particular one successfully) before it even thinks about getting hot. But if the supplement does not work beer does not work or they start this during the hot part of the year acupuncture is the best treatment. I had a cushing horse (common with cushings) that was really overheating having to hose several times a day. My vet friend treated him just the one time and for the last few years of his life we never had an issue again.

Misting fans help as well. Heck I’ve even just hung a running hose nozzle on the fence for the horses to stand under.

Pre ride I like to hose and scrape then if needed mist during the ride or use alcohol water. Mine are pretty heat and humidity tolerant at least the ones I have now. Two mares when they had goals at side did not sweat well and a boarder horse was pretty bad. Long before acupuncture became available. Juliet is border line but responds well to one AC.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Quelah » Fri Jul 08, 2022 11:03 pm

Chisamba I'll agree with you that thermal imaging is often misused or used inaccurately. We've had thermal cameras for a long time and I've come to the conclusion that they can be useful in many situations but they can also be misleading (barefoot vs shod hooves comes to mind).

I believe I did specify ice water. I'll agree with you on the thermal blanket effect of ambient or just coolish water. I don't know if those studies checked internal temps, I always did on the horses I was cooling, if for no other reason that not looking the fool by presenting a horse to the vet that hasn't cooled down enough.

Conventional wisdom (less offensive term than old wives tales) often has some solid basis, but sometimes it gets disproven. Another over heated conventional wisdom tidbit is that one shouldn't drink really cold/iced water when overheated. This was disproven by one of my professors a couple of years ago, at least with regards to wildland firefighters, who operate for extended periods of time at higher heart/resp/temp than nearly any other profession. The military folks who participated in the testing said "no way!" when they saw the numbers on the firefighters. Not only was iced vs ambient hydration superior in the short term, it was also superior in the long term, having beneficial effects hours later. This was not just done with external temps, the FFs wore heart rate monitors and swallowed internal thermometers so their core temp could be monitored while they were deployed. The study was still in peer review when I graduated last year, but the practice of utilizing iced hydration whenever possible has become standard operation procedure for CalFire.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Chisamba » Sat Jul 09, 2022 3:12 am

Quelah, very interesting. I do put ice in my anhidrosis mares water to drink. In Africa they believe drinking a hot drink cold you quicker, because it makes you sweat. But that little myth might well be because ice is rarely available.


Conventional wisdom was also often born of expediency. For example severe water shortage where I grew up meant that you really never had a bucket of water to pour over a horse, so dampening and fanning was really the only option.

I totally agree that if you have lots of cool water it makes little sense to do and scrape inbetween hosing. Yet the conventional wisdom does still prevail with many in those circumstances. But let's say for example that you have a team of horses and one hose and didn't have the option to prefill buckets. I do think under those circumstances scraping one horse while you hosed the other would probably cool it quicker. What do you think?

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Quelah » Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:09 am

Chisamba I definitely agree if you had multiple horses and limited hands/water, scraping each after hosing then going to the next would be the way to go. Would help prevent the thermal water blanket thing in addition to allowing evaporation at the skin level.

That thermal water blanket is really a thing. I swam competitively as a kid, pools were kept colder back then ( I can't stand public pools now, way too hot!). I can remember even when fully submerged, if I was very still, the water immediately around me would warm, then I'd move and brrr!

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby khall » Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:31 am

Research is apparently showing a genetic link to anhydrous. I do know Friesians are notorious about not sweating

https://www.facebook.com/10006431933441 ... zN8bl/?d=n

It can be a problem in horses with Cushings as well

It was interesting that bit Joplin’s dam and grand dam on her dam side both had issues sweating with foals at side. That was the only time I had that issue when they were lactating. One AC did help.

I don’t usually have ice to put in the water I cool the horses off with but my well water is pretty darn cold coming out of the tap. I like to stand mine in front of my big fan after cold hosing.

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Josette » Mon Jul 11, 2022 8:38 pm


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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby blob » Mon Jul 11, 2022 11:17 pm

Over the weekend had put ice boots out in a bucket of ice so they'd be ready to go when I got done riding, but I guess I underestimated the amount of time I'd be riding and how fast the ice would melt because when I got back I had a bucket of ice water. As soon I took MM's bridle off, she put her head in that bucket and drank most of it. Normally, I would untack her, hose her off before putting her in a stall or pasture where she could drink. But now I'm thinking I should have a bucket of water ready for her to drink when she's done. We have an ice machine at the barn so I can also make sure it's cold

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby heddylamar » Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:45 am

For cooling off after a hot workout, I've found that hosing until cool to the touch, hand grazing for 5-10 minutes, then hosing a second time works perfectly. Like me after a long run, Maia always heats up again after that initial cool down.

A few weeks ago, when DH and I hauled Maia in the heat from MD to west TN in mom's trailer with less ventilation than mine, I was grabbing cups of ice at gas stations to add to the buckets of water, and stirring until the ice was nearly melted (choke). Maia really sucked that water down. She also appreciated her fan. We picked up two more batteries for it, and took mom's inverter for the second leg from TN to TX, and ended up charging batteries twice even with the much better ventilated trailer (2007 Hawk with vents/windows on every surface v. 1998 Gore with two of each).

And thank you @demi for the fan suggestion. That was a huge help!

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Re: Help! Overheated or anhidrosis?

Postby Chisamba » Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:17 am

Quelah wrote:Chisamba I definitely agree if you had multiple horses and limited hands/water, scraping each after hosing then going to the next would be the way to go. Would help prevent the thermal water blanket thing in addition to allowing evaporation at the skin level.

That thermal water blanket is really a thing. I swam competitively as a kid, pools were kept colder back then ( I can't stand public pools now, way too hot!). I can remember even when fully submerged, if I was very still, the water immediately around me would warm, then I'd move and brrr!


When I did track I despised the ice baths they made us take. I'd sit as still as death to craft my little thermal blanket. It definitely is a thing.


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