Max's Mom
Well-Known Member
I'm posting this in the hope that it might help someone else who has been where we've been in the last year!
Our Max has tested positive for Lyme on three different occasions. Each time, we knew something was up from his behavior. He hated to be touched and seemed to be overly sensitive to things that normally didn't bother him. We would treat with antibiotics, and would see great improvement. Then, months later, this sensitivity would slowly return. After the third round of antibiotics (and after conversations with my vet), I came to believe that he has chronic Lyme.
After treating him last summer, and seeing great improvement, I hoped he'd stay comfortable. But over the winter and spring, he became increasingly over sensitive and reactive. By late spring, I couldn't catch him or touch him. He would cower in the stall like he was an abused horse. You could barely get a halter on him. He became increasingly over-reactive and fearful. It all came to a head when my daughter was driving him and out of the blue he spooked, took off, and freaked out, galloping madly, tipping the cart over, and dragging the cart on its side. I think he had no idea what was going on or any awareness of my daughter. He was just in absolute blind panic and couldn't get away from the cart. Thank God that neither of them were injured beyond some nasty abrasions, and that eventually he got "stuck" between a fence and a truck that held him so we could get him out of the mess.
At this point, I didn't know what to do. We even talked about what his quality of life was and wondered about his long term options. i knew we could put him back on antibiotics but didn't see this as a real solution to fix the problem. We really thought that the Lyme had cooked his brain and that he was experiencing severe anxiety. It broke our hearts.
Then, I stumbled upon some discussions about anxiety and Lyme in humans and read that Magnesium had made a huge improvement. The symptoms the people described were very similar to what we observed in Max. Lyme actually depletes the body of Magnesium, and without enough Mg the nervous system gets very out of whack. Some people even believe that the symptoms of Lyme are actually in part caused by lack of Magnesium.
So, we started him on Quiessence, which is a pelleted magnesium supplement used for calming horses. We saw improvement within a week. A month later he was very much improved. And now 7 weeks later he is back to his old self! I cannot begin to express how thankful and relieved we are! He is showing interest in kids again. He doesn't shake and cower. We can catch him as long as we go slow. He has stopped being spooky. I don't know if we will ever hitch him again, but we have started ground driving in a halter, and though he was nervous to see the driving harness, he calmed down when we took it slow.
I hope this story might help someone else!
Our Max has tested positive for Lyme on three different occasions. Each time, we knew something was up from his behavior. He hated to be touched and seemed to be overly sensitive to things that normally didn't bother him. We would treat with antibiotics, and would see great improvement. Then, months later, this sensitivity would slowly return. After the third round of antibiotics (and after conversations with my vet), I came to believe that he has chronic Lyme.
After treating him last summer, and seeing great improvement, I hoped he'd stay comfortable. But over the winter and spring, he became increasingly over sensitive and reactive. By late spring, I couldn't catch him or touch him. He would cower in the stall like he was an abused horse. You could barely get a halter on him. He became increasingly over-reactive and fearful. It all came to a head when my daughter was driving him and out of the blue he spooked, took off, and freaked out, galloping madly, tipping the cart over, and dragging the cart on its side. I think he had no idea what was going on or any awareness of my daughter. He was just in absolute blind panic and couldn't get away from the cart. Thank God that neither of them were injured beyond some nasty abrasions, and that eventually he got "stuck" between a fence and a truck that held him so we could get him out of the mess.
At this point, I didn't know what to do. We even talked about what his quality of life was and wondered about his long term options. i knew we could put him back on antibiotics but didn't see this as a real solution to fix the problem. We really thought that the Lyme had cooked his brain and that he was experiencing severe anxiety. It broke our hearts.
Then, I stumbled upon some discussions about anxiety and Lyme in humans and read that Magnesium had made a huge improvement. The symptoms the people described were very similar to what we observed in Max. Lyme actually depletes the body of Magnesium, and without enough Mg the nervous system gets very out of whack. Some people even believe that the symptoms of Lyme are actually in part caused by lack of Magnesium.
So, we started him on Quiessence, which is a pelleted magnesium supplement used for calming horses. We saw improvement within a week. A month later he was very much improved. And now 7 weeks later he is back to his old self! I cannot begin to express how thankful and relieved we are! He is showing interest in kids again. He doesn't shake and cower. We can catch him as long as we go slow. He has stopped being spooky. I don't know if we will ever hitch him again, but we have started ground driving in a halter, and though he was nervous to see the driving harness, he calmed down when we took it slow.
I hope this story might help someone else!
