Posted by Geoff Tucker on Sat, Apr 24, 2010
The opinions and views of this blog is for information and entertainment only and should not be used as a substitute for seeking advice from your veterinarian about your horse and your situation. Specific advice may only be given after a valid veterinary - client - patient relationship is made.
Hey y'all - Doc T here. Succeed is a digestive supplement that conditions the hind gut and helps horses deal with the stresses of life plus the acids of grain. I like it and I like them. Please support this cause for Courtney. I have lost two friends, one my first veterinary mentor, from head trauma around horses. Please wear a helmet when you ride. Set the example for the kids watching you. And buy one of these T-shirts for everyone know that rides.
New Helmet Campaign T-shirts Added to Courtney King-Dye Fund eBay Store Established by SUCCEED®.
Aurora, OH (April 19, 2010)—The Courtney King-Dye Medical Fund eBay store is now featuring new helmet wearing campaign t-shirts, designed by Jeri Bryant, a single mom and dressage fan based in southern California. The t-shirts feature the slogan “Strap One On – Everyone’s Doing It” in an eye-catching graphic treatment.
The Courtney King-Dye Medical Fund eBay store was established last month by King-Dye’s long-time sponsor SUCCEED® Digestive Conditioning Program® to help raise funds to help offset medical and other related expenses for King-Dye and her family. The dressage star, 32, was seriously injured in early March when the horse she was schooling stumbled. King-Dye, who was not wearing a helmet at the time, suffered a skull fracture and remained in a coma until March 30. She is expected to face a long recovery involving physical, occupational and speech therapy. The eBay store can be found at http://stores.ebay.com/Courtney-King-Dye-Medical-Fund.
“I wanted to not only help Courtney, but also raise awareness of how important it is for equestrians to wear helmets anytime they are on a horse,” said Bryant of the helmet t-shirt campaign.
The Equestrian Medical Safety Association (EMSA) states that head injuries account for approximately 60% of deaths resulting from equestrian accidents. The EMSA also promotes the use of helmets, noting that “properly fitted ASTM/SEI certified helmets can prevent death and reduce the severity of head injuries sustained while riding.”
The Courtney King-Dye Medical Fund eBay Store has generated more than $8,000 in sales since launching in early March. Freedom Health, the makers of SUCCEED and operators of the online store, is aiming to reach at least $10,000 in sales by the end of April. Current listings include offerings from Dav boots, Troxel Helmets, HorseShoesByDesign totes, Shires Equestrian Clothing, various items of jewelry, plus paintings of Courtney and her horses Mythilus and Idocus, by King-Dye’s mother, Kellison King. A helmet campaign t-shirt autographed by leading equestrians including Karen O’Connor, Gina Miles and William Fox-Pitt will shortly be added to the ebay store.
“This is extremely important,” said John Hall, president of Freedom Health. “We are all members of an equestrian community, and we are compelled to do what we can for Courtney and her family. We encourage everyone to participate in the effort by either donating items to the eBay store, or bidding on them.”
SUCCEED® will continue to operate the eBay store so long as interest remains, aiming to provide funds to King-Dye and her family for costs not covered by insurance and other non-medical expenses associated with her injury and recovery. Individuals and retailers interested in donating items to the eBay store, or selling the helmet campaign t-shirt in their stores, should email Lyndsey White at lwhite@freedomhealthllc.com for details.
SUCCEED® Digestive Conditioning Program is an official product sponsor of USEF, USDF and USEA. It is produced and distributed exclusively by Freedom Health, LLC of Aurora, Ohio. The company is focused on finding, perfecting and delivering superior, innovative products that address real and significant health-related issues for animals and the people who care for them. Visit www.succeed-equine.com for further information on the product.
Helmet campaign by
Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a
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Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a
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Posted by Geoff Tucker on Thu, Apr 08, 2010
The opinions and views of this blog is for information and entertainment only and should not be used as a substitute for seeking advice from your veterinarian about your horse and your situation. Specific advice may only be given after a valid veterinary - client - patient relationship is made.
What role do the teeth have in digestion in the horse? Bet you don't think about stuff like this, but when I drive 70,000 miles a year floating horse teeth, stuff like this comes to mind. Why? Because the question of why we float horse teeth keeps coming up.
Over the past 10 years I average 3590 horses every year. So with almost 10 floats a day every day of the year I think I am qualified to draw conclusions.
The teeth and the tongue work together to form a consistent bolus of food for swallowing. Saliva is added to this bolus to lubricate it for sliding down the esophagus as well as an enzymatic step in pre-digestion. But I want you to think about this the next time you chew your food. Do you pulverize your food? Do your grinding teeth even come together? I don't know about you but when I eat a salad, my teeth DO NOT come together. My teeth break up the leaf structure and my tongue rolls the salad leaves into a small bolus for swallowing. The teeth are used to break up the cherry tomatoes and cucumbers so they don't go down whole.
I do not pulverize my food into a fine paste. In fact, while I'm writing this my jaw is relaxed and the teeth remain apart. I just asked Brandon driving next to me and he said the same thing. Yes some people grind their teeth but that is a nervous habit and not related to eating.
In our practice all we do is remove the things that cause pain in the mouth so the tongue can move freely about the mouth. This not only aids in the positioning of food, the tongue also cleans the spaces between the teeth as well as stimulate the teeth to remain strongly attached in their sockets. This last sentence is not mentioned in any book on equine dentistry. I don't know why. But let me give you three instances where I have seen repeatedly dental issues resolve with basic removal of oral pain, specifically from the tongue.
• Number 1: The horse has difficulty chewing grain or long stem hay. The horse needs his tongue to position the food between the teeth. If the grains are small, the hay too long and coarse, or the hay is too thin without leaves AND the tongue is prevented from moving freely due to pain, then the grain spills out and the hay is either spat out in balls called quids or it is refused and left on the ground. Removing the sharp points helps these horses almost every time.
• Number 2: Periodontal gum disease is a local infection between the tooth and gum. Many equine dentists will aggressively treat these using sophisticated human techniques. But on every occasion I remove the sharp edges allowing the tongue to constantly clean the area. I add systemic antibiotics and topical oxygen (Peroxyl™ by Colgate). Every time the local infection is resolved in 30 days.
• Number 3: Loose teeth in old horses. As the tooth erupts throughout the horse's life, no more tooth is created. Consequently the part under the gum and in the socket gets shorter with age. From 25 years on the amount of tooth anchored in the jaw is less and in horses without dental care, these teeth loosen enough to fall out. I am often presented with horses older than 25 that have not been floated in years. The teeth rattle in their sockets and some can actually be moved with the fingers. Most equine dentists remove these loose teeth. I do not unless I can pull the tooth with my fingers. Instead I gently remove all the sharp edges. When I return in 6 months, in every case, the teeth no longer rattle. Even the loosest of teeth, as long as there is enough root remaining, are once again firmly in the mouth.
I know my simple approach to horse teeth upsets the other new age equine dentists. I am not here to start a fight. But I do have questions for them.
• Question 1 - Before any dental work is done, do they actually look at the whole horse? Often they will create drama by saying that this horse can't live another day without this tooth being pulled or this cavity being filled. Yet the horse is fat and happy with no bit issues.
• Question 2 - How can a horse continue to eat with only 8 remaining cheek teeth out of normally 24 teeth? One well known modern equine dentist (not a vet) said to a group of vets at a meeting that by filling cavities we could extend the life of the horse by 5 years. Just last week another modern equine dentist examined a horse that we had just floated. He noticed a small groove in the incisors (front nipper teeth) caused by a slight overbite. The horse is chewing well, maintaining weight, and has no bridle issues. All the teeth are solid in the mouth. He said (and I am not kidding you) that if the front teeth are not corrected this horse will be unable to chew in 3 years. So the fat and happy 30 year old horse with one tooth on the upper right, one tooth on the bottom right, and a total of 6 teeth on the left side - ONE THAT IS CHEWING WELL WITH THE CORRECT FEED - when will he stop eating???
• Question 3: How have horses survived the last 10,000 years without these new modern dentists and their contrived and unproven theories? I understand that many of them don't have the horsemanship skills to be able to float without a speculum or drugs. However generating fear in the horse owner is unnecessary and not helpful. If good scientific studies were ever done most if not all the new theories they subscribe to would be thrown out.
Here at Equine Dentistry Without Drama™ we take the approach that the whole horse is looked at first. If there are abnormalities found in the mouth, simple techniques proven over decades of equine dentistry are applied over a period of 1 to 4 floatings. Every one of the 43,000 horses I have floated has responded to tooth related issues. They have not responded to bridle or weight loss issues caused by neck injuries, neurologic issues, lameness, or bad riding skills. In addition, not one of the horses I worked on has ever died from floating teeth. Ask your equine dentist if he has ever caused the death of a horse or if the application of his modern techniques ever caused any harm such as neck injuries, broken jaws or legs, or caused a horse to go off feed for a week or more.
The horse has survived for thousands of years without us and for a few thousand years with us. Suddenly and extremely changing the way we care for them will not make them live longer or make them happier.
One last question. Who is your horse's advocate? You are! So follow your gut when you feel something is not right. Your horse will thank you. Doc
EQUINE DENTISTRY: HOW DID THE HORSE SURVIVE THIS LONG WITHOUT US? by Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Blog by
Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.