Horse Colic (part 1) Medical v Surgical - How Can You Tell?
Posted by Geoff Tucker on Wed, Aug 05, 2009
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.
Horse colic is a serious disease that needs a veterinarian's attention. But if you can not find a vet to attend, learning the basic concepts can help you determine how serious it is.
There are 2 important facts: 1) the degree of pain DOES NOT indicate the seriousness of the colic, and 2) if the colic needs surgery to correct, time is your enemy. It is better to be wrong and ship a non-surgical horse to a clinic than to be indecisive and wait till things get worse.
In my mind, colics are either medical or surgical. There will be some that will hang out in the gray zone, but usually they show as one or the other. This video will discuss the parameters of heart rate and the horse's response to pain medication. A heart rate above 60 and a horse unresponsive to pain medication is a surgical colic.
Horse Health Video 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.