01/09/2023
Atypical myopathy (sycamore poisoning) in horses caught one of our longest liveries young horse Lola out last winter. We ignorantly didn’t realise we had sycamore’s on our land & im ashamed to say I didn’t know anything about Atypical myopathy.
This year we made the decision to remove 5 mature sycamore trees. It wasn’t something we wanted to do but after seeing Lola & learning more about the illness it was the only option we could to do to reduce the risk of this happening again. We will be replacing the trees with a variety that is safe for horses. We have been a livery yard for 18 years and never experienced any of the horses being poisoned from these trees but there you go never say never.
Thankfully Lola recovered with the help of her mum & the first class veterinary care from Loch Leven Equine Practice.
Here is Lynn’s story to tell you about Lola & sycamore poisoning.
Towards the end of October last year (2022) I started to notice my girl was a bit slow and not really fussed for coming in or going back out. I had brought her in for her teeth and mentioned to the vet she was a bit to chilled out, and just had no real interest in coming in. There wasn’t a huge amount of grass so I knew it wasn’t that she wanted to stay out munching. At the time the vet thought it might have been a grumbling colic, and gave her a bit of treatment for it.
I thought nothing else of it, she was literally just quiet. A day or so later she was still a bit too quiet, (remember this being a weekend). I called the vet and chatted through things, said she wasn’t any worse but not any better either. I was then made aware of us having Sycamore trees in the field. To my ignorance I knew nothing about these trees and how bad they were and what to look out for. I mentioned it to the vet but they didn’t think it was poisoning purely due to the fact she wasn’t showing any symptoms other than being quiet. However within a few hours she was flat out. The vet came down and even then all signs were pointing to a respiratory infection not Sycamore poisoning.
It was only on the Monday morning when she took a p*e and it was like blood did we start going down the path of Sycamore poisoning.
She was admitted to the hospital and started on intravenous fluids with some added enzymes to start trying to flush out the toxins. The first few days were torture, she was given a 50/50 chance of surviving. But she was a fighter and worked so hard to get herself better. After a week we got her home and continued her recovery. She has since had a few blood tests to check her level / curve spike which thankfully are going in the right direction, I remember the vet telling me at the time her enzymes level was colossal and we shouldn’t underestimate just how unwell she was.
I still see the odd muscle tremor in her but she seems to be back to her cheeky normal self which is great. She will be 3 in May and I’m hoping she won’t have any on going issues.
Symptoms wise though, she was only quiet and lethargic. I wish I had listened to my gut more. I knew she wasn’t herself but also had no idea what was up. The vets have said there was nothing different anyone really could have done, as running bloods when she first came in a bit slow would have been overkill at the time. I guess them suggesting bloods then might have felt a bit extreme but again, with hindsight, I would have happily got bloods run then. (Tbf even they did run them they thought the machine wasn’t right as it couldn’t give a reading – turns out that was because the reading was off the chart for a normal machine)
Apart from going down the once on the Sunday (and the injection the vet gave her that day for the infection they thought she had, picked her right back up) she never once was off her feet – which we thought might happen and the numbers in her blood should have had her unable to do anything.
We as owners just need to trust our gut – we know when our horses just aren’t quite right and we shouldn’t be afraid to ask the vets for advice or just to run routine checks. My lot now get bloods done once a year – Lola will be getting hers done twice, and when she has started her backing she will get bloods done then to check her spikes.
