This was another year with sorrows with regards to the health of my wonderful Tabasco. It turns out that my absolute hateword becomes SPIROCHETE and that I am getting tired and exhausted about having to bother so much with this topic.
This time, I have discovered a pretty sudden (as usual) lyme arthritis in summer. As mentioned before, I waited a while in order to see whether it would go away from alone. As it did not, we decided in September to treat Tabasco another time (the second time) with Cobactan, a fourth generation cephalosporine. Cobactan is said to kill borrelia. Tabbi was not home for my birthday which made me very sad. Instead, I had asked Chris to compile all videos he ever took from us in competition and we watched them together. It is a shame that such a gentle, scopey, powerful and talented horse had to retire because of SPIROCHETE invasions! It really is a shame.
The treatment resulted in the fact that he can walk and run again, but he is still rather weak. When he came home after three weeks of treatment, I found his coordination not ok. After some reflection and further studies of all kinds of online texts, I decided to add a few days of Doxycycline. Now, he's still rather weak, but at least these issues about moving and coordination have disappeared. He's hacking with the ponies in the field and I am trying to get him back into strength.
It is now two years back that Tabbi was in a stadium where I, for the first time, had some thoughts about a decision that I normally do not like so much to take: the question of whether he would not survive his lyme disease, and whether I should let him go. Happily, my vet managed with the first Cobactan treatment to substantially improve his situation. Since then, I must say my feelings go up and down like a rollercoaster. Mainly because SPIROCHETES act like asshole rollercoasters - they come and go. Or rather, they cause pain and then they hide. Whatever. Since then, I live with the constant thought that as the moment was there, it might come back anytime, and possibly a lot quicker than I wish.
On the other hand, I feel a bond to my horse that is a lot stronger than it was before. I start to enjoy every single minute that I have the notion he's feeling well, he's enjoying his life and he's without visible pain. Now that I know how horrible it feels riding him when he can barely move, I even more enjoy the moments when we are able to canter through the fields. It's more intense, in both directions. As he's living at our house, I enjoy sharing my morning coffee with him, or even my breakfast.
Needless to say, I have by now found and read quite a few of the human online lyme diaries while searching the internet for useful information on HOW TO GET RID OF SPIROCHETES. Needless to say, I cross all our hooves and fingers that the SPIROCHETES in humans and animals alike are being fought successfully. I am very, very sad about each of those diaries I have read and the more happy if I read that some of the authors have managed to get rid of the SPIROCHETES - at least for a while.
For those who do not know: Borrelia, in our case B. afzelii, are spirochetes (like i.e. syphilis), a bacteria transmitted by tick bites. They often go with side infections, and untreated/ undiscovered, they penetrate the entire body (host) which results in severe and ongoing suffering. For some mysterious reason, science has not found valid and valuable solutions for treatment. There are no clear and obvious patterns and even after killed by antibiotics, the seem to have toxic residue that again and in addition causes problems of all sorts. What is called Borreliose in Germany, is called "lyme disease" in the USA but I guess it does not really make a difference how we call it.
I am grateful to everyone who deems to have new findings on this "disease" and ask him to share with me. I am happy to share my experience and all data for scientific purposes and invite any lab / vet interested to contact me.
Photo: At least, the ponies are being worked allright.
