Dianne Volz identifies EPM acupuncture points in a triangle over the rib cage, hip, hind leg, and shoulder. She uses acupuncture points, electric muscle stimulation, ultra- and infra-sound, and laser and photon therapy to listen to the equine immune system and respond accordingly.
EPM: Elusive, Pernicious, Manageable
EPM is one of the most difficult to pinpoint and progressively debilitating neurologic diseases to strike the horses we love by L.A. Pomeroy
W
hen it savages the central nervous system, it leaves behind gait abnormalities, ataxia
(inability to control voluntary muscle movement) limb spasticity, sore backs, locked stifles, and muscle atrophy. If it attacks the brain stem, the results are depression, behavioral changes, facial nerve and/or tongue paralysis, roaring, vision problems, drooping eyelids, and difficulty swallowing. Left unchecked, it will take a horse’s life.
“It” is equine protozoal myeloencephalitis, or EPM, and in the United States, the number of horses who test positive after exposure to it varies from 5% or less among wild herds in Montana and Wyoming to 50% or more among backyard barns and professional show stables abutting the natural habitat of opossums.
Yes, opossums have been identified as a vector (transmitter of disease) for EPM. But this “enigmatic infection,” as the UC Davis Center for Equine Health calls it, is more complicated.
Holistic Horse™ • October/November 2010 • Vol.16, Issue 69
Clinical researchers Chinedu Njoku, William Saville, and Stephen Reed, who have looked at how reduced levels of nitric oxide metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid are associated with EPM, observe: “EPM is the most prevalent cause of neurologic disease in horses in the Americas. In some parts of the US over 30% of horses have antibodies to Sarcocystis neurona (the most common protozoan parasite causing EPM infection), although a much smaller
It can appear in foals only a few days old or horses in their 30s. Any age, sex or breed can develop it, although young horses, and those shipped frequently, seem to be at greater risk. Keeping barns and horse areas clean and unattractive to nocturnal opossums is standard protocol to minimize risk of infection.
percentage develop clinical EPM, indicating that additional factors, which we do not yet understand, contribute to the onset of this disease.”
Alternative equine care practitioners who say they have been treating EPM symptoms in racehorses and performance horses for decades are also looking at some of those “additional factors,” and arriving at some bold new continued on p. 22
What is EPM?
Since its discovery more than 25 years ago, the origin of EPM infection has pointed to opossum feces containing sporocysts (cysts that contain spores able to reproduce asexually). When feed, grass, or water are contaminated, and then ingested by a horse, sporocysts go along for the ride. The cysts erupt and protozoa leave lesions along the spinal cord and brain stem, producing an array of clinical signs that vary from horse to horse.
Early signs can be as innocuous as a slight stumbling or lameness, to an odd tilt of the head, or overall lethargy and weakness.
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Karen Tappenden
Molly Gale
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