skin appeared on Keegan’s legs, often infected, oozing, clearly very itchy and quite unpleasant. He was stomping his legs more and more frequently. It was obvious, Emily says, that Keegan was very uncomfortable. Experts acknowledge that
diagnosing CPL can be difficult. “The clinical signs of this disease are highly variable,” according to UC Davis’ School of Veteri- nary Medicine via its website. “It is often first addressed as a marked and ‘therapy-resistant’ pastern dermatitis (scratches). The earliest lesions, however, are characterized by skin thicken- ing, slight crusting and possible skin folds in the pastern area. While readily palpable, these early lesions are often not appre- ciated visually as the heavy feathering in these breeds covers these areas. Upon clip- ping of the lower legs, it becomes obvious that the lesions are far more extensive than expected. Secondary infections develop very easily in these horse’s legs and usually consist of chorioptic mange and/or bacterial infections.” Unfortunately the nodules that are such a big part of CPL only get bigger: with time they usually grow larger, as do the associated skin folds. And the secondary infections that make the nodules ooze and smell can take a huge toll on a horse’s overall health. The treatments suggested to manage CPL, which include medicated shampoos, clipping the leg feath- ers, massage and lots of turnout to promote more move- ment, didn’t seem to be helping Keegan much. Emily says her veterinarian, Dr. John Royal of nearby Oden, Indiana, warned her that Keegan’s prognosis was uncertain. It would be hard to say how quickly his condition might worsen, she recounts, or if he would be able to continue work or even simply be kept comfortable. After all these warnings, she was resigned to the idea that he might have to be put down at some point. Emily chose not to send a tissue sample off for testing
at UC Davis, even though testing would be the only way to confirm Keegan’s diagnosis. That was for two reasons, she says. One is that false negatives are fairly common, and the other is that CPL tends to slow the body’s healing process, therefore an incision to collect a tissue sample was risky for Keegan. An absolute diagno- sis just didn’t seem worth the potential harm, she says, when the symptoms seemed so clear.
40 January/February 2017
Keegan is a popular exhibition horse and loves to ham it up in front of audiences. Both photos were taken at the Breyer Fest at the Kentucky Horse Park with his trainer Agnieszka Turek. At right they stand with Emily’s daughter Addison. Agnieszka says that she could tell a noticeable improvement in the horse’s movement after the Cytowave treatments.
New Hope In early 2016, at the Hoosier Horse Fair in Indianapolis, Emily met John Dovenmuehle, a regional representative for a company called Cytowave. He mentioned to her his compa- ny’s namesake product and began enthusiastically telling her about its many benefits. When he told her it improves a horse’s circulation, she immediately asked if it had ever been used to treat CPL. Since it hadn’t, the two decided to start experimenting with the technology on Keegan’s legs. The results, Emily says, have been dramatic. The Cytowave machine uses a combination of non-puls-
ing magnetic therapy and SQUID—super quantum inter- ference device—therapy signals, explains Ron Capito, the company’s director of marketing. A SQUID was originally used to detect the natural signals emitted from normal and damaged tissues. Inventor Richard Parker recorded the difference between these signals and wrote a computer algorithm to create a proprietary “healing wave” with the information. A magnetic coil delivers the tissue-derived SQUID Therapy Signals, which are designed to heal specific tissue types. So there are different signals used to heal a bone injury, for example, as compared to tendon or liga- ment injuries.
Close up images of the nodules and swelling of Keegan’s legs from the CPL.
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