hi as cally said my old girl has cushings, thats the general name for it, but its medical description is an over active adrenal cortex producing excessive cortico-steroids.
if treatment is not
exactly right there is a risk of causing another problem....Under activity of production of cortico-steroids this condition is called addisons, the trick is to get the middle ground, not always easy.
my vet has explained to me that the problems of cushings are often better if considered as individual extra care, for example :-
she gets a really thick coat, this makes her too hot in summer leading to excessive sweating with fluid loss, salt loss and skin soreness, cushings & age means her temperature control systems are not as good as normal anyway,
to combat this i clip her all year round and wash out excess salt with gentle hosing, skin breaks are treated like normal wounds and she has a 24/7 access to a plain salt lick, in winter the same over thick coat comes off because you just can't keep her skin clean, she then gets sores and matted fur.
she has more tendancey to break out in abcesses & has a reduced imune system, so more vigilance is needed to check for small wounds etc, i find she gets most of these in the most awkward and unusual places, those impossible to get a dressing to stick to places|& so i find i use a lot of stockholm tar these days as a general cleanup & sod flies off wound dressing.
her resistance to worms and parasites is lower, same for her resistance to infections, disease etc so keeping her up to date on worming etc is even more important, another side line is anti-biotics wipe out more of her 'friendly' bacteria than in a normal horse so the gut needs a kick start after some drugs.
she is easier to tire than before, & she needs feeds easy to digest, not much different really than for any old horse, she is more suseptable to laminitis too, even if not over weight, but remember, cushings can be in younger horses too,
saltie is 26 & 1/2 years old, 3 years ago she would have passed for a 10y old till you saw her teeth, but now she looks 90y keeping weight on is not easy, the slightest set back looses so much ground, but she is looking up now, she still screams a welcome to everyone, adores a fuss and is full of fun, so we clog on till we run out of options and life is no longer fun for her, fingers crossed.
if anyone want to chat to me about more or less anything (not chatline like!!!) send me a number on a pm & will get back to you bye