Minor (I Hope) Colic Attack

Pie wasn't feeling quite right last night.  He was pretty normal when I groomed him and picked his feet at around 5 p.m., and was eating normally.  At about 7 p.m. I got a call from the barn - the (knowledgeable) boarder who was in the aisle noticed that he was pawing.  She checked his gut sounds, which were normal, and there was manure in the stall. Then he laid down - she said he seemed uncomfortable.

I put down what I was doing (finishing dinner), jumped in the car and went to the barn - at times like this it's nice that it's 5 minutes away.  Pie was up when I got there, but one side was completely covered in shavings - he'd clearly been lying flat, although not rolling.  When he had his repeating colics back in the fall of 2011, he would lie flat to ease the pain.  We now think those colics were attributable to swollen lymph nodes in his abdomen due to Lyme and/or EPM.

He didn't look terrible - he was alert and responsive, his belly wasn't tucked up and his gums were a nice pink with good capillary refill - but he was clearly somewhat uncomfortable - he reacted with pinned ears when I ran my hands over the left side of his belly.

So I put his halter on, gave him a 1,000-lb. dose of oral Banamine and took him into the indoor arena.  We walked around for a bit, then I let him loose.  He didn't paw or roll, just walked around a bit and sniffed things, or just stood there looking at me.  I did some massage on his tail and hindquarters, and then his sides, to see if that would release some gas.  He stood there and seemed to appreciate it, and there was no ear-pinning.

After a bit, he said he was done with that and headed off to the door to his barn aisle, which was closed, and stood there - he seemed to feel better already, although the oral Banamine wouldn't have taken effect yet.  I opened the door for him and he headed off to his stall.  When he got in there, he started eating bits of hay - a very good sign.  I said goodnight and headed home.

I called the barn owner and she said she would check on him later.  She texted me at about 9:30 p.m. that he seemed fine, and there was fresh manure in his stall.

If he has another colic attack, I'll have him retested for Lyme and EPM, although he was tested fairly recently and doesn't show any symptoms of either disease.  Our weather changed very abruptly yesterday - the high was in the 80s the day before yesterday, 60s yesterday and the temperatures were heading to the 40s overnight.  I think his colic may have just been due to the weather change and the big changes in barometric pressure.  I hope so - keeping fingers crossed that all is well with my Pie-Pie.