History of a Colic

On January 4, 2011 T’Pring, our 25 year old Thoroughbred mare, colicked. While she now appears to be doing well, it took a village to get her back.

I would like to say that I by no means feel that what we did should be put forward as a colic protocol. I made choices about which chakras and areas to have people work on based off of experience and intuition, and have now learned the importance of keeping a copy of my Pranic Healing books at the barn. What I would like people to take away from this is that there are things we can do for our horses while waiting for the vet. So many of us feel completely helpless when our animal companions are sick, and that feeling of helplessness just leads to more distress for us and them.

One of our long-standing concerns with T’Pring is that she tends to be a rather picky eater, eating small portions of feed at a time. This combined with her breed and age has made it difficult to maintain an optimal weight for her. T’Pring also has melanomas (a type of skin cancer which is commonly found in gray horses) that we have been treating on and off for the past several years as funding allows, along with several lameness issues which are by-product of her career as a former hunter/jumper. We have concerns that there may be melanomas in her digestive tract, which affect her ability to maximize her nutritional intake.

Luckily, when T’Pring colicked, Amy and Alyce were on hand. Amy first realized something was wrong when T’Pring wanted to lie flat out in the arena during her free-movement time. T’Pring typically likes to roll before she gets started on her work, but does not stay down and does not lie flat out. Given T’Pring’s health history, upon recognizing her distress we immediately called the vet. We got her up and walking while we waited for him to arrive.

T’Pring’s energy level was almost non-existent and I had to encourage her to walk. I massaged the base of her ears and listened to her gut. Her abdomen was distended and hard. T’Pring’s condition appeared very serious and I called upon various members of our Intern Massage Class to work on her chakras from a distance, while I massaged her physically. Our focus on the chakras was primarily just cleaning and cutting of inappropriate cords. One of the reasons I prefer to work on horses over people is that horses have such an amazing ability for self-healing. Often, even just cleaning their energy field allows them to heal themselves, without the need for energizing.

Amy worked on the liver, kidney, and basic chakras, while Jessica also worked on the liver chakra as well as the minor chakras in the soles of the feet, the digestive system, and the health rays.

Meanwhile, Nicole worked on the crown and forehead chakras. Nicole mentioned that when she first scanned the crown chakra it felt empty. She cleaned and energized the crown first for 5-10 min. Then an hour later she did the same to the forehead chakra. Nicole has training in several areas of energy work and integrated that knowledge into assisting us with the Pranic Healing we were attempting to use to treat T’Pring.

What was really interesting to me was how Nicole, Jessica, and I noticed independently that the congestion was mostly on the left side of T’Pring’s body. Alyce was our point person, coordinating the whole effort, so at the time none of us knew that we were finding the same thing.

As the person doing the physical massage, I felt very lucky that I got to witness firsthand the effect our work was having on T’Pring. Almost every 15 minutes her energy level would take a major step up. She began walking more briskly, had multiple releases of gas, and her guts began making a great deal of noise. Even though I am already familiar with the results possible from Pranic Healing and the other techniques that we used to assist T’Pring, I still always feel somewhat humbled by seeing it in action.

When our vet, Dr. Chris Wickcliffe, arrived, he gave T’Pring a muscle relaxant and tubed her to check her stomach and to make certain that the colic wasn’t caused by a back-up from undigested foods, and to ensure she received electrolytes and mineral oil to aid her digestion. We discussed what to watch out for the rest of the day, and made a plan to ensure she would have the highest chance of surviving the night, as well as some diet changes to make that might help her in the long term.

At the time of her colic, T’Pring was getting free choice second cutting orchard grass hay, rice bran pellets, wheat bran mash mixed in warm water, and orchard grass pellets soaked in warm water. Her supplements were ground flax seed, 1,000 mg human grade Ester-C, Earth Angel Herbs’ Easy Stride formula and diatomaceous earth. The second cutting orchard grass did wonders for adding weight, but greatly increased the amount of gas she had and sometimes caused constipation, which we attempted to counteract with the wheat bran mash.

After the colic, the major change was that we switched T’Pring back to local hay, with an increase in the orchard and alfalfa pellets to make up the calories. Dr. Wickliffe mentioned that the problem horses have digesting orchard grass is the small barbs that are on it, and the pelletization process appears to neutralize that. T’Pring receives the second cutting orchard grass twice a day instead of all day long and only gets a flake per feeding instead of the two to three she was previously on, and no longer receives orchard grass hay at lunch. We also increased the quantity of wheat bran mash she receives to almost five times what she was getting prior to the colic. So far, these changes seem to be working.

As scary and stressful as this situation was, I am grateful to T’Pring for teaching us to bring Eastern and Western ideas together in a harmonious way. In this situation I feel we were able to maximize the teachings of both. It also inspired us to work together to assist in healing an animal, teaching us that together we are greater than alone. T’Pring—ever the great teacher—has started a new chapter in our Equine Massage Intern program. As part of their homework, our Interns are now working on the various chakras of horses with specific problems. When learning something new, especial something as overwhelmingly large as trying to help another individual in his or her healing process, we find this group approach much easier.

We will keep you posted on T’Pring’s process.
--Ferronato