Tami Wojcek - Lateral collateral ligament of the coffin joint, Faster Healing, Lame to 100% Sound, Supplement Skeptic, Dapples, Halter Class Champion, Shiny Coat, Filling Out.
John Dowdy:
Hello and welcome to another Equinety Podcast. This week we are swinging way out to the west coast. That's way out for me because I'm on the east coast in Florida, but we're going to the state of Washington and we're going to be speaking with Tammy Wojak. Tammy, welcome to the Equinety Podcast.
Tammy Wojak:
Hi, I'm happy to be here. I'm really excited to share our story about our mare.
John Dowdy:
Great. So your mare is Holly and she's a show horse for the past three years. Tell us a little bit about your daughter and what she's doing with ... with Holly and ... and what's ... what's going on there prior to the injury, which we will talk about in a few moments.
Tammy Wojak:
Sure ... sure. So my daughter's been riding since she was nine. She's now 14, and three years ago when our trainer approached us about leasing a mare named Holly, which we did for about a year. And at that same, my daughter was just minimally showing in some local shows kind of getting her feet wet. And then we purchased the mare two years ago and she started doing more showing. And then this past year she did most of, actually I think all of our pinto shows in Washington state. We have an organization called Cascade Pinto and another organization called Pinto of Western Washington, and so she did ... I think it was six shows throughout the year, throughout the show calendar with Holly, and they did really well. She's an all around mare, so she does quite a few events, but we've always been very careful with her. She has top-notch vet care, chiropractic all around, all of her supplements.
Tammy Wojak:
And then at the end of last show season, the trainer rides her once a week and she noticed a little bit of ... she called it, she's a little off. And so we took her over to the specialist, and they diagnosed her, or he diagnosed her, with lateral collateral ligament damage of her coffin joint after an MRI. So we saw him first. We got her in for an MRI and that was her ... her prognosis. She never, or her diagnosis, she never limped, she never favored her feet and it was of both front feet. On her left foot, mild to moderate and on her right foot, moderate to severe.
John Dowdy:
Oh Wow. Okay.
Tammy Wojak:
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
Wow. So you had the MRI, so you were able to pinpoint exactly what was going on there. So what were some of the recommendations to try to help this injury?
Tammy Wojak:
I'll back up just a little bit.
John Dowdy:
Okay.
Tammy Wojak:
So when we [inaudible 00:02:55] took her over to see the veterinarian, he did x-rays and the MRI and couldn't find anything and then recommended having the MRI so we could pinpoint what was really going on with her. It took us about a month to get her into an MRI facility. So we started a rest and rehab protocol that first ... we took her home from that initial appointment and then had 30 days stall rest and hand walking prior to the MRI. The MRI was when we discovered what the ultimate problem was, and about two weeks of that first month of stalled rest is when I started the Equinety. So she was on it probably about two weeks prior to her MRI.
John Dowdy:
Oh, okay. So [crosstalk 00:03:44] tell us a little bit about [crosstalk 00:03:45] how you came across the Equinety and what your view is typically on supplements.
Tammy Wojak:
Sure. She's on the joint supplement regularly. She's on ... got medication, not medications but supplements. She's on everything that can keep her healthy, everything we think she needs.
John Dowdy:
Yup.
Tammy Wojak:
And I ... when, after that initial appointment the specialist said you can take her off everything, she's going to be on stall rest, I did not. I kept her on the joint supplement for the first month and then I pulled her off of it when I started using the Equinety, because I ... I really wanted to know did this ... is this product doing something for her?
John Dowdy:
Right.
Tammy Wojak:
And he recommended a six month rest and rehab protocol for her and or stem cell treatment. We opted out of the stem cell treatment because, just going back and forth with it, I didn't really want to put her through that, and I wanted to see if she could heal on her own without having to do the injections. We knew that this was a fresh injury, so we just wanted to give her a shot at healing herself.
John Dowdy:
Was it possible for her to get back to 100% sound?
Tammy Wojak:
The prognosis he gave us was 75% of being fully sound. She had a 75% chance of coming back 100%.
John Dowdy:
Okay.
Tammy Wojak:
And then he couldn't give me a real definite answer, but he said somewhere between 78 to 80, maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower, of full recovery with the stem cells. And that just wasn't enough for me. If the vet would have said, oh, I can guarantee you she's going to be sound 95% sure of it, I probably would have went for that. But I just didn't, I didn't want to put her through that for that.
John Dowdy:
Sure.
Tammy Wojak:
And you know, after we had been back from the vet for about two weeks and I kept seeing the Facebook ads for Equinety and I kept getting on there and reading all the reviews and all of these people that had tried it for many different things. And then I researched the cost and I thought, man, I'm trying this. If it ... it gets ... if it gives her a better chance of healing, the big selling point for me was the re ... the regrowth and regeneration of the cells. So to me that was, it sounded like, oh, this is something I want to try. This is what she needs to do to heal. So if this can help her, I'm trying it.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, absolutely.
Tammy Wojak:
And so she has been on it since that ... since the two weeks after the initial to now. She's still on it. I'm not taking her off of it.
John Dowdy:
That's great. Now for those of you tuning in for the first time and just kind of learning about this Equinety and what it exactly is, I'll take just a moment to just give you a little bit information on it. Of course, our website is TeamEquinety.Com, and what the Equinety is made of is 100% pure amino acids, which are the building blocks protein, and these amino acids are specifically formulated to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body. And that's what releases the necessary hormones, which help heal the body at a cellular level.
John Dowdy:
So it's actually customizing to each horse and, in Holly's case here, it's going to heal the lateral collateral ligaments, because that's where the healing needed to happen. You could have 12 horses with 12 different issues and that's going to customize to each horse while at the same time there'll be commonalities across the board: softer, shinier coat, stronger hooves. They'll fill out if they need to. I mean they're already filled out, they're not gonna fill out anymore, but just a little bit more information there on Equinety and exactly what it is and how it works. So getting back into the ... the healing process, did you find that Holly had healed ahead of schedule or right on schedule? What did you find there?
Tammy Wojak:
We did the full six months before I took her back and had her rechecked. We ... the protocol was hand walking for 10 minutes, I believe the first month. I'd have to go back and reread it. But along that six month window, increasing the hand walking, adding trotting on straight aways in the arena. At four months, my daughter was able to get on her and just walk under saddle, and I think that mare was like, thank you.
Tammy Wojak:
Because she wanted a job. She really enjoys working and just getting that saddle on her back, she was happy about that. But I waited the full six months. I didn't want to push anything that the vet side, and then we hauled her back over and she got a clean bill of health.
John Dowdy:
That's great!
Tammy Wojak:
He did say she's 100% sound. I see. no problem. Go ahead slowly, which we did. She took little steps forward for quite a long time. She was cleared April 24th and next week, she'll be showing. She showed last month and actually won a high point at our ... one of our Washington Pinto shows, and next week she'll be showing all week. We are very careful with her, but she ... that ... that ... that appointment I was crying. I did not want to go back home and tell my daughter, oh, we're going to wait another six months.
John Dowdy:
Well, and you know what? I think it ... I think it's important, too, for those tuning in, the Equinety product helps in so many ways and we're blessed in that fact. And I guess as a skeptic one could, as they're listening to this, you could make the argument of, well if you didn't give the a Equinety, then the horse had a 75% chance to heal anyways. I mean, so did this really help? Did it not help? Is it all smoke and mirrors? Well, I guess we could answer that question with, what were some of the other benefits that you saw coming out of a horse?
Tammy Wojak:
Funny enough, when you were going over all of the things that this product does when you were talking about coat health and ... she actually is a bay, almost solid Pinto paint registered mare. She has a stripe on her belly and her face has a little more white on it, but she [inaudible 00:10:26] a True Bay, black points bay. And she actually dappled out this year with this product. I have not ever seen a dapple on this mare, and she has them throughout her body. The first show they went to, she actually won under one of the judges in a halter class. She was the grand champion and [inaudible 00:10:49] mares, and that would be with horses that have way more color than her. Her body is nice and filled out. She is very muscly and that shiny great looking coat too. That was another, another added benefit.
John Dowdy:
Right. That's great. Wow! Well I tell you what, this is a ... I'm sure there's going to get a lot ... get a lot of people excited. I mean we try to have fun with these podcasts and get this information out there. There's so many great stories that come in and Tammy, I can't thank you enough for sharing your Equinety story. Is there anything else that we have not touched upon or if there are any ... if there's somebody kind of sitting on the fence that are supplement skeptics where they've been watching the Equinety ads going across?
Tammy Wojak:
Yeah, I would say just give it a try. I mean, what can it hurt? I'm sure happy with how it turned out for us. I would hate for our horse to have been that mare that rehabbed 75% and my daughter to be out for show mare. That would have been devastating for her. And I know there's ups and downs in owning horses, but I think this a terrific product that really does ... it did work for us, and I would say try it.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, I would agree. No doubt there. Well, again, Tammy Wojak from Washington. Thank you so much for being on the call.
Tammy Wojak:
Oh, thank you.
John Dowdy: Alright. Bye. Bye.
Tammy Wojak: Bye.
