Lori Ganacha - Severe Laminitis - Thin Soles -
Now happier and trimming every 3 weeks
John Dowdy:
Hello and welcome to another Equinety podcast. This week we're swinging out to Berthoud, Colorado, and talking with Lori Ganacha. She's got an eight year old mustang that came down with some laminitis and was her first time dealing with something like this. I'm excited to share this one with you because we've been getting a lot of phone calls and emails with horses with hoof issues and thin soles and all this type of stuff, and this is going to be the perfect, at least in my opinion, perfect podcast to touch upon these things and what this mustang has gone through. So without further ado, Lori, welcome to The Equinety podcast.
Lori Ganacha:
Thank you, John. It's good to be here. I'm excited to share my story.
John Dowdy:
That's great. Well, we're excited to have you. I believe it was back in June of this year, right around the 13th, so it's been about four months ago, you had reached out to us and I believe you and I spoke directly. You were telling me some things that were going on with your mustang. Why don't we just step back in time a little bit and share with everybody what you were going through at that time?
8 Year Mustang With An Onset Severe Laminitis
Lori Ganacha:
Okay, John. Well, I've got an eight year old mustang, as you said, and last May, approximately five, six months ago, he had, we had, I had what I would consider the perfect storm for a laminitic episode with my mustang, who has never had that problem before. I'll tell you what the perfect storm was. It was the beginning of spring. There was green grass coming up. They were out on pasture. I was limiting their pasture time. I've got two other horses as well, but spring grassing I've always been aware of, so it's not a full blown thing. I try to acclimate them to it. So they were on spring grass. He got his hoofs trimmed because he's a barefoot horse, and, without speaking unkindly about the farrier who did it, it was very, very, very short trim. To the point where he was lame on all four feet right after the trim. So that was the second part of this perfect storm.
The third part was we got a horrific spring storm two days later that was a combination of snow and rain and cold and nasty, windy ick. So that was the third part, and the fourth part of this perfect storm, I think, was the spring hormonal levels in this mustang. He came out of that storm because there wasn't a lot we could do during it. I got the vet out here, and he was doing okay in the mud because he had a little bit of insulation and a little bit of cold on his feet, but we took x-rays of this lame horse and he had rotated slightly in his coffin bone.
As I said, his feet were just ridiculously short trimmed and my vet basically said in a nutshell, "The next two weeks is going to be critical for him. I can't give you a great outlook on this, but I'm not going to say it couldn't be, but I'm not going to do that for you." So we also tested him for insulin resistance, which he was, and he was put on a pretty strenuous diet. She told me he's by no means obese but he needs to drop about 40-50 pounds just to take some pressure off of his feet. So that was where we sat there. I was going through this two week period, trying to keep him as comfortable as possible. I did get him in some soft ride boots, but he was pretty sore dude, let me tell you. He ended up going in his stall for the most part. Because he was so sore, we didn't want him to do anything silly if he had the opportunity to do it, like think he feels good and go run and buck or anything.
Plus he had the soft ride boots on, which was keeping him a little bit less mobile. So the outcome was not looking completely rosy. I, John, have never dealt with laminitis in a horse before, not my own. So as we say, you learn a lot about the things you have the problems with and so I was doing all sorts of research, but what I was doing was I was really praying about this and I got a lot of people on board to pray about this. I felt a certain amount of guilt that I think a lot of people feel when their horse goes through something like this. We always say maybe I would've, should've, could've done something different, but I started praying a lot about it.
Got a ton of people praying and in fact you, John, when I called you, you prayed, and so that takes us to the next two weeks. He was doing a little bit better. His feet didn't look a bit different. They were still the short trim mess that they started out with. He was on a diet which was making him less than a hundred percent happy, and just a little side note, I did talk to another farrier, actually my vet's husband, who didn't give me the best outlook for this either. My vet also told me that there was a potential that he could have to be put into these wooden clogs, which I've never heard of those, but something that might help him to keep everything stable inside of his hoof, at some point in the game so that he could rejoin his other two friends and be part of the herd again.
He talked to me a lot about laminitis. As a farrier, he had a really somewhat grim outlook on the whole thing. He says it can just be ugly and messy and a downward spiral. He said, "But I guess there's a little bit of hope," and I just kept thinking, but there's a lot of prayers and that's what kept me going through this. But in the meantime, I was doing a lot of research and this and that. My vet did put him on a couple of products to help them out a little bit. But then a friend of mine from Montana called me out of the blue, and Rod and I were talking about this laminitic episode. For some reason, Rod just said, "Have you ever looked into Equinety?" I'm like, no, because I've never heard of it.
He said, "Well, I've never used it and I've never tried it, but you might want to look into this." I just thought that was kind of ironic and probably a God orchestrated comment that came out of his mouth. We'd never really used it. So, but he's also a horse chiropractor and a horse healer. He said, "You might want to look into this." So of course I did. I called you John, within 10 minutes of getting off the phone with Rod and we talked about it. I told you what was going on and you so kindly said, "Get this horse on this product, I will overnight it to you and get him on it ASAP." So I did, and he's been on it ever since. He's expecting his next load of it coming in the mail today.
The Road To Recovery & Regrowing His Thin Soles
John Dowdy:
Right. So our phone call was on June 13th which, today the time of this recording is October. So that's right at four months. So you received the product and how quickly did you begin to notice some changes?
Lori Ganacha:
It was kind of difficult at first because he's in the soft ride boots, but I noticed a change in attitude. I just noticed something different, something that changed within probably a week to 10 days. Two weeks later, I did take off ... I was taking off soft boots periodically, but I took them off and I got a really good look at his feet a couple of weeks later and I was like, "Oh my gosh, he's growing some hoof." The thing about that, John, is from all my research and from talking to people, et cetera, and I mean professionals, with a horse that has had a laminitic episode, hoof growth is ridiculously slow. Horribly slow, and that's a very painful part of this whole process is waiting for your horse's hoof to grow.
My vet did tell me, she said, "Your horse will grow a brand new hoof within a year just naturally." But with the Equinety, I think he's going to grow a brand new hoof way before a year. To go back a little way, so I was checking his hoof growth and within four weeks it was like, "Wow, I think he's got a quarter, half an inch of growth."
John Dowdy:
Wow.
Lori Ganacha:
That was amazing. Remember the short trim?
John Dowdy:
Oh yeah.
Lori Ganacha:
Yes. So within six or eight weeks, because we were limiting him and I was exercising him but not overdoing it, not giving him the opportunity to go nuts and taking off his boots, getting them out of those and everything else. I would say within six to seven weeks, he needed his feet trimmed. We were trying to get him out of those boots and get him on a whole different path with this whole thing. So, yeah, he needed his feet trimmed and he needed his feet trimmed because they were about a half an inch.
John Dowdy:
That's incredible.
Lori Ganacha:
That's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing. So we did trim his feet and I will tell you he did get a little sore from that because he was used to having that growth, and then we took it off. We didn't take too much off. He got a little sore. He got through that very, very well. We got him out of soft ride boots. He's been out of them ever since. He gets his feet trimmed every three weeks. We're no longer using nippers on him, we're just rasping them every three weeks to keep them where we want them. I tell you John, every three weeks he needs this done. I'm not willing to wait longer because I don't want to have to use the nippers because I don't want that kind of a change real quick.
John Dowdy:
So if we back up a little bit, so you're dealing with an extreme case here. The vet's not giving you a very good outcome. Not really wanting to say a whole lot, and then of course your farrier is giving you all of the bad possible outcomes that could come from laminitis. So here you are. So, you get a little prayer chain going and then throw in some Equinety and now we are with some crazy hoof growth, healthy hoofs. So has the vet or this farrier that you initially spoke with, that were giving you all the outcomes, have they seen the horse since or lately or since they been on Equinety?
Lori Ganacha:
Absolutely. Well first of all, my vet was just, she was being tactful and just not wanting to say he'll be just fine because we did not know. She wasn't really giving me a horrible outlook. She just said, "I couldn't give you a perfectly positive outlook because I didn't know." She said, "I've seen cases exactly like his either go be great or completely fall apart." So I appreciated her honesty with that. Absolutely. She's been out here several times since then and in fact, she was out here a couple of weeks ago looking at one of my other horses and I just said, "You want to look at my mustang's feet?" She's like, "Absolutely." She said, "They look amazing." Amazing. The other thing that I thought was interesting is, at first with the x-ray she said, "You can see where some of the laminae has died" and this and that and everything else.
She said, "At some point pretty soon, we're going to be, someone's going to be rasping him and it's going to start getting kind of grainy because of that dead laminae." It's never happened yet. In fact, my farrier was like, "Lori, I just don't see anything that even looks like this horse has ever been laminitic." But I do know some of the laminae died, but I think, I don't know, by the power of God. I told God from the beginning, if you heal this mustang, I will give you all the glory. God's got all the glory, but God also turned me on to the Equinety through my friend Rod, and I think the perfect storm of blessings was culminated as well as the perfect storm of how this happened.
John Dowdy:
Sure.
Lori Ganacha:
It's called a great vet, a great farrier, Equinety, but number one, God and a lot of love involved in this whole thing.
How Equinety Works
John Dowdy:
Absolutely. Well, I tell you, we are blessed. Our company is blessed for all the things that this product has done for horses from one extreme to the other and even getting into the performance horse, which doesn't really have a lot of issues, it helps with recovery and stamina. What this product, for those of you tuning in for the first time, what this product is actually doing, first of all, it's 100% pure amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. We all have to have them. But these are specifically formulated and put in this stack of eight amino acids to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body. That's what releases the necessary hormones, which then help the body heal at a cellular level. So in this case, we're dealing with laminitis, also insulin resistance, which by the way, how's the IR doing?
Back to Lori
Lori Ganacha:
John, we haven't retested it. His whole diet has changed. So I'm giving it ... We'll probably have it retested in the next several months. I can tell it's different because in the beginning, he had a pretty hard crusty neck. He always has. My vet is like, "His neck is so much softer and it's actually going down." I would hope that has something to do with the Equinety. I'm assuming it does, but also with insulin resistance, there's got to be a pretty complete feed change, which he's on a complete feed change. He's no longer on a super strict diet, but he's on a different diet.
John Dowdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, and so when we're talking about ... These are completely different things going on, laminitis versus insulin resistance. Then you look at the Equinety. So from the Equinety aspect, the amino acids stimulate the pituitary to release hormones. So essentially what we're doing is we're giving the horse what it needs to release hormones and then the body decides where to send the hormones for the healing. That's why we can deal with laminitis. We can help with the IR. Now of course, keep in mind it's all about the proper nutrition and exercise and things for the horse. But when you add the Equinety to it, it's going to help enhance everything that you're doing. So it's not like it's the one that one all, be all kind of a thing. But boy, you put this thing in there and it is a definitely a power packed supplement for the horse.
If you're tuning in and just finding out about this for the first time, go on our Facebook page, look at the reviews. There's tons and tons and tons of them, our website team equinety.com, but we try to do these podcast once a week, or we are doing them once a week, for testimonial purposes like this. You can hear not from us as a company, but in this case, Lori, you are a customer that was looking for a solution or a possible solution and ended up being exactly what you were looking for. My opinion would be that it probably exceeded your expectations.
Lori Ganacha:
It did. It's something that he'll be on for life, which is great. The price is right. I would do anything for any of my horses or my dogs, which by the way, I got a dog that's going to be going on it as well. But I just have to think of God's orchestration in this. There was no reason for Rod to bring this up, and I'm not sure if I would've had the wherewithal to look into it if it wasn't brought up to me.
John Dowdy:
That's right. That's right.
Lori Ganacha:
You just have to say, wow, it's supposed to be this way. So like the perfect storm that created this laminitic episode, there was the perfect storm that created the outcome, which is very, very, very good.
John Dowdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that's right. Like I said before, we're definitely blessed and what it's doing for horses around the world. That's why our tagline is helping horses worldwide and I believe there's a blessing that goes out with every tub.
Lori Ganacha:
[inaudible 00:18:40].
John Dowdy:
Now other thing, in our pre-call, you had mentioned also the soles had thickened. What can you tell us about that?
Lori Ganacha:
Absolutely. So we haven't had a lot of moisture in Colorado here for about four months, and so his feet have not really been out in mud or much any thing for four months. He's growing sole like nobody's business, and because we haven't had any moisture to help him slough that soul, it's pretty apparent that there is a lot of it in there. Just a lot of sole that's sloughing off. He's doing it himself. We did get some moisture a couple of weeks ago, which really helped to get that sole shedding out of there. But it is just ridiculous the sheer amount and thickness of it, which anybody with a laminitic horse knows, especially they've had a rotating of the coffin bone, you want as much sole depth as you can get. He's got so much that, and maybe it's just him in particular, but I don't think so, that the shedding is ridiculous.
Because I won't let my farrier cut it out with a knife. In my opinion, it just needs to slough off naturally. But he's like, "Wow. It just keeps coming." So I think that that's ... There's so many horses with thin soles and that creates so many problems. Laminitis is just one of the problems that creates. I do equine body work, so I run across a lot of people and a lot of horses, and a lot of people are talking about thin soles. I don't know where that comes from or why that is, but if there's a way to make them thicker, let's do it.
John Dowdy:
Sure, absolutely. Yep. No, you've got to have a healthy hoof and everything to have a horse that's rideable and can perform and do the things you need it to do. So that's awesome.
Lori Ganacha:
Comfortable and happy and happy in his own hooves. It's amazing. It's just amazing John, the hoof growth and the sole growth.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, it is, and this is one of the things that we hear this time and time and time again. Of course we have a lot of people, "Oh, does this help with hoof growth?" So I'm really excited that we were able to capture your story on this because this was a pretty important one. Severe type of a situation and we've got a couple ads running right now with some x-rays of showing the thickness of souls and plenty of before and after pictures. So if you're dealing with a situation, whether it be laminitis or thrush or white line or anything to do with the hoof, and need faster, healthier growing hooves then this product, not only does it help with that, it's going to help with overall healing and balance from the inside out.
Now a lot of times, and we hear this a lot, you'll have a horse that might be going through, let's take this particular situation. Or they might be the pasture ornament, retired, or maybe they just are getting older and they don't feel as well anymore. A lot of feedback we've heard, and I'll ask you this, if you've heard of this or seen this for your self, when you start giving the Equinety, they seem to have a bit more spunk and you might see him out there running around, bucking and playing. Is that what you've experienced as well with your mustang?
Lori Ganacha:
I have, I have. I've stood in my house and took videos of him. It's like, "Wow, I'm glad I'm not on his back because he can buck like no one's business. He'll just do laps of bucking and bucking and that's beautiful. It's because he feels good and because he's happy. So it's like a happy horse is a happy owner's horse, and it's beautiful. I have seen that in him.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Now for those listening, and don't mistaken this as this product gives your horse some heavy loaded caffeine or anything. There's nothing in here that makes your horse hot or make them buck or do anything. They just feel better, so they might have a little bit extra giddy up and go. So nothing to be alarmed about. They just feel better. That's really what it is. Well Lori, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to share your story here on the Equinety podcast. Before we sign off, is there anything else that you would like to say or give anybody any little push over the fence if they're still thinking about it or anything else you'd like to say?
Lori Ganacha:
Well, I really appreciate the opportunity to share my story because it's a big story and I know that there's other people that have or will be going through the same thing that I've gone through. So, if you hear this and unfortunately if you ever get into this situation, because sometimes it just happens, remember this product. It really has been remarkable for us and I think it will be for you and it's not just laminitis, it's with anything. It's worth a try. That's for sure. If it works for you like it works for me and my horse, I think you made a really wise move. It's just one of those things that a lot of people may not want to try it unless there a problem, but you might be able to alleviate a problem if you get on board before the problem starts.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of people that use it as a preventative type thing because you're helping to keep those cells operating at their optimal levels. So it might be a good preventative as well. All right, well, Lori Ganacha from Berthoud, Colorado, thank you so much.
Lori Ganacha:
Well, thank you John. I appreciate you having me on your show.
John Dowdy:
You bet. Bye-Bye.
