# Only Sweats on One Side



## Ryle (Jul 13, 2007)

Patchy sweating can be due to nerve damage, neurological disease or even Cushing's disease. Really with a 20ish horse with such random signs (lameness in two diagonal legs and patchy sweating) it may or may not all be related.

One thing to consider with this horse is that what may be called narcolepsy in horses is most likely recumbent sleep deprivation and this may be the factor that ties it all in together. Do you ever see this horse lay down? If not, she may be not be able to lay down for some reason---pain, balance issues, insecurity in the environment....


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## sweetypie16 (Jun 19, 2007)

Looks like the vet covered it


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## JustDressageIt (Oct 4, 2007)

Hi, Ryle, 
Yes, the vet mentioned nerve damage; I was wondering if there was anything else that could be wrong.
As for your question: yes, he does lie down. In fact, the day that we brought him in I saw him lying down, and it took a lot to get him up.. and his tongue was sticking out. We tried loud noises, and yelling at him to stand up, but it finally took physical force (we did not beat him!) to get him to stand up - not sure if he's just lazy, or if something was wrong there.
Thanks for your help!


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## Frog (May 24, 2007)

A friend of mine's horse had the same sweating problem, hers was in the shoulder only and it was a pinched nerve.


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## Frog (May 24, 2007)

A friend of mine's horse had the same sweating problem, hers was in the shoulder only and it was a pinched nerve. 

She got my chiro to have a look and sorted it out, no problems now.


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## Ryle (Jul 13, 2007)

With the fact that it's so hard for him to get up, I would bet that he doesn't lay down to sleep nearly as much as he should. And even though horses can rest standing up, they do need to lay at regular intervals to finish a sleep cycle and really get rested. 

If the vet hasn't already, maybe you should have the horse checked for neck and back pain. Many older horses have issues with balance, abnormal gait, etc triggered by pain in the neck or back because just about any movement of the body affects those two areas. Older horses may have changes in the vertebrae that cause impingement on the spinal cord. You can try the carrot trick to see if the horse can reach it's nose around all the way to it's side. This may give you some indication if there is a problem with the neck.


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