The goal is to get excellent pain relief.
She said she felt like she was 19 again. ... NO pain whatsoever.
Exactly, thanks.
Barbaro's X-ray and recent news
Moderators: Roguelet, hpkingjr, WaveMaster
-
Tucumcari
- Chef de Race: Brilliant
- Posts: 3754
- Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:51 am
- Location: Here and there
Re: Epidural
Last edited by Tucumcari on Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Tucumcari
- Chef de Race: Brilliant
- Posts: 3754
- Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:51 am
- Location: Here and there
Excuse me, but your ideas about epis are - to quote you - just stupid. You don't have any clue as to how much of a dose of epi med he is getting.
excuse me, BUT are you familliar with the drugs Lidocane and xylazne(Rompun)? Do you know the drugs commonly used in Epi's in the equine patient? Do you have any experirnce with an epidural other thanmaybe the birthing room? Clearly... No.
You are right, they are taking MORE than the "edge" off.
Excuse me, but they are. Anyone who's had an epi knows pretty darn well how much pain an epi can block. Epis are not used just for "taking the edge off".
Again exactly, and thanks!
You make remarks like you're in the know about exactly how his pain is being managed, what meds, how often, what dosage. Please, do enlighten us as to how you are privy to this select and medically-technical information about how much of what Barbaro is receiving.
Are you familliar in any way shape or form with equine medicine and what is involed?Are you even remotrly privy to any medical info either human or equine? All you have to do is experience an lesser to equal injury t know. Do you have ANY first hand experience with catastrophic injuries in horses?
Again I say, Barbaro would lie down and wish his own death if he could feel what his body is experienceing.
Excuse me again, but no one has said that it was. Please stop trying to put your own spin on what others say. I merely said what my firsthand experience with an epidural was like. I didn't feel any of the labor pains as the birth became imminent. I'd call that just a wee bit more than "taking the edge off". Oh, and by the way, I normally weighed around 100 lbs. and I delivered an almost 9-lb. baby, so I'm pretty sure that the labor pains would have been hideous without the epidural. Not nearly as long-lasting as Barbaro's pain would be without his meds, but certainly right up there on the pain scale with his.
He is not 'drugged to the gills', as some keep saying. His pain is being "managed", and his activities certainly are not those of an animal that is drugged as much as people keep saying. He's bright, he's energetic, he's playful, his appetite is "voracious"...doesn't sound like a horse who is ready to die.
JJ[/quote]
excuse me, BUT are you familliar with the drugs Lidocane and xylazne(Rompun)? Do you know the drugs commonly used in Epi's in the equine patient? Do you have any experirnce with an epidural other thanmaybe the birthing room? Clearly... No.
Epis in childbirth are not meant to totally mask the pain and don't last that long. They are meant to take the edge off. That is NOT what is happening here.
You are right, they are taking MORE than the "edge" off.
Excuse me, but they are. Anyone who's had an epi knows pretty darn well how much pain an epi can block. Epis are not used just for "taking the edge off".
Again exactly, and thanks!
You make remarks like you're in the know about exactly how his pain is being managed, what meds, how often, what dosage. Please, do enlighten us as to how you are privy to this select and medically-technical information about how much of what Barbaro is receiving.
Are you familliar in any way shape or form with equine medicine and what is involed?Are you even remotrly privy to any medical info either human or equine? All you have to do is experience an lesser to equal injury t know. Do you have ANY first hand experience with catastrophic injuries in horses?
Childbirth CAN be done and survived without an epi ... it's just not fun.
Again I say, Barbaro would lie down and wish his own death if he could feel what his body is experienceing.
The same cannot be said of pulverizing your foot then losing 80% of the other one.
Excuse me again, but no one has said that it was. Please stop trying to put your own spin on what others say. I merely said what my firsthand experience with an epidural was like. I didn't feel any of the labor pains as the birth became imminent. I'd call that just a wee bit more than "taking the edge off". Oh, and by the way, I normally weighed around 100 lbs. and I delivered an almost 9-lb. baby, so I'm pretty sure that the labor pains would have been hideous without the epidural. Not nearly as long-lasting as Barbaro's pain would be without his meds, but certainly right up there on the pain scale with his.
He is not 'drugged to the gills', as some keep saying. His pain is being "managed", and his activities certainly are not those of an animal that is drugged as much as people keep saying. He's bright, he's energetic, he's playful, his appetite is "voracious"...doesn't sound like a horse who is ready to die.
JJ[/quote]
-
Tucumcari
- Chef de Race: Brilliant
- Posts: 3754
- Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:51 am
- Location: Here and there
[/quote]Tucumcari wrote:Excuse me, but your ideas about epis are - to quote you - just stupid. You don't have any clue as to how much of a dose of epi med he is getting.
excuse me, BUT are you familliar with the drugs Lidocane and xylazne(Rompun)? Do you know the drugs commonly used in Epi's in the equine patient? Do you have any experirnce with an epidural other thanmaybe the birthing room? Clearly... No.Epis in childbirth are not meant to totally mask the pain and don't last that long. They are meant to take the edge off. That is NOT what is happening here.
You are right, they are taking MORE than the "edge" off.
Excuse me, but they are. Anyone who's had an epi knows pretty darn well how much pain an epi can block. Epis are not used just for "taking the edge off".
Again exactly, and thanks!
You make remarks like you're in the know about exactly how his pain is being managed, what meds, how often, what dosage. Please, do enlighten us as to how you are privy to this select and medically-technical information about how much of what Barbaro is receiving.
Are you familliar in any way shape or form with equine medicine and what is involed?Are you even remotrly privy to any medical info either human or equine? All you have to do is experience an lesser to equal injury t know. Do you have ANY first hand experience with catastrophic injuries in horses?Childbirth CAN be done and survived without an epi ... it's just not fun.
Again I say, Barbaro would lie down and wish his own death if he could feel what his body is experienceing.The same cannot be said of pulverizing your foot then losing 80% of the other one.
I'd call that just a wee bit more than "taking the edge off". Oh, and by the way, I normally weighed around 100 lbs. and I delivered an almost 9-lb. baby, so I'm pretty sure that the labor pains would have been hideous without the epidural. Not nearly as long-lasting as Barbaro's pain would be without his meds, but certainly right up there on the pain scale with his.
Again,exactly.
He is not 'drugged to the gills', as some keep saying. His pain is being "managed", and his activities certainly are not those of an animal that is drugged as much as people keep saying. He's bright, he's energetic, he's playful, his appetite is "voracious"...doesn't sound like a horse who is ready to die.
JJ
Duh, he's bright cause he can't feel the pain... as yuu were in labor with a 9 lb baby bein pushe out of s maybe 2 inch hole... god bless the mracle if modern meds... And again thanks for proving my point.
I'll say it again.
If ANY CREATURE has been drugged for TWO MONTHS so their body can't process the amount of pain it is really experiencing, that is NOT NORMAL.
You CANNOT compare an epi for childbirth to what Barbaro is going through. Childbirth epis do not last two months (though I'm sure there are some parents who wish they'd last 2 years
)
TWO MONTHS.
Without the epi, HIS BODY WOULD HAVE GONE INTO SHOCK AND HE WOULD HAVE DIED already.
Without an epi, a woman giving birth is in a buttload of pain, BUT SHE DOES NOT GO INTO SHOCK AND DIE.
If ANY CREATURE has been drugged for TWO MONTHS so their body can't process the amount of pain it is really experiencing, that is NOT NORMAL.
You CANNOT compare an epi for childbirth to what Barbaro is going through. Childbirth epis do not last two months (though I'm sure there are some parents who wish they'd last 2 years
)
TWO MONTHS.
Without the epi, HIS BODY WOULD HAVE GONE INTO SHOCK AND HE WOULD HAVE DIED already.
Without an epi, a woman giving birth is in a buttload of pain, BUT SHE DOES NOT GO INTO SHOCK AND DIE.
-
arganaut
- Maiden Special Weight
- Posts: 155
- Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:18 am
- Location: Sydney, Australia
- Contact:
Barbaro's X-ray and recent news
Last edited by arganaut on Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
I had my spine fused, and I had bone grafts done with bone taken from both of my hips. I was on an IV system that gave me a double dose of some stuff ten times stronger than morphine (can't remember what it's called). I walked with a walker instead of a sling. I laughed, I ate, and I slept through the night on the stuff. The only time I woke up was to push the button, and I started doing that in my sleep pretty quick. Once that got pulled, the pain was so bad that I blacked out for most of 12 hours until the doctor ordered IV morphine for me. Yeah, I acted kinda normal when I was on that IV system, but that doesn't mean that I had a good quality of life, nor does it mean that I was "normal". I went through childbirth sans drugs (not by choice), and believe you me, that was a cakewalk compared to the pain after my surgery, and a lot of the pain before the surgery. Barbaro's got a bit more going on in his broken leg than I did in my back.
To this day, my pain hasn't changed from what it was before the surgery. Most days it's worse. I'm not only "drugged to the gills", I'm plain stupid high all the time. My grafts healed though, so there's talk of permanent nerve damage with me. I haven't heard anyone mention that about Barbaro yet, and trust me, that's not an easy hill to climb.
I've been briefly considered for a "pain pump", which would be a permanent epidural of sorts. Mine was going to be straight morphine. You can use that in a horse epidural, and I'd be shocked if Barbaro was getting anything less.
If I go off my drugs now, I puke and pass out from the pain. I would take great offense if anyone would suggest that my pain was being managed and say that I wasn't "drugged to the gills" just because I'm acting "normal" to the unsuspecting eye. I ate dinner tonight, despite the fact that my back was killing me. It wasn't enough to stop me today. People that don't know me well can't tell that I'm high as a kite 24/7 so that I can get out of bed and cook dinner and hang out with my daughter and my pets. When I had my drugs taken away (to make sure that my body really couldn't make enough pain killer on its own, since I'd been on so much stuff for so long), I could barely do anything, and I didn't want to move when I had to.
I've worked with plenty of broken horse bones, just not on a racetrack. I can imagine what Dr. Dean and the Jacksons are going through, because I've had to be there with both parties in the same situations. My heart aches for them as well as Barbaro. No matter what the outcome is, they're going to have people across the country and around the world criticizing them.
And now, time for me to be blunt. Barbaro's not living normally, and he'll never be close to that ever again. He's had four-fifths of a hoof wall removed. He had a major fusion attempt fail once already. He's fighting an infection on two fronts. He has an epidural in; for every minute that an epidural's in, and every time you change the catheter, the risk of infection increases. From what little I know about fake horse limbs, I'm fairly certain that he's not a candidate for one because of that foundered foot. It drives me crazy to read that he's "doing well" and "comfortable". The articles about him lately make it sound like he'd be that way without an epidural, since it was only mentioned once that I saw on the BH website. It's giving everyone a false sense of security and leading them to believe that it's okay for him to live like this. It's not any better for him to be in his situation than it is for me to be in my current situation.
It makes me very sad to watch this, knowing that he's in very good hands, and he still only has a snowball's chance in hell of ever making it out of that hospital. I'm not the only one that feels this way. There's still some people that need to take the rose-colored glasses off and realize that life isn't always pretty, nor fair, even for horses like Barbaro.
There. I weighed in with my opinion. Now, back to my regularly scheduled lurking......
PS to Sam- AMEN!!!!
To this day, my pain hasn't changed from what it was before the surgery. Most days it's worse. I'm not only "drugged to the gills", I'm plain stupid high all the time. My grafts healed though, so there's talk of permanent nerve damage with me. I haven't heard anyone mention that about Barbaro yet, and trust me, that's not an easy hill to climb.
I've been briefly considered for a "pain pump", which would be a permanent epidural of sorts. Mine was going to be straight morphine. You can use that in a horse epidural, and I'd be shocked if Barbaro was getting anything less.
If I go off my drugs now, I puke and pass out from the pain. I would take great offense if anyone would suggest that my pain was being managed and say that I wasn't "drugged to the gills" just because I'm acting "normal" to the unsuspecting eye. I ate dinner tonight, despite the fact that my back was killing me. It wasn't enough to stop me today. People that don't know me well can't tell that I'm high as a kite 24/7 so that I can get out of bed and cook dinner and hang out with my daughter and my pets. When I had my drugs taken away (to make sure that my body really couldn't make enough pain killer on its own, since I'd been on so much stuff for so long), I could barely do anything, and I didn't want to move when I had to.
I've worked with plenty of broken horse bones, just not on a racetrack. I can imagine what Dr. Dean and the Jacksons are going through, because I've had to be there with both parties in the same situations. My heart aches for them as well as Barbaro. No matter what the outcome is, they're going to have people across the country and around the world criticizing them.
And now, time for me to be blunt. Barbaro's not living normally, and he'll never be close to that ever again. He's had four-fifths of a hoof wall removed. He had a major fusion attempt fail once already. He's fighting an infection on two fronts. He has an epidural in; for every minute that an epidural's in, and every time you change the catheter, the risk of infection increases. From what little I know about fake horse limbs, I'm fairly certain that he's not a candidate for one because of that foundered foot. It drives me crazy to read that he's "doing well" and "comfortable". The articles about him lately make it sound like he'd be that way without an epidural, since it was only mentioned once that I saw on the BH website. It's giving everyone a false sense of security and leading them to believe that it's okay for him to live like this. It's not any better for him to be in his situation than it is for me to be in my current situation.
It makes me very sad to watch this, knowing that he's in very good hands, and he still only has a snowball's chance in hell of ever making it out of that hospital. I'm not the only one that feels this way. There's still some people that need to take the rose-colored glasses off and realize that life isn't always pretty, nor fair, even for horses like Barbaro.
There. I weighed in with my opinion. Now, back to my regularly scheduled lurking......
PS to Sam- AMEN!!!!
Kari wrote:There. I weighed in with my opinion. Now, back to my regularly scheduled lurking......
And you've said it better than probably any other person here could. Like I said earlier, anyone still advocating his continued treatment has either never sat death watch on a patient like this or endured it like you have.
genuflects
-
klbash2000
- Yearling
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 7:41 am
- Location: central KY
Barbaro
Like I said earlier, anyone still advocating his continued treatment has either never sat death watch on a patient like this or endured it like you have.
Sam, you are making assumptions. I have "sat death watch" multiple times and have made the decision myself to euthanize many times, sometimes immediately after the injury, sometimes months down the road and I disagree with you about euthanizing Barbaro at this time.
I understand from your, and others', emphatic posts that you don't want the horse to suffer and you are trying to be in the best interest of the horse. I agree with you that if there no quality of life in the future that a life should not be extended just because it can be. But what I and others are trying to say is that the situation may not be as dire as you are afraid it is and if the future is not as dim as you fear then it's reasonable to keep the horse comfortable and give him a chance to live a long and comfortable life. The horse is on pain management, whether you want to call it drugged to the gills or whatever, and he DOESN'T feel the catastrophic injuries, or if he does it is at a low enough level that he is still bright, alert and eating well. So giving him time to try to heal his injuries while he does not suffer seems reasonable to those that are monitoring him throughout the day. No matter what, whether the end result is very good mobility or euthanasia, he is still going to be injured today, these things don't heal fast. The fact that we have heard about it for 2 months does not make it slower than normal, it is a slow process that can have setbacks and still turn out well. The laminitis is a big deal but every second of it occurred while he was under high-quality vet care with no expense spared in treatment, if any laminitis case was going to have a good outcome, he has the best chance since there were no delays or shortcuts in treatment. The people that disagree with immediately euthanizing Barbaro are not heartless, most of them are taking the words of the skilled caretakers who see him every day at face value, that the horse is currently comfortable and still has a chance of healing. If the horse stopped eating or became depressed or gave signs that it was too much for him, I believe you would have many that are currently arguing to continue quickly change their opinion based on the changed facts. And most importantly the people responsible for making that decision have stated that is their intention: to only continue while he is comfortable and can still recover.
Re: Barbaro
(Cracks knuckles) So much for me going back to lurking.
Just so that I can have a better understanding of where you're coming from, are you or were you in the veterinary field in some way?
As I said before, his pastern didn't fuse on the first try, he has 80% of his hoof wall gone on one foot, and he's battling not one, but two infections, one being within the surgical area. What, then, would you consider a "dire" situation?
I look bright because I feel like I'm on the Magical Mystery Tour all day, every day. It wasn't so bad during the first couple of months. Once you can't figure out when it's going to end, though, it burns you out mentally, even if you are high. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, let alone a horse who has no concept of time like a human does.
This is, by far, the best thread that we've had going in a while.
klbash2000 wrote:I have "sat death watch" multiple times and have made the decision myself to euthanize many times, sometimes immediately after the injury, sometimes months down the road...
Just so that I can have a better understanding of where you're coming from, are you or were you in the veterinary field in some way?
klbash2000 wrote:...But what I and others are trying to say is that the situation may not be as dire as you are afraid it is ...
As I said before, his pastern didn't fuse on the first try, he has 80% of his hoof wall gone on one foot, and he's battling not one, but two infections, one being within the surgical area. What, then, would you consider a "dire" situation?
klbash2000 wrote:The horse is on pain management, whether you want to call it drugged to the gills or whatever, and he DOESN'T feel the catastrophic injuries, or if he does it is at a low enough level that he is still bright, alert and eating well.
I look bright because I feel like I'm on the Magical Mystery Tour all day, every day. It wasn't so bad during the first couple of months. Once you can't figure out when it's going to end, though, it burns you out mentally, even if you are high. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, let alone a horse who has no concept of time like a human does.
This is, by far, the best thread that we've had going in a while.
-
Tucumcari
- Chef de Race: Brilliant
- Posts: 3754
- Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:51 am
- Location: Here and there
And now, time for me to be blunt. Barbaro's not living normally, and he'll never be close to that ever again. He's had four-fifths of a hoof wall removed. He had a major fusion attempt fail once already. He's fighting an infection on two fronts. He has an epidural in; for every minute that an epidural's in, and every time you change the catheter, the risk of infection increases. From what little I know about fake horse limbs, I'm fairly certain that he's not a candidate for one because of that foundered foot. It drives me crazy to read that he's "doing well" and "comfortable". The articles about him lately make it sound like he'd be that way without an epidural, since it was only mentioned once that I saw on the BH website. It's giving everyone a false sense of security and leading them to believe that it's okay for him to live like this. It's not any better for him to be in his situation than it is for me to be in my current situation.
It makes me very sad to watch this, knowing that he's in very good hands, and he still only has a snowball's chance in hell of ever making it out of that hospital. I'm not the only one that feels this way. There's still some people that need to take the rose-colored glasses off and realize that life isn't always pretty, nor fair, even for horses like Barbaro.
There. I weighed in with my opinion. Now, back to my regularly scheduled lurking......
PS to Sam- AMEN!!!![/quote]
Very poigiant, Kari. Well spoken.
It makes me very sad to watch this, knowing that he's in very good hands, and he still only has a snowball's chance in hell of ever making it out of that hospital. I'm not the only one that feels this way. There's still some people that need to take the rose-colored glasses off and realize that life isn't always pretty, nor fair, even for horses like Barbaro.
There. I weighed in with my opinion. Now, back to my regularly scheduled lurking......
PS to Sam- AMEN!!!!
[/quote]
Very poigiant, Kari. Well spoken.