http://lindayezak.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/cry-for-the-horses/
Unfortunately, by the time Chris and Jenn got Angie, she was in the advanced euthanasia stage of DSLD, a disease that inflames the animal’s connective tissue. She had been misdiagnosed, and the previous owner hadn’t bothered with a second opinion. The kindest thing to do was to put her down.
Your connective tissue is a fibrous material that provides supportive structure to your body tissue and organs. It’s what gives you shape, holding the framework of your body and cells together.
Your connective tissue is mainly composed of two structural proteins, collagen and elastin. For many connective tissue disorders, an immune system response, directed against your own connective tissue, causes inflammation that damages your collagen and elastin.
The cause for your immune system to turn on the body its designed to protect is unknown.
Autoimmunity is not the only basis giving rise to a connective tissue issue. A couple connective tissue diseases have a genetic component cause involved, like:
Oftentimes, the initial symptoms for an individual connective tissue disorder overlap with those of another, such as fatigue, fever and weight loss. So sometimes, the diagnosis of undifferentiated connective tissue disease may be given until a more defining set of symptoms appear.
- homocystinuria
- Marfan syndrome
- osteogenesis imperfecta
- Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
A connective tissue disease can manifest itself via a myriad of symptoms that indicate various parts of your body are being affected. For instance, here are a couple areas and just some corresponding symptoms:
Autoimmune connective tissue disorder development can arise slowly or swiftly. And you may go through health oscillations between periods of remission and flares. Feeling healthy today, but perhaps not the next.
- joints ~ arthralgia, arthritis
- vascular ~ thrombosis, vasculitis
- nervous system ~ seizures, neuropathy
- muscles ~ muscle weakness, myalgia, myositis
- eyes ~ dry eyes, conjunctivitis, ocular inflammation
- salivary glands ~ dry mouth, salivary gland enlargement
- lungs ~ dyspnea, orthopnea, cough, wheezing, chest pain
- heart ~ angina, chest pain, dyspnea, orthopnea, edema, pericarditis
- skin ~ purpura, alopecia, skin tightening, chronic hives, photosensitivity
- gastrointestinal ~ anorexia, dysphagia, indigestion, abdominal pain, nausea & vomiting, hematemesis, jaundice, diarrhea
In fact, Dr. Gus Cothran is hot on the trail of genes that may be linked with DSLD and is focusing on areas where genetic changes have been described in association with human diseases that bear a strong resemblance to equine DSLD, such as the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
Ehlers-Danlos is actually a constellation of several different types of connective tissue disorders, with different genetic changes, so pinning this down could take some time if the situation in horses is similar. There are many clinical similarities between E-D and DSLD. In addition to the abnormal ligaments and tendons, human patients may have changes in their intestinal-tract walls, which leads to bouts of abdominal pain, eye changes, arterial changes and odd progeria (premature aging) or very loose skin. The hope is that the genetic work will eventually lead to a diagnostic test for DSLD. For the moment, most involved with this disease feel very strongly that affected horses should not be bred.
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