Recent surgeries

Eosinophillic enteritis (colic) surgery

This miniature 2 year old pony presented for examination and treatment for colic. She had received a large amount of painkiller but despite this, she remained painful and showed a steadily increasing abdominal size. We advised that surgical exploration of the abdomen was fully warranted and preceded without delay.

During surgery we found a tight bottle neck obstruction in the lower part of the jejunum (small intestine) with some solid food material firmly lodged at this point. This obstruction is typically seen with eosinophillic enteritis. The intestine above this point was very distended and delicate.

The food material was gently massaged through the bottleneck, followed by gentle decompression of the distended intestine behind it. After fully decompressing the intestine, the excess fluid was evacuated through the caecum.

The pony made an excellent recovery from surgery. It went home 1 week later and has an excellent prognosis to live a healthy and normal life from then on.