Today I massaged a horse I’ve worked with a few times before. The last time I had worked on him, in early Dec , it was clear something wasn’t right. He ordinarily loved his massages and was always very willing and open to my work -- and also very expressive when I did something that felt good. In Dec, he was having none of it. When the barn manager had contacted me about coming to work on him, she'd said that recently he had seemed a bit uncomfortable - not exactly lame, but ouchy and not moving well. He had also been unwilling to go forward, which wasn’t like him. Since h had clearly enjoyed his previous massaged she and the horse's owner both thought it would be a good idea to get him done again.
As soon as I stated to work with him, I could tell something had changed. He was restless on the cross-ties. He would swiftly move away from my hands - even the lightest touch. Usually a happy massage “patient” here he was pinning his ears, tightening his lips and his eye never relaxed. After my session, I chatted with the barn manager and the owner and let them know what I had observed. Hearing my report cemented in their minds the sense that something was up. The first thing that came to mind for me was: “Could he have Lyme disease?” Some of the behaviors I'd seen seemed to fit with what I’d seen when my own horse had Lyme. I suggested to the barn manager that she talk to her vet and see if he thought testing would be a good idea.
When I returned this time, he was a completely different horse — clearly loving his massage, very happy and relaxed with all the work I did. Turns out that not long after my last visit, they did have the vet out to look at him, and he had tested him for Lyme. The test returned positive, and he had recently finished up his course of Doxycycline.
This is a great example of one of the less obvious benefits of massage: a good massage therapist who regularly “lay hands” on your horse, gets to know his body and gets to know his reactions to touch will be attuned to early warning signs of changes and problems. There’s so much that horses can tell us if we are willing to listen to their signals and their methods of communication.
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