051 - Elizabeth Downey - Chronic Bursitis - Lame to Sound Performance Horse
John Dowdy:
Hello and welcome to this week's Equinety podcast. We are swinging way up north, at least that's way up north for me. I'm down here in Southwest Florida. We're going across the border up into Montreal, Canada. Elizabeth Downey, welcome to the Equinety podcast.
Elizabeth Downey:
Hi, John. I'm really happy to share my story with you.
John Dowdy:
Good. Well, we're excited to have you and I believe, as it is right now, you are our first Canadian guest here on the Equinety podcast, which is exciting.
John Dowdy:
Tell us a little bit about the horse that you have. You're in the barrel racing world. Tell us a little bit about the history of your horse and what you were dealing with prior to finding Equinety and then how you found Equinety and what your experience was in the initial stages.
Elizabeth Downey:
All right. So Heidi is a seven-year-old quarter horse that I purchased from my father. She was a roping horse before and I was looking for something to be a little bit more competitive at the show. So my dad said I should try this horse, and eventually she came to be really, really good. So I had some of my good friends, Karen [Chantaz 00:01:11], that was using the Equinety and I thought, I should really give it a try.
Performance Boost On Equinety
Elizabeth Downey:
So I put the mare on the product and she started really blooming during the season, went from 3d times to 2D times to 1D times. She was very focused and she was very constant to doing a run. So at the end of the year, I was talking to some vets. They were talking about the product saying it was a shake and I should not give that if I wasn't giving exercise to my horse. So not knowing any better, I stopped using the product. And when I started training the mare again for the next season, 2019, she came up really, really lame.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So let me jump in real quick. So you started in the season with the Equinety product in 2018 through the summer. And this is where you started seeing all the benefits that you're clocking from 3D to 2D to 1D. You're just noticing obviously the faster times, but focus, recovery, the stamina and everything is going great.
Elizabeth Downey:
Yeah, exactly.
John Dowdy:
And then you get to the end of the season, 2018, you're coming around to beginning of 2019 and you show this to your vet and they just say, "Oh, well that's just like a shake. Don't waste your money?" That's kind of what you were told?
Life Without Equinety - Severe Lameness
Elizabeth Downey:
Yeah, that was pretty much it. I didn't know any better and then I thought, of course, I'm going to try to keep some money around and then I stopped using the product is my biggest regret because when I started training the mare again at the beginning of 2019, I started having some really sore feet. Of course, there was different showing involved and stuff like that, but she just didn't look how she was the summer before. So I got her checked by the vet and then she started being lame. She was so lame at one point that you could tell it was a four out of five lame on a walk.
Elizabeth Downey:
So I tried with the vet different orthopedic shoeing. We tried pads, we tried degree pads, we tried egg bars, we tried to injection. I tried to keep her in the stall for a certain amount of time. I try to walk her. We tried just stuff from, I'd say, March until August and there was a lot of money involved into this.
Elizabeth Downey:
So I decided, you know what, I have nothing to lose. She was doing great when she was on Equinety. I'm just reading all those stuff, all those papers and all the people saying it's such a great product and it's helped them so much that I'm like, you know what, I liked it and might as well put her back on it.
Elizabeth Downey:
Immediately when I put her back, after a week, I start noticing that she was better. Then I got a different shoe in her just saying, you know what, just do what we did with her regular shoe leather rim pad, roller motion. Just keep it when she was doing fine and then after two weeks she started just being good again. Like, she was not shifting her weight from right foot to left foot. She was doing less of it. And after I'd say the end of August, and I'd say by the end of October, she just stopped being lame and I could start riding, well, walk, trot again.
How Equinety Works
John Dowdy:
That's pretty amazing. Now for those of you tuning in for the first time, maybe this is the first time that you've heard about the Equinety product, or maybe you've seen it a couple of times. You've been following us around on Facebook, or you've heard your friends using it, but you don't know exactly what it is, here's what it is and here's the science behind it.
John Dowdy:
So, first of all, it's 100% pure amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. There's no fillers, there's no sugars, no starches, there's no loading dose. By the way, a serving size is 5.2 grams, which is not quite a tablespoon. So a lot of people that open this for the first time think, is this it? What was your thoughts when you saw how much the serving size was?
Elizabeth Downey:
So it's really, really little and I was very happy there's actually no loading dose so I've never gave like a double dose. I've always gave that one dose at nighttime and this is something that I all my horses now. But I was very surprised how little you needed and how big it was doing to the horse.
Elizabeth Downey:
I know that a lot of people are skeptical about trying products and adding additives to what they already feed. But there's definitely something there that actually makes them feel good. It takes a team to take care of athletes like barrel racing horses or roping horses, reiners, but this is part of the big success I had with this mare, so everyone should use it.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Hey, I agree, Elizabeth. So the science behind this product, these amino acids are specifically put together, formulated to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body about the size of a pea, and that's what releases hormones. We're after, of course, growth hormone and IGF-1. The combination of those hormones have a 23 and a half hour life cycle and this is why you give the product every day. But it's also the reason why the product is so effective. One, because it's already in the amino acid stage, so it's ready for absorption right away. The body doesn't have to break anything down. And second, because it stimulates the pituitary to release the hormones, which help the body heal at a cellular level.
John Dowdy:
So your story is not uncommon, although I will say this is probably the first one I've heard where you went so long without using the Equinety, although it did happen again with you because you ran out after a couple of days, which we can tell that little story in a minute, but here's what's going on in the body. You give the product, it starts working in 24 hours and now it's just a matter of what you can start seeing. So it happens really fast and I would say, upper 90 percentile of people notice changes within 30 days or less, which is what you are seeing.
John Dowdy:
Now if you start, I'm sorry, if you stop giving the product, then what happens is is the hormone levels are just what they would normally be for that particular horse. So a lot of times people, they start giving the product, they see these great results and think, "Oh, well, my horse is doing fine" and they stop giving the product. Now the horse goes back to being lame or having the little quirks that it used to have. Then they add the product back and now the horse is fine again.
John Dowdy:
So in this case, veterinarians are... of course, we recommend you should always listen to your veterinarian and your medical team. They know your horses definitely better than we know your horses. But this isn't just a shake. It's a very specific amino acid stack that's given to the body to help what it needs to repair itself, so there's a little bit of a science behind it.
John Dowdy:
So now as you started your horse back on the product and now up in Canada, it's cold season there obviously, although a lot of people in the United States think it's just winter there 24/7 so they've never been up there. Like I spent a lot of time in Canada, so aren't you guys always... Didn't it always snow up there? No. No. It's not.
Elizabeth Downey:
No. It gets warm and we get warm sometimes.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, sometimes. Yeah.
Elizabeth Downey:
But yeah. Adding to what you said, I've had that happen to me. We ran out of the product and did not order as quick and it's crazy how after just a couple of days that you're not giving out the product, that you see changes. It doesn't come back to 100% lame, but you can tell that they're not as comfortable as they used to.
Elizabeth Downey:
So in the case of my mare, I can see in her stall when she's at rest that she starts shifting weight from her front feet, from the right foot to the left foot. And she's just trying to manage her feet [inaudible 00:10:03] when she's on the product, and it just takes a couple of days back when you start giving it again. She stands more square and she's just more of herself on it than off it, definitely.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. She was back on the product and then it came to your attention that you ran out and then what happened over those couple of days there?
Elizabeth Downey:
Yeah, so she started shifting her weight again from her right foot to her left foot. So she's standing her front limb way ahead of her, just try to get the pressure off her heels. So she started doing that again and so I told my boyfriend, I said, "Well, we need to order that ASAP [inaudible 00:10:49] put her back on the product again." This is where when you're skeptical it all comes true because you're like, okay, so I was giving this, I'm not giving it anymore. Something is changing right now. Then we purchased the product, we started her on it again and then she just came back to where she was standing square again. So I'm like she will never run out of that product anymore ever again.
Equinety & Chronic Bursitis
John Dowdy:
Yes. Now, we didn't touch upon this earlier, but during all of the issues that you are having, you actually had an MRI and they found out that she had some chronic bursitis. Tell us about... Yeah, so tell us about that and what's going on now with that.
Elizabeth Downey:
So basically I got really, really excited at the end of October because she had been on Equinety for two months and then I started walking her and trotting her again. You know, my dad raised her so I've known this mare a long time and I was like, you know what, I think we got her. I think she's going to be ready to get ridden again and maybe there's a chance I can bring her back to the show.
Elizabeth Downey:
So I sent a video to my vet and I said, "Look how good she is right now and you couldn't see any lameness or anything." So she's like, "Yeah, but I'm scared if you really ride her hard again that she'll come back. So let's go do an MRI, find out what she has and then we'll go from there."
Elizabeth Downey:
So I sent her to the vet clinic, got her an MRI. So they found that she has a chronic bursitis and they were very impressed of how the inflammation was not there for how lame she has been in the past year.
John Dowdy:
Right. And for those of you who may not know what chronic bursitis is, it's just a chronic inflammation of the bursa really put it in simple terms. But with the use of the Equinety, there was just nothing there. That kind of fixed that up.
Elizabeth Downey:
It kind of got the inflammation non-active, yeah. So what they found in her feet basically was non-active. So they say if we can keep her that way and we can train her a little bit during winter, get her a bit of rehab, I am positive that I can take her back to the show in probably June.
John Dowdy:
Oh, that's great. Yeah. Well, in a lot of situations where you're dealing with an inflammatory type of a thing, the Equinety product does have a high level of L-arginine. L-arginine as one of the amino acids that also helps with inflammation. It helps open the vein so you have more blood flow, more oxygen and, of course, the oxygen is helping with the healing and the inflammation as well. So, awesome.
John Dowdy:
Well, Elizabeth, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your Equinety story. If there's anybody listening for the first time that might be a little bit skeptical still yet, is there anything that you would have to share with them to maybe get them to go ahead and give it a try?
Elizabeth Downey:
Definitely. I was raised in a farm. My dad was always being very simple with the horses. We've never really given any additives and there's so much things that this product can do, different types of things. Like, if you have a mare that has hormonal issues, that they get really high heat, then it's very good to it. I've seen some really good changes on my mare with that. If you just want to have a little step up for your barrel horse, you want them a little stronger, more stamina, just try the product. Buy the 90 days, a little bottle, try it. And if you're still skeptical after 30 days I would be very, very surprised.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Yeah, it does work very, very fast. Well, awesome. Elizabeth Downey out of Montreal, Canada. Thank you so much for being here on the Equinety podcast.
Elizabeth Downey:
Well, thank you very much for having me.
John Dowdy:
Oh, you bet. Thank you. Bye-bye.
