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Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Equine Med

Today was day three of equine medicine.  We had no appointments so our slow streak continued.  However, I did get to pass my first nasogastric tube today.  Here's my nerdy educational paragraph for today:
To place a nasogastric tube you put the tube up the horse's nose and into its throat.  When the horse swallows you push the tube forward so that it enters the horse's esophagus.  You continue to feed it down the horse's esophagus until you hit the stomach.  You can tell that you are in the esophagus because if you accidentally get the tube in the trachea, it passes with no resistance.  However, when shoving it down the esophagus, you get resistance because the esophagus isn't as wide open as the trachea.  Now, why would you go shoving a tube through a horse's nose and into its stomach?  Horse's get what is commonly referred to as colic.  It essentially means abdominal pain.  There are many reasons for this abdominal pain however, oftentimes, no matter what the cause, there is a fluid accumulation in the stomach which can be painful as it causes stomach distension.  When you stick this tube down a horse's esophagus, oftentimes the fluid will come out the tube and into a bucket or onto the ground.  This helps relieve some of the pain the horse is in.

Also, due to our slowness today, our group, including the doctors, went out for ice cream which was nice!

Tomorrow we have one appointment and it is another ophthalmology appointment so we won't be doing a whole lot with it.  Friday, there is supposed to be a horse with some respiratory problems coming in so hopefully it will. 

Had my second chiropractor appointment today.  Went well, never knew there was so many places my back could crack but it feels good! 

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