Ozone Therapy and Lyme Disease in Horses
The following is a true story about my beloved horse, Spring Thaw.
“Spring” is a 21 year old Appaloosa / TB gelding, who was my first “event”
horse. Spring and I enjoyed several years of eventing at the lower levels
from 1997 to 2004. It was in the fall of 2004 that I noticed he seemed to
fluctuate in and out of health and soundness, also he would have mood swings,
after about a month of this erratic behavior I ran some blood tests and found
that he had a high titer and antibody to Lyme Disease (August 2004). At
that time I had a conventional veterinarian who treated Spring with 100
Doxycycline pills per day for a total of 4 months, and God Bless this horse he
ate these horrible tasting pills with each meal. At the end of November
2004 we re-tested his blood and he still showed a high titer/antibody to the
disease. Physically Spring seemed to be doing better so based on the
amount and length of time he was on the medications I chose to give his internal
system a rest, I also admittedly did not understand at the time how this very
tricky disease works and hides. It wasn’t until February 2007 that the
Lyme roared back with a vengeance. This time I could clearly see that
Spring’s body was being ravaged by the disease: headaches, fever, lameness
appearing everyday but in different areas, extreme irritability, and otherwise
dull and motionless. This was clearly NOT my horse – whom I know to be curious,
playful, very stoic, cunning and full of life! He was asking for help…
We pulled another blood test in February 2007 and it came back screaming high
titer /antibody for Lyme. For the following 21 days Spring received
IV Tetracycline (2xs per day) and then following that we followed up with
Doxycycline at 100 pills per day for one month. Retested his blood in June
of 2007 and the titer had come down a little bit and the antibody reading
remained at “high”, in addition to this during the IV dosing we pulled a kidney
panel and it came back low normal, making it not possible to treat with the IV
for the length of time that would be needed to flush his system. Over the
summer months of 2007 I became quite frustrated watching him suffer in silence
and knowing that to put him back on drugs would only jeopardize his kidney’s and
not get rid of the lyme disease anyway. I began to search for other
healing modalities that could possibly save my baby, and this is when I called
upon a renowned veterinarian known nationally and internationally for her
incredible talent in alternative therapies such as as acupuncture, chiropractic
and ozone therapy on horses. Dr. Judith Shoemaker, DVM who operates out of
It was through Dr. Shoemaker that I learned about the incredible healing powers
of Ozone Therapy. Spring was in her opinion classified as a “compromised,
drug resistant, chronic Lyme disease horse” and recommended a treatment plan of
ozone therapy.
We started the first intravenous dosage of ozone in November 2007 and continued
this at the rate of 3x’s per week for three months. In March 2007 we pulled a
blood test to check in and the titer went down 23 points, antibodies went from
high to moderate. So at this point I reduced treatments to be 2x’s per
week and am still treating on that same schedule until we retest the blood in
June 2007. I realize that the blood tests will actually be somewhat
confusing as the disease is exiting the body it will show up in the blood – so
what I really am paying attention to in this case is the physical signs that I
am seeing.
Since starting Ozone Therapy in November 2007, I have seen huge physical changes
in this horse, they are listed below:
I am convinced without a doubt that Ozone Therapy has saved my horse from Lyme
disease infestation which would have inevitably taken him from me. I am
very grateful to Dr. Shoemaker, Ozone, and God for lining all this up for us.
I know that if it worked for my horse it would work on people as well, and it is
stories like this that will help to raise the healing collective consciousness
of the world and be able to escape the confines of traditional medicine when it
fails. Please feel free to post this story.
NYC
4/16/08