I feel like it’s been a more chilled week, in some ways. He continued wolfing down all the herbs he could get in his face although he’s not felt like he’s needed the oils so hopefully that’s good. We’ve received more supplies now and he’s taking a bit of meadowsweet but not so much. Everything else he’s keeping up with happily! Spoke to Dena about which herbs to do what and this is the summary:
Herbs he’s having:
Meadowsweet – good for the mucus lining of the stomach but also relaxing the muscles of the stomach if you’re holding them tightly because of anxiety. Quite a strong gastro-support herb
Cleavers – his favourite thing. Great for the lymphatic system and detoxifying generally.
Dandelion – also detoxifying but focuses on the liver and kidneys.
Nettle – also detoxifying but focuses on blood and liver
Chamomile – good for stress and anxiety, and gastric tension caused by stress or anxiety (for the same reason we might drink chamomile tea if we had anxious butterflies. We I might. You might not, lol!)
Oils:
Also been offering him two oils – these are few drops of essential oil in a carrier (she usually uses calendula for a carrier)
Peppermint – strong action on the stomch for gastric complaints, muscle spasms
German Chamomile – similar to chamomile flowers but the oils are much stronger
He is suddenly very girthy and tense about the right caecum/gut area again though. Nothing has changed so I’m not sure what this is about. He is moulting heavily now so I wonder if it’s that? I think he’s been worse with this in the past. We shall see. As he’s not taking the meadowsweet I’m taking him off the acid ease and putting him on the gut balancer (as the acid ease is specifically for stomach ulcers and I don’t actually think that’s the issue). Need to try and bring the cost down, lol!
In work terms: we rode three times this week. Focussing on transitions and I think he’s moving better behind but he’s still sticky although sticky now like he was with the gut problems not like he was with the hind limb problems so maybe that’s progress? Not sure I can tell.
I have this week been exploring Trust Technique (http://trust-technique.com/). It’s super interesting and although I don’t want to spend the money at the moment I am very curious about it and trying to learn the technique a bit. Watch this space?
It’s hard for me to know if he’s been any better since we started with the herbs and stuff. I feel like he’s been more expressive but that’s been showing itself in being hard to get him to settle and being more fidgety. I guess if that means he’s less shut down that’s good but it’s also a bit more challenging to deal with. Ho hum.