Just before Quest came down with laminitis I'd got a new bag of Thunderbrook organic meadow nuts - very low sugar and starch. I'd been feeding 60-100g as treats or mixed with feed (dry or wet). I tried giving her some of the new bag to encourage her to eat when she was ill, but she completely refused clamping her mouth. I assumed it was because she was so ill, but it turns out other horses were also refusing it. The nuts were harder, smaller and shinier than normal. None of the horses on the yard here would eat them.

Thunderbrook said they were investigating that batch and sent me a replacement from different batch. I've given her a few and she's happy with them.

Then someone posted on Facebook that their horse came down with laminitis and they had a full blood test and horse's levels were all over the place. The only change had been the TB nuts, apparently. 

I just checked the batch number on the bag she'd been eating prior to laminitis and its the same batch! She did eat that bag happily though. 

I'm now wondering if that bag was part of the problem. TB don't analyse their feeds regularly. My vet didn't run full bloods and I guess the samples are now gone. Would it be too late to see any effects of the nuts (eaten up to 15th Dec) on her system? 
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Carly 
Nottinghamshire, UK, 2020
https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Carly%20and%20Quest
https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=282557

Since insulin and glucose change with every meal, you won't see effects of trigger foods in the bloodwork even 24 hrs later.  But you could still be dealing with the aftereffects of laminitis that ocurred at that time.  It's hard to blame the Thunderbrook cubes though as 60-100g is very little, but if she was already teetering on the edge of acute laminitis, something like that could push her over it.  Read the "2 apples" story here.  Jaini also refers the the 2 carrots she gave her horses on Xmas Eve, and that started her laminitis journey.  Once they go into acute laminitis, it seems to me that stopping it can be hard without major dietary changes beyond the removal of that final trigger food.

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Kirsten and Shaku (EMS + PPID) and Snickers (EMS) - 2019
Kitimat, BC, Canada
ECIR Group Moderator
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Thanks Kirsten.  This person's concern was with potassium,  phosphorus,  calcium, AST, kidney and liver markers being 'all wrong" as if something more serious was up with the nuts. They've raised questions about the slurry used on the fields. I expect its entirely unrelated, but it's just made me worry. 

Thanks for the link to carrots and 2 apples story. I'd been wondering about exactly this issue lately. 
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Carly 
Nottinghamshire, UK, 2020
https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Carly%20and%20Quest
https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=282557