Need help with sudden behavior change.

My mare was diagnosed with Lyme disease after 6 moths of being aggressive and breaking out of the pasture and trying to kill me and my dog. She has been on doxycyline for 1 week now. She had just started to show some improvement when she suddenly went after us again. This horse has never been like this. She has always been on her best behavior! She now (started yesterday) gotten very spooky. She was just spooky at an empty food dish yesterday, but today freaked out at her hay, food, blanket, toys, me, her stall and her treats. She is punished when she does something wrong, so no she is not getting away with any bad behavior. I have been working her with this spooky behavior. To note this mare has NEVER spooked at anything. She has always been "bombproof".

First welcome to the forum. I would call the vet and see if the mediation's is working some forum of Lyme's is different or if her numbers were high than it may take longer to work

Definitely sounds like the medication quit working. I would call the vet again. See what he says. It might just take a while for her to even out. Also, I doubt that punishing her for her current behavior will help anything since you are dealing with the neurological symtoms of Lyme disease.

Her vet sees her everyday as I am with her vet. My girlfriend is just working and cannot talk about it right now. So I was just curious to see what other horse people think about this. Also if anyone has had this issue before.

If your vet approves of it, I would suggest giving her a probiotic as well as some B-Calm paste.

I hope she recovers quickly. Some natural alternatives to counter Lyme disease or help prevent reinfection are apple cider vinegar as well as colloidal silver.

My daughters horse had lyme dease back in 2010.
He had a major change of attitude got real spooky and supper ornery.

Was not like him to be that way after 30 days of doxy he started to go back to his old self.
So it can happen.

Have you had her eyes checked ?

Yea her eyes have not changed, she does have a bit of eye damage but it has been t hat way since she was 5. Spirit I am glad to hear that. I am hoping that is what happens with my mare.

So she did a sudden change back to herself. Which was great. Then today, she took turn. She developed a hear rate of 80. Vet came over and gave her a sedative and some banimine. It has helped for now. Recheck in the am. She had good gut sounds so were not sure exactly what it was. If she has a high rate in the am the vet will come back out and tube her and go from there. My mare is only 7 and has been through a lot in the past year. I know the reality that she might not make it through this episode.