A strange cold!- treatment?

[seabiscuit]

Owens had an intermittent cold/cough/and coughing up phelgm for a fair while now- the odd thing is that it comes for a day or two, then goes away for weeks then comes back again for a day or two hence why have not really bothered treating it properly. and now he has had it for more than a few days running and he is leaving bits of phelgm about the stable. So called vet and he reccomended antibiotics. The horse is reasonably well in himself. Just wanted to check is antibiotics the only way in which to get rid of this cold?

I was wondering if there are any other medicines that one could give as I am not keen on giving him the antibiotics-As Owen has had a HUGE amount of antibiotics adminstered to him during his life and he is still only young. So from now on do not want to use antibios unless its absolutely neccessary.

So is there any other way to treat this cold?

 

[madhector]

would of thought antibiotics wouldnt help as proberly viral, but then im not a vet

as to what else to try , not much help im afraid, hope hes better soon

 

[seabiscuit]

Thanks- just wanted other peoples opinions as vet just says antibio's for everything!

 

[madhector]

im not a big fan of antibiotics but thats from having a sister whoes medically trained who has issues with them being handed out for everything, suppose that vets cant be too different

 

[samerlin]

try Benylin

 

[Kezza]

is it defintiely a cold, i.e. does he have a temperature? One of our horses coughs up flem (sp?) when she's had a particularly dusty bale of hay.

 

[aimeerose]

what about a good respiritory suppliment to try to support his lunges etc and a immune system suppliment to help him fight it naturally?