Alternatives to Bute?

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orangegrace

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Hi,

The horse in question was on Bute for management of navicular. He was on 2 sachets a day but unfortunately this caused colitis. Its taking a while for his levels to come back up to normal so we are reluctant to try him on the Bute again in the future.

He's not looking too bad soundness-wise at the moment but will maybe need some support again in the future.

Can anyone recommend any alternatives to Bute that we could try ?

The vet mentioned an alternative medication but this was £15 for one sachet??? Im unsure of what this is called.. but it sounds very unrealistic at £15 a sachet?!

He will be going onto turmeric as soon as hes back to normal and his levels are back to where they should be. We are hoping this may provide him with the pain relief he needs but are just looking into all the options :)

thanks
 
For some time i used Vetrofen which is a herbal based bute alternative (to be clear, not to be used at the same time). It did seem to help with hock arthritis. I used it at the same time with turmeric. Unfortunately my boy also has navicular and the vetrofen wasn't enough, so I had to stop it and go onto danilon (1 per day at the moment).

Might be worth a try and definitely not £15 per sachet.
 
my mare has hock issues.. turmeric black pepper and olive oil everyday in her feed has worked wonders.. she was on bute but now no longer required xx
 
I put my old boy on premierflex plus, it has high levels of devils claw in and i've never seen him buck and fart around the field so much.. he's been on joint supplements for over 3 years after being diagnosed with spavins, and retired a year later after an annular ligament desmotomy and although field sound he never really ran or bucked but now he does and i'm sure it's down to the devils claw as i've never had this effect with any other joint supplement i've had him on!
 
Is your vet recommending Equioxx? You can buy online for around £10 a syringe (with prescription) - I'm not sure what the dose is though daily. It may be a syringe would last a few days? Danilon is generally kinder on the stomach. I have used turmeric and not found it did anything TBH. I still use it on my younger horse without any 'specific' issues other than he gets stiff but I found it did nothing for my boy with spavins.
 
Natural anti-inflammatories are worth a shot. Turmeric, cod liver oil, garlic, glucosamine. Blueberries, apparently!

They will help reduce inflammation, but won't lessen bone pain. So it depends really where the pain is stemming from! Have you looked into remedial shoeing or trimming? (also worth cutting out grain etc)

We used to have our old guy on Devil's Claw. Again, not sure if there's any actual scientific evidence behind it but he seemed pretty happy.
 
Careful using Turmeric if your horse has a sensitive gut. My arthritic boy can't handle the amounts you have to feed to get results :-/ Mine is also sensitive to bute/Danilon so he can't have that either!
I'm using Vetroflex Senior combined with Vetrofen healthy (which contains curcumin from Fenugreek, Boswellia & something else I can't recall.
His arthritis & gut is notably worse if I feed 'inflammatory feed' so he has a cereal free diet.
He's still sound and competing so it must be working ;-)
Straight Boswellia is worth a go as it's a powerful anti inflammatory that's good for the gut too. I use Pegasus Naturebute as it's Boswellia Serrata not Carteri as that's not as good (feedmark)
 
My boy has Arthritis in his hocks and has Cortaflex and I have just started him on Turmeric (the Global Herbs version which comes ready mixed with black pepper) and it already seems to have made a difference to him! He is currently on 1 measure per day, and is supposed to be increasing to 2 measures gradually but as the result has already been so drastic and 2 seems rather a lot, I might just keep him on 1 and see how it goes. As Milkmaid said - he is worse on cereal feeds but he also suffers from mild Shivers so this may be related to this rather than the Arthritis.
 
Wondering if your vet was suggesting Danilon, as this is gentler on stomachs than Bute. It costs from my vet £1.50 per sachet. It can be bought cheaper online but by the time I ad the cost of the Prescription I don't save and I think we should support our vets as best we can.

I have used Gold Label Bute Free with success, but it all depends on what you are treating really.
 
You don't need a lot of Tumeric, initially my 25yr old mare had a teaspoon full mixed with her easi beet, 3 yrs later she gets a tumeric sarnie twice a week and hasn't needed bute since starting tumeric, she is back in light work hacking
 
My horse was diagnosed with coffin joint arthritis last year, and after lots of trial and error, I've found that the best alternative to bute for him is pure boswellia. He's a big strapping ID so he's on 4 scoops a day and it seems to keep him ticking over fine. I tried everything from turmeric, various no bute things (mainly devil's claw based) and they didn't seem to have much affect on his soundness.

I buy my boswellia from a website called raiiq.com (something like that anyway), much cheaper than buying it from 'horsey' websites, and it's exactly the same.

I'd recommend giving it a try, I think this is all about trial and error and just finding what works for your horse. Good luck.
 
orangegrace said:
Hi,

The horse in question was on Bute for management of navicular. He was on 2 sachets a day but unfortunately this caused colitis. Its taking a while for his levels to come back up to normal so we are reluctant to try him on the Bute again in the future.

He's not looking too bad soundness-wise at the moment but will maybe need some support again in the future.

Can anyone recommend any alternatives to Bute that we could try ?

The vet mentioned an alternative medication but this was £15 for one sachet??? Im unsure of what this is called.. but it sounds very unrealistic at £15 a sachet?!

He will be going onto turmeric as soon as hes back to normal and his levels are back to where they should be. We are hoping this may provide him with the pain relief he needs but are just looking into all the options :)

thanks
Click to expand...

Could you not go down the Tildren route with this horse. This would manage the pain and you wouldn't necessarily need anything else if it is sucessful.
Here is a link to information about Tildren.
It would work out cheaper in the long run and if you are covered on your insurance policy it would be even better. At £700 a time you could squeeze in three treatments before the 12 months ran out.

http://www.chilternequine.com/treatments/tildren/
 
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