barnaby bear
Member
thanks again folks for your thoughts and kind words xx
So sorry for your loss. Big hugs. When pramox first came out our yard used it, 3 went down with colic, one of them my old Arab. Thankfully all was well, but one pony struggled for 24hours. Ive never used the stuff since. I dont use Equest either. I egg count year round, equitape spring and autumn and 5 day course too. Touch wood, no probs. I think (and this is MY opinion) that the drugs are getting too strong for horses to deal with. Wormers these days last 10-12 weeks and although this will involve a release mechanism of the drug, I think the strength is over powering the horses system. I never remember colic with good old strongrid all those years ago.
Continual use of wormers as prescribed by the manufacturers leads to resistance problems my.
owww....sorry if i have made you concerned.
if it helps any, i just had another conversation with my vet who treated oliver and who also prescribed the wormer in the first place and she said that they use that wormer all the time in their practise and i dont think they would continue to use it if horse after horse was going down with colic all the time after it .
she said it could have been a tumour with oliver ??? or sheer coincidence with the wormer???
hope i havent worried you too much - sorry
Agreed, which is why I would never say to do this either. If your horse's need worming then worm them with the proper dose, if they don't need worming then don't worm them. Otherwise 20 years from now we will have no effective wormers left when we do need them.
A friend's pony had colic soon after worming (approx 6-8 hours), vet told her the colic was due to worming and the wormer had done it's job.
Sadly - this is often the case. Equest Pramox is a very powerful wormer - AND it is stored in body fat. IF a horse is low on body fat, it can have side effects. And if a horse has a reasonable burden - particularly encysted - it shifts them SO quickly it can cause blockages - or a 'toxic' effect.
This is why - if a horse is in poor condition - or hasn't been wormed regularly (even if egg counting has been done) - or if its worming status is not known then Equest (whether Pramox or ordinary) is not a suitable wormer.
I've just had a mare come in (Ruby Treasure) as a rescue in very poor condition - we gave her Panacur 5 day which is effective - but mild! Some interesting creepy-crawlies in her dung for several days - but no ill effects at all.
I should add that I've used Equest and Equest Pramox on literally dozens of horses - many times - including foals (over 12 weeks) and brood mares - with NO ill effects - and I believe it to be a 'safe' wormer if used in accordance with the above.
Unfortunately, co-incidences happen with horses and the OP should NOT beat herself up for worming Oliver with Equest. Chances are it was purely and simply a co-incidence that he got colic so close after worming. (And I would expect a colic DUE to worming to show up in less than 24 hours!)
I found this thread today while looking for info on post worming haemorrhaging as I lost a beloved home bred mare today and am still trying to work through making sense of what happened.
My mare was wormed with Pramox almost three weeks ago and at the time I had concerns regarding colic reactions. I wormed four of my stock on a Monday morning just in case I needed to call out a vet but all seemed well, I heaved a sigh of relief and thought no more about it.
This morning I found my eighteen year old mare down in her box with extremely elevated heart and breathing rates, clearly in a lot of pain. Nothing administered by the vet seemed to ease her and by early afternoon her circulation was shutting down and I had her put to sleep.
Anyone reading this will understand the shock of suddenly losing an apparently healthy mare who never had a sorry day in her life and who had been her usual cheeky self just a few hours before. All the haylage I gave her at midnight had been eaten, so when did this change happen and more importantly, why? Why now, why her, why me?
All afternoon I have been worrying about what I did that caused this to happen, hence my interest in Pramox and possible reactions. My rational brain tells me this had nothing to do with M's demise and it is all coincidence. More likely it was a ruptured tumour as she had melanomas and I lost her mother to the same fate almost exactly ten years ago.
I joined this forum to post tonight having read through the entire thread started by Barnaby Bear. It has helped make me realise (again) that life is not always rational and ordered as we would wish and seemingly illogical, self blaming ideas are actually the early stages of the grieving process. My vet tells me that statistically September is a dreaded month for the number of horse deaths and this year, unfortunately, we are part of that.
To Barnaby Bear, I share your pain at the loss of an old friend and wish you well. My apologies to everyone else for rambling (displacement activity) but also I am now thinking of throwing away the other five Pramox not yet administered and returning to tried and tested Panacur five day treatment for my other equines.
Thanks for your kind thoughts, Barnaby Bear and Paddy555. It has helped to communicate through a forum as I haven't yet been able to tell any of my horse friends for fear of breaking down and blubbing at them. I do appreciate your support.
It concerned me a little when I read Janet George saying that Pramox is stored in the fat. Like Oliver, my mare was a little butterball and never looked her age. Now I'm thinking, was their condition related to their downfall with chemicals stored in their bodies and slowly being released? I never thought that might be how certain wormers could be long acting but it makes sense and I don't like the thought of it at all.