Asthma in horses - preventative medicine

[dbendell]

My horse was in some respiratory distress last night. When the vet came he diagnosed Asthma and prescribed Ventapulmin. As I am an Asthma sufferer I queried whether there are preventative steroids that horses can take equivelent to Becloforte/Seretide for humans. He didn't seem to know much about this but said he would investigate...do any of you know any preventative meds that can be given to prevent such respiratory distress in the first place?

 

[Murphy88]

Yes, horses with RAO can have steroids (and ideally should in combo with the ventipulmin). If you can slowly introduce an inhaler to your horse, then you can give beclomethasone or fluticasone via that, or prednisolone or dexamethosone can be given orally. The steroids will decrease the inflammation which is causing the resp distress. Horses can become tolerant to bronchodilators like ventipulmin, hence why they should be used with the steroids.

Did your vet explain all the management stuff for RAO too?

 

[spaniel]

Check with your vet first but have a look at butterbur. Its a herb/plant that is used on the continent for human asthma and works very well. Gold label do a supplement which contains it and its actuallly inexpensive (yes really!). Ive used it in the past and it really does seem to work in horses as well as people.

Link....

http://www.goldlabeldirect.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=2_3&products_id=2

 

[lucy007]

Hi, I have a mare that suffers with SPAOPD. It is brought on by the warmer weather and pollens, and she gets wheezy and if left untreated can get very distressed in a short space of time.

I had battled with managing this with ventipulmin, which would see her clear of symtoms within 24hrs, but the next spot of warm weather after finishing a course would set her off again.

Last september, she went from being right as rain to very distressed over the course of one weekend, my vet said that she needed steriod treatment. She was given a steriod jab for starters and prescribed inhalers and a regime for their use.

I havent had her on the inhalers all winter with the cooler, wetter weather, but 2 days of sunshine in early march was enough to have her wheezing. I started her on the maintence regime of her inhalers and so far she has been fine, and she adapted very quickly to having a spacer held against her nostril with me doing her puffs.

Treatment days are every other day and she has three different types of inhalers which seems to keep things under control.

If you would like any more info please pm. Good luck.