Breathing and Allergies help

[Loulabella1980]

My little welsh a always struggled to breathe around this time of year up until about October. His breathing is very laboured and he has a dry cough and nasal mucus. We’ve already had the vet out twice and he’s had ventipulmin x 2 and equisolon steroids (he doesn’t have rao/copd just really bad allergy to dust and pollen). Thing is these drugs work for a short while but after the course it just comes back as bad. He’s really struggling at the moment because Its been quite hot and dry. He also has wynergy ventilate in his food daily and global herbs pollen-x but nothing seems to help. I will ring the vet again but I know it will only be a short term relief if he does come out. So I’ve been research nebulisers with saline or silver solution. Does anyone know/use these and do they work? Also does anyone know of any reasonably priced nebulisers, I can’t afford £700-800, maybe around the £350 mark. TIA.

 

[YorksG]

My little welsh a always struggled to breathe around this time of year up until about October. His breathing is very laboured and he has a dry cough and nasal mucus. We’ve already had the vet out twice and he’s had ventipulmin x 2 and equisolon steroids (he doesn’t have rao/copd just really bad allergy to dust and pollen). Thing is these drugs work for a short while but after the course it just comes back as bad. He’s really struggling at the moment because Its been quite hot and dry. He also has wynergy ventilate in his food daily and global herbs pollen-x but nothing seems to help. I will ring the vet again but I know it will only be a short term relief if he does come out. So I’ve been research nebulisers with saline or silver solution. Does anyone know/use these and do they work? Also does anyone know of any reasonably priced nebulisers, I can’t afford £700-800, maybe around the £350 mark. TIA.

How old is the pony? My late Appy had this problem for years, but it was horrendous just before she tested + for cushings, an atypical symptom, but was linked in her case.

 

[Loulabella1980]

He’s Just turned 15. We’ve had him 5 years, it’s got worse in the last 3 years for sure. Before us he lived near the white cliffs of Dover and never had a cough, we live in the middle of the country surrounded by fields of oilseed rape etc 😕

 

[Fransurrey]

Have you tried anti-histamines?

 

[ITPersonnage]

Might be worth trying cetirizine hydrochloride ( hay fever tablets) . My horse has the same issue but a suitable dose for your horse is relatively cheap and could stop it. My 16 HH TB has 15 tablets twice a day and I et them from Amazon (cross posted with Fransurrey)

 

[Loulabella1980]

Yes he has 10 of the piriton tablets everyday during this period too!

 

[LegOn]

My now-retired horse got a severe reaction to mould in hay & was really struggling, Ventalpulim & steriods were only helping short term. The vet did recommend a nebuliser with an asthma medication to get it straight onto the lungs. I went and bought a human nebuliser from Argos & just held it over one nostril and closed his other one with my hand. The medication only took about 2-3 minutes to disperse into the nebuliser so it worked really well. He needed it for 10 days and he recovered amazingly well so I would highly recommend it! I think it was about £70, or you can check some preloved websites you might pick one up 2nd hand.

After that I put him on Equine America Ventilator & got excellent continued results - thankfully he only needed it short term, he now cant eat hay but is very happy on hayledge!!

 

[Translationsneeded]

I have a baby inhaler for mine with a couple of regular puffas from the vet. Seems to work well. She is also bad this time of year

 

[Fransurrey]

Yes he has 10 of the piriton tablets everyday during this period too!

If they're the piriton you buy in bulk (the pack of 500), then they are designed to be taken every 4 to 6 hours, so check the packet. My 12.1 mare has 10 cetirizine hydrochloride.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Yes he has 10 of the piriton tablets everyday during this period too!

The trouble is that the effects of Piriton only last for 4 hours, so you would have to give him several doses throughout the day. It might be better to try a different anti-histamine. Have you tried a nose-net?

 

[Loulabella1980]

I’ll check that for sure, is she better on the cetirizine hydrochloride? I’m going to ring the vet tomorrow again and ask if there is anything else we can try as it’s horrible to watch.

 

[Fruitcake]

After a summer of trying anti-histamines, Ventipulmin and steroid inhalers for my horse’s asthma, I bit the bullet and went for a nebuliser with nebulised steroids. The nebuliser wasn’t cheap (the insurance company actually paid for it but I would’ve been prepared to pay myself if they hadn’t agreed- especially after seeing how effective it turned out!)

For a while, he had a human ventolin inhaler through the nebuliser before the steroid dose to open the airways to allow maximum delivery of the steroid to the lungs. (This did the same job of Ventipulmin at a fraction of the cost).

For the first summer, he had to have nebulised steroids daily for the whole season, although we managed to reduce this to a low dose eventually. Since then though, he’s only needed a short course at a low dose on a few occasions! The vet said that some horses need an almost permanent low dose throughout the summer which, although not ideal, allows low-level consistent treatment.

Nebulising saline alone is good to release mucous but won’t have much effect on chronic inflammation in the airways and lungs.

My nebuliser is a FlexiNeb. I don’t know of any cheaper though.

 

[Loulabella1980]

After a summer of trying anti-histamines, Ventipulmin and steroid inhalers for my horse’s asthma, I bit the bullet and went for a nebuliser with nebulised steroids. The nebuliser wasn’t cheap (the insurance company actually paid for it but I would’ve been prepared to pay myself if they hadn’t agreed- especially after seeing how effective it turned out!)

For a while, he had a human ventolin inhaler through the nebuliser before the steroid dose to open the airways to allow maximum delivery of the steroid to the lungs. (This did the same job of Ventipulmin at a fraction of the cost).

For the first summer, he had to have nebulised steroids daily for the whole season, although we managed to reduce this to a low dose eventually. Since then though, he’s only needed a short course at a low dose on a few occasions! The vet said that some horses need an almost permanent low dose throughout the summer which, although not ideal, allows low-level consistent treatment.

Nebulising saline alone is good to release mucous but won’t have much effect on chronic inflammation in the airways and lungs.

My nebuliser isn’t a FlexiNeb. I don’t know of any cheaper though.

What is the make of your nebuliser? He’s my 5 year olds little pony and although he isn’t ridden much and is more like a big dog we’d do anything to make him more comfortable. He isn’t insured as he’s always been a hardy little monkey. However, that won’t stop me from buying what he needs, his medication this year must already have amounted to £600+ so money’s not an issue if I can get him right!

 

[Fruitcake]

It’s a FlexiNeb. I bought it through Haygain-I think they’re the UK distributors. After the initial outlay, the medication actually works out cheaper. I got a written prescription for the steroid (it’s basically just the stuff they inject) and bought it online and human Ventolin inhalers are literally only £2 something from Asda pharmacy with a vet’s prescription.

Poor pony. I know just what it’s like trying to deal with asthma. It’s awful and such a worry. I hope you manage to sort something.

 

[Fruitcake]

I’ve also just had a thought that my vets have a nebuliser that they hire out. I think this is quite common so that could be a route worth looking into to get an idea of whether or not it helps. 🙂

 

[Charlie31]

Inhaled drugs do seem to be more effective than oral ones. The vets I've spoken to have different opinions over whether it's better to use a baby spacer device with normal human inhalers or whether to go for a flexineb. The babyhaler is much cheaper to buy (I think they're about £20) but as said above the drugs for the Flexineb are cheaper so it may be a case of working out what would work out cheaper over the long run if you're going to be using it a lot. Also there are lots of other "non-drug" that you can give them with the nebuliser, such as Balsamic Air and Silvaplex, which might be worth trying to see if they help.

One that does strike me if you're surrounded by rape etc is that the trigger for the attacks is going to be constantly there during the season, meaning I guess that the pony will keep having flare ups until it's all gone. Have you tried keeping him in during the day at all to see if this helps? Otherwise you might have to resign yourself to giving medication on a daily basis during the summer months, although this wouldn't bother me as much for inhaled drugs as it would for the oral ones.

 

[Annagain]

This is only a theory - and one which has only occurred to me recently but what does he eat? It's too long a story for now but we established a few years ago that my horse had a sugar allergy which gave him a scabby rash on his back legs. He could also be quite wheezy in spring and early summer - it was never terrible and he never seemed to struggle to breathe but he was definitely very noisy. It only occurred to me this spring that he isn't wheezy this year and I don't think he was last year or the year before (bad mum for not noticing at the time!) - basically since cutting the sugar out of his diet. I'm now thinking it could have affected his breathing as well as his legs.
If he has any sugar in his diet it might be worth a try to cut it out? I'd be really interested in whether it makes a difference or not!

 

[Highflinger]

I use a baby spacer and human asthma inhalers for my welsh cob. I usually give him three puffs each nostril every other day and works well. When it it really hot I may up it to everyday depending on need. I have not found any feed supplement works and antihistamines only give a limited relief.
I also think he is best on short grass- long grass seems to make things worse. he is out 24 /7 and is also sensitive to hay after several weeks so has haylage in winter
Good luck wiith your pony - I worry a lot about my boy but he seems happy,is still ridden gently 2 x per week at 29.