Can't afford to get mare scoped. :( Wwyd?

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The scoping and the treatment are quite expensive. The first thing to do is try her on some comfort gut and adlib forage and feed a scoop of chaff before riding and see if her behaviour/pain improves. If it does you can basically have an educated guess that she does have ulcers, but she will still need treatment and the vet will want to scope before giving any...
 
If your management is now spot on for 'anti ulcers' Firstly speak to the vets and explain your concerns. There may be alternatives. If they do need to go down the scoping route beg borrow or steal (actually don't steal). If that's not an option then you need to consider options for the horse- is it saleable? if not speak to welfare organisations.
 
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I suspected that my mare, who had been fed a high starch/high sugar diet in a previous home had ulcers, before calling the vet, I started to feed her an ulcer friendly diet, so high fibre, low sugar& starch, ad-lib forage, which wasn't easy as she as massively overweight and added aloe vera juice to her meagre bucket feed. I could see the difference very soon, she was better tempered and much less sensitive. If I ran out of aloe, she soon reverted to her previous behaviour. I make sure that I don't run out now. I get the juice from Holland & Barrett, who usually have some kind of offer on.
 
Shes on loan isnt she? And these were prior to you taking her on, so its the owners responsibility to diagnose and treat her, esp if you cant afford it. Bear in mind that ulcers are more often than not caused by something else which might also need expensive diagnostics and treatment. Not a nice situation for you if the owner wont step up :(
 
My vets have been very understanding and let me pay monthly when one of my horses accidentally ran up a 5 figure sum, it might be that your vet could work out a similar monthly treatment plan for you
 
Having suspected one of my mares has ulcers, I have just tried a diet change as a precurser to getting her scoped. She's on Alfa A, Topspec Ulsakind and Protexin Acid Ease and in 2 weeks, is a different horse. As a result (and having discussed with my vet) we're assuming it is ulcers but not going to scope, and as she's responded so well to the diet change, I'm sticking with that rather anything else at the moment. Definitely worth trying first in my opinion - my horse has gone from unrideable to jumping again!
 
Leo Walker said:
Shes on loan isnt she? And these were prior to you taking her on, so its the owners responsibility to diagnose and treat her, esp if you cant afford it. Bear in mind that ulcers are more often than not caused by something else which might also need expensive diagnostics and treatment. Not a nice situation for you if the owner wont step up :(
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Any chronic problems that a horse in loan has should be paid for by the owner really, accidents and acute problems the loaner could be considered responsible for but anything long term is definitely the owners responsibility
 
If you can't treat, whether by using savings or by borrowing money, then you PTS. I'm making an assumption that there is only one treatment available for ulcers. If there's something cheaper, but perhaps less effective, you could try that if you wanted to and PTS if it doesn't work. It's hard if you can't afford the best treatment, but you can't magic money out of nowhere. When looking at credit options have you asked your vet about a payment plan? You never know, they might agree. I don't advise you to get credit if you know you realistically have no way of paying it off though. A last option might be if the horse is worth more than the ulcer treatment, and if you have somebody trustworthy who would like her (who wouldn't sell on as is), you could give the horse to them for free on the understanding they pay for the treatment.

ETA: I didn't realise horse was on loan, I'd ask owners to pay in this instance, whether that means you keeping the horse or returning her.
 
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Leo Walker said:
Shes on loan isnt she? And these were prior to you taking her on, so its the owners responsibility to diagnose and treat her, esp if you cant afford it. Bear in mind that ulcers are more often than not caused by something else which might also need expensive diagnostics and treatment. Not a nice situation for you if the owner wont step up :(
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I really think that my mare's problems were caused purely by an inappropriate diet and stress, although she has since, several years later, been diagnosed with Cushing's.
 
On your previous thread you asking for recommendations on birthday presents - maybe you could ask for money to go towards getting your mare scoped?

If she's insured ( which I'm guessing she is if she's on loan ) then the insurance will pay for Gastroguard.
 
Sorry, didn't you start a thread a bit earlier about what your family could get you for your birthday because you have absolutely everything you need for your horse and you? Well how about asking them for money so you can pay for your poor horse's treatment?
 
Leo Walker said:
Shes on loan isnt she? And these were prior to you taking her on, so its the owners responsibility to diagnose and treat her, esp if you cant afford it. Bear in mind that ulcers are more often than not caused by something else which might also need expensive diagnostics and treatment. Not a nice situation for you if the owner wont step up :(
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They won't unfortunately :( I have asked
 
Cowpony said:
Sorry, didn't you start a thread a bit earlier about what your family could get you for your birthday because you have absolutely everything you need for your horse and you? Well how about asking them for money so you can pay for your poor horse's treatment?
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Unfortunately, no one is going to contribute to a vet bill for a birthday gift plus £20 isn't really going to cut it. I know I could buy treatment online from ****** but I don't know.
 
How much CAN you afford? There are far cheaper options than gastroguard. Having said that, when taking on a horse you should either insure them for vet bills or have the available funds (credit card or savings) to cover common and often expensive equine illnesses and ailments.
 
Wagtail said:
How much CAN you afford? There are far cheaper options than gastroguard. Having said that, when taking on a horse you should either insure them for vet bills or have the available funds (credit card or savings) to cover common and often expensive equine illnesses and ailments.
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I have a credit card for equine emergencies with a limit of £1400, £400 of which I'm paying off due to the last injury she got by cutting her leg. She is insured but my insurance company doesn't pay vets direct. I could get her scoped and if it comes back positive, I can make a claim and hope they would accept it plus pay for the treatment.
 
Scoping is about £200-300 and often vets run clinic days. The scoping is the cheap part, it's the treatment that's not. A 3 week supply of peptizole was £330ish from my vets. Then there's re-scoping ideally to check they've cleared but if funds are tight you can probably decide for yourself based on any changes in symptons or not as to whether or not they've cleared up without re-scoping.
The ONLY way to TREAT ulcers is with the omeprazole medication. You can then maintain the stomach/digestive area through management (plenty of forage, supplements, lifestyle, pain investigations to remove underlying causes etc) But doing these things alone will not treat any existing ulcers. Unfortunately it's not a cheap thing to manage either.
However if you suspect the horse has an illness the priority should be to treat- whether that is speaking to the vets to see if they'll do a payment plan, seeing if you can get prior authorisation from the insurers to confirm they'll pay before actually going ahead, extending your credit limit, returning the horse or having it pts. If you have £1000 left on your credit card, whilst not ideal that would at least cover the cost of the scope. You can then claim that back from the insurance before going ahead with any meds (if she needs them) to see if they're covering the claim or not. Then you can make an informed decision before going down the more expensive route of treating.
 
Ellietotz said:
They won't unfortunately :( I have asked
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sorry but that is not good enough on the owners part if the horse had the condition before you took her on its down to them to sort it out, and even if it wasn't they obviously don't give a monkeys about their own horse if they are not willing to help her get her better.

who are you insured with why won't they pay the vet direct have never heard of that before?
 
If the horse is insured I can't see the problem. I would speak to your vet, they will deal with the insurance company.
I will say, if I owned the horse, and it was on loan to someone, and insured, I wouldn't be expecting to put my hand in my pocket, that's what insurance is for. If I thought the horse had ulcers before, I might pay the excess though.
 
chaps89 said:
Scoping is about £200-300 and often vets run clinic days. The scoping is the cheap part, it's the treatment that's not. A 3 week supply of peptizole was £330ish from my vets. Then there's re-scoping ideally to check they've cleared but if funds are tight you can probably decide for yourself based on any changes in symptons or not as to whether or not they've cleared up without re-scoping.
The ONLY way to TREAT ulcers is with the omeprazole medication. You can then maintain the stomach/digestive area through management (plenty of forage, supplements, lifestyle, pain investigations to remove underlying causes etc) But doing these things alone will not treat any existing ulcers. Unfortunately it's not a cheap thing to manage either.
However if you suspect the horse has an illness the priority should be to treat- whether that is speaking to the vets to see if they'll do a payment plan, seeing if you can get prior authorisation from the insurers to confirm they'll pay before actually going ahead, extending your credit limit, returning the horse or having it pts. If you have £1000 left on your credit card, whilst not ideal that would at least cover the cost of the scope. You can then claim that back from the insurance before going ahead with any meds (if she needs them) to see if they're covering the claim or not. Then you can make an informed decision before going down the more expensive route of treating.
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Why would you think of having a horse PTS with ulcers even if you can not afford the drugs? Ulcers are painful, they can erode and kill but simple management changes could improve things a lot. Yes drugs do work, but the management changes are more important long term. Before we had all these tests it was common to treat blind, in fact when you go to the doctors they will often start treatment before starting investigations. The irony being omeprazole is often prescribed to humans with no investigations at all and can be bought online cheaply. Yes , I know it had to go through testing for licensing to treat horses, but it seem its very expensive for a generic drug.
I would start making as many changes as you can to improve things and get a good horse vet out to asses the situation and be honest about your finances. I would worry that if its a pre-existing condition the insurance would not cover it anyway. If you decide to use omeprazole, ask for a private prescription and shop around.
 
Can you ask your vets if they are prepared to wait for the payment until the insurers pay up? Pay the excess, and hopefully they will be considerate.
It may not even be ulcers once you have scoped, so imho, you should scope to at least get answers and then consider treatment options. As it sounds like you have insurance, they should cover the costs of treatment in the first instance too.
Alternatively, she's on loan, return her to the owner after giving notice.
 
Complementary treatments here https://equinenutritionnerd.com/201...tions-for-stomach-ulcer-treatment-prevention/ Or you could do what I did with a low grade case - find something to line the stomach (slippery elm for example) something to help gut function and bacteria (live yoghurt or yeasacc probiotic) and something to reduce acidity (I scrounged unused human grade omeprazole from all and sundry) such as bicarb.
Or you could get Abrazole from Abler - there are people on here who wouldn't touch it with a barge pole because of questionable legality and doubtful about the strength but it worked for mine, was affordable and if it was a choice of that or PTS I know which one I would choose. Google it
Peptizole is not quite as expensive as GastroGuard but still quite a lot of money, on prescription in the UK. Your vet might prescribe as diagnosis by therapy if the presenting symptoms all point to ulcers.
 
Having found out it was a loan intoo would be sending it back. Whilst we take on loan horses and agree to pay for their health care, if you can't afford to do so you should send the horse back.
 
It's not really questioning legality, it is illegal.

If a horse has ulcers all the management improvements in the world are not going to make them go away and take the horse out of pain, this is for after treatment.

I assume you are insured with E+l or similar?

You could ask the vets whether they will test without scoping but it seems a bit pointless as that is then cheap bit compared to the drugs. Which yes are expensive because there are no generics for horses because it needs coating and although one of merials patents has ended no one has come out with one yet.

Personally I would scope to see what the situation actually is and then have a frank discussion with vet/loaner/insurance company and decide what to do. I am not sure it will be the sort of thing vets would do a payment plan on as it is cost of drugs rather than vets time etc so they will have had the direct outlay and it might be better to buy online anywya
 
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