Caughing and wheezing

tpottalula

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Does anyone have any advice to help with my mare who is caughing and wheezing when ridden , I have been down the vet route with ventapulmin and steroids and chest X-ray they have confirmed that she has equine asthma , I am currently giving her a breathing supplement and Human hay fever tablets ( citirazine hydrochloride ) 30 a day and she is still Caughing ? She cannot have any form of steroid as it induces laminitis
 

Mule

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If you can, keep her out 24/7 with absolutely no hay in the vicinity. Used to do this with my rao mare. I still gave the other horses hay and the spores from that made her cough. When I fed them all haylage instead, her condition improved to the point that she no longer needed ventipulmin.

If you're on a yard and can't do 24/7 turnout or control the feeding I'd advise renting a field for her. Once the source of the allergen is gone, the symptoms go away.
 

Pearlsasinger

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When you say 'steroids induce laminitis' do you mean that your mare has had laminitis previously, or just that it would worry you? My vet assured us that the laminitis risk from steroid powder in feed is minimal. Our mare had several courses of steroid powder and did not develop laminitis. Her breathing without steroids was very laboured at times. She was particularly susceptible to pollen and other environmental irritants. We live relatively close to a motorway and if the traffic had been at a standstill, that made her worse, as did smoke in the atmosphere.
 

SEL

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If as Pearlsasinger says it is risk of laminitis rather than having had it in the past then the vets have just run a few blood tests on my good doer to assess her risk prior to steroids. Firstly Cushings, then insulin and finally we're going to do an adiponectin blood test.
 

Highflinger

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Have you tried any of the respiratory supplements such as Equine America or breatheasy. I haven't used but some reviews sound promising.
I find Vicks ( or supermarket own brand cheapy) around my asthmatic boy nostrils twice a day helps. I also use a human asthma puffer with a baby spacer - five puffs per nostril.
 

Charlie31

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Will the vet not even allow you to use a steroid inhaler or nebuliser? These are very effective and as the drugs goes direct into the lungs rather than into the system, the risk of laminitis is very low indeed. I would say it's definitely worth asking the question if you haven't already.

Other than that then you probably need to experiment with the supplements to see what works for her. Winergy Ventilate is good but there are loads of others and people swear by different things so it might be trial and error.
 

YasandCrystal

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I use a big bucket over the nose nebuliser and a tiny cheap £15 battery one from eBay. If you search on here there are several remedies you can buy to use in 5e nebuliser. I think one is F10 which is an anti bacterial liquid you water down. I also bought something called Balsamic Air and a third Silver....something. None of these are steroids and you can buy them online. I use these and a blue inhaler via a spacer as needed. 2 of mine have had coughing and breathing problems this year. They are both on 6 cetrazine tablets a day, Dobson and Horrell breathing herbs and I hav3 just bought Equine America Airways on recommendation. I had to buy haylage and give each a weeks course of Dilaterol twice daily to clear up the problem. The recent rain helped. I think a dusty paddock, dry forage and a dust manège did it.
 
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