COPD

T

thehorsediva

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 October 2009
Messages
176
Visit site
My horse has recently been diagnosed with COPD. The vet came out and put him on ventipulmin which will soon run out. Since being on ventipulmin I have tried him living out 24hrs and also turning him out daytime and stabling night. When stabling night time the cough went and he had a good week without it so I turned him back out 24/7. It has now come back badly so I have decided to stable him at night again as I think it may be the pollen. Does anyone have any other tips for managing COPD? If the cough does not go should I contact the vet for more ventipulmin and is it okay for horses to stay on this? I plan to hoover out the stable over the weekend again to get rid of any dust. His hay is always soaked throughout the year and I turn him out in one of those full face fly masks. Also I have stopped riding him now the cough is back as I think this is the right thing to do? Any advice or ideas to help would be very gratefully received!
 
It really does depend on whether it's a pollen allergy or a hay/dust allergy. Hay/dust is reasonably simple to deal with: soak hay or feed haylage, bed on a dust free bedding, scrupulously clean stable, not stabled near the muck heap or hay store (ideally, not next to a straw bed horse) and muck out only when he's well away from the stable. But a severe pollen allergy is harder to deal with because every breath your horse takes from about April to September will be laden with pollen grains. Ventipulmin relaxes the airways when they have tightened due to the allergic reaction. Doesn't work for all horses and sometimes you need to increase the dose every year. Sputolosin is a drug that breaks up the sticky mucus that chokes the horse's lungs causing extreme exercise intolerance and eventually causes scarring and permanent damage to the lungs. Again, doesn't work for all horses. Drugs can be oral or inhaled. Your vets may prescribe inhaled steroids - these are very very safe inhaled and get straight to where they're needed. Don't buy a horse inhaler as they cost about £260! Buy a Boots baby inhaler (£15) which neatly fits over 1 nostril. You put your hand over the other nostril. Dead easy single handed after you and ned are both used to it. The cells that make the thick sticky mucus have a life of about 3 months so your horse may go on coughing right up til Christmas. My horse has had all the above. He wasn't coping at all. Couldn't be ridden - could barely get enough oxygen into his body just to stand upright. But he's been on a new drug trial, a last-hope thing really. It's a couple of weeks too early for me to declare it a miracle but I do have a very cautious optimism. From facing being pts this summer due to quality of life issues, he is now back being ridden gently twice a week. The drug is Cavalesse, sold for sweet itch, but has a similar effect on pollen allergy horses. The only problem is that you have to start the horse on it at least 3 weeks before you expect the coughing to start or it won't work. Sunny was started on it at the end of March, the weekend the clocks went forwards and the drug (dribbled onto a slice of bread) has to be given at the same time every day. If I was you, I'd look into it now with a view to putting your horse on it in March next year. PM me if you need any more info but as soon as I know if this has worked for Sunny (when absolutely nothing else has) I will put a HEADS UP post on the Forum. I'll also be talking to my vets and the manufacturers because they may not realise how their product pulls pollen allergy horses back from the brink.
 
If the problem is pollen, rather than dust, you may need to consider keeping your horse at a different yard, it wouldn't need to be far away, just somewhere more open and with different local vegetation.

It is worth looking at the Global Herbs catalogue, I have found their products to be very helpful over the years with COPD
 
I dont know if this will help but several horses in our area have been afected by coughs and headshaking, there is an awful lot of rape seed (bright yellow crop) growing nearby, so maybe by turning him out if it is nearby may cause it ? on the bright side it will stop flowering soon.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure its the pollen rather than the dust. He has always headshaked during the summer yet fine rest of year so it makes me think it is pollen. This year is the first time he has coughed and it is so so dry i guess everything is particularly bad this year. The vet has said about them taking bloods to run a test to see exactly what it is and then have a vacinnation made. Does anyone have any experience of this? There are not any rape seed oil feeds near the yard but if I ever come across them hacking he head shakes like mad so i'm sure it is the pollen. Hope things improve with your horse- Sounds like you have it much worse than me! Good luck! Am I correct in not riding at all if he's coughing or is it okay to ride him gently? He is quite fit and longer I leave him the more highly strung he becomes!!
 
The REACT option is where an area of the horse's neck is shaved and a dozen or more potential allergens are applied to the skin. The skin's reaction tells the REACT people (in theory) what substances your horse is allergic to. Then another area of skin is prepared and the allergens that your horse reacted to are applied in different doses so they can find the lowest dose that provokes the reaction. From that point, they prepare a sort of personalised serum that you inject into the horse at set intervals. But be aware that there are no guarantees it will work and it didn't on my vets 2 horses! And even if it does work, you may be getting false positives AND negatives. And if your horse had a reaction to, say, custard creams, I don't see how helpful that is to most people, if you see what I mean. I researched it for my veteran who has a very severe allergy to tree pollen. I've discounted it because of the low success rate for such an expensive therapy.
 
Box_Of_Frogs said:
The drug is Cavalesse, sold for sweet itch, but has a similar effect on pollen allergy horses. The only problem is that you have to start the horse on it at least 3 weeks before you expect the coughing to start or it won't work. Sunny was started on it at the end of March, the weekend the clocks went forwards and the drug (dribbled onto a slice of bread) has to be given at the same time every day. If I was you, I'd look into it now with a view to putting your horse on it in March next year. PM me if you need any more info but as soon as I know if this has worked for Sunny (when absolutely nothing else has) I will put a HEADS UP post on the Forum. I'll also be talking to my vets and the manufacturers because they may not realise how their product pulls pollen allergy horses back from the brink.
Click to expand...

The manufacturers certainly know about it already - the active ingredient in Cavalesse (nicotinamide) was originally used in human medicine for auto-immune diseases, and is also reported to have some significant anti-inflammatory effects. I know of a few horses that appear to do well with Cavalesse for COPD, and one horse that is doing well with Cavalesse for Pemphigus Foliaceus (an auto-immune skin condition) after we had to discontinue steroid therapy.
I think it is probably true that many vets are not aware of the potential benefits of Cavalesse beyond sweet itch.
 
Hello BOF I just read your comments and know exactly what you're going through. I've had the same thing with one of our mares. We tried everything available at the time, but found nothing to work. I bought a Trudell mask and wet nebuliser pump as the last resort all to no avail. We lost the battle in the end as the attacks became more severe and the nebuliser and mask had to be used twice day.
I hope you have success with the new treatment. A small note though, next year it would be better to start your treatment in February as this in when the willow and hazel pollen starts. All those catkins produce tons of pollen for wind pollination.
 
Thanks for that lazybee. Sunny always started coughing when the hawthorn came into bloom, usually early May. My plan was to start him on Cavalesse early April to be in line with the recs to start 3 weeks before the symptoms normally start. But I'd gone somewhere with my YO at the end of March and was horrified to see chery blossom, magnolia, load of other trees in blossom already. So I started him immediately. But that's very true what you say - catkins are out in Feb so it might be wise next year to start him early Feb or even the end of Jan.

Alsiola, I'm stunned at that info! Fidavet sell Cavalesse for sweet itch - not a mention on their website or in the info that comes with the pack about COPD. I'm almost *touches wood, crosses fingers* certain that Sunny has had a miracle happen for him. I gave him a winter to remember last year because I expected to have to have him pts this summer due to quality of life issues. But whilst the existing damage to his lungs can't be reversed, he's managing just fine and even resumed gentle hacking (he's 27). I wonder why Fidavet don't push Cavalesse for COPD? I suppose there are many reasons for COPD and maybe they haven't completed the research on it yet but I'm still going to contact them and my wonderful vets in another few weeks. I've found it on line for £69 inc p&p which works out as 75p a day across the danger months (say Feb to September). No brainer really. Sunny was on steroids for 8 weeks last year and they pretty much did nothing except a) make me terrified of a lami attack and b) almost got me and my husband divorced at the cost (would have been £2,500 every 8 weeks at the doses the vets wanted to give) and he's only field injury insured because of his age.

I'm away for a week early June, but after that I'm going to talk to my vets, Fidavet and H&H about running an article as this news is too important to be unknown. There must be thousands of summer pasture COPD horses across the UK that would have their lives saved by Cavalesse. Thanks Alsiola and lazybee x
 
Glad I found this, was wondering how things were going for you Box_Of_Frogs.

Glad its positive, and definately another option on the table for summer COPD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top