Cushings disease help!!

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Sammie26

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Hi,
My thoughbred was diagnosed about 4 months ago with cushings disease, we put him on prescend tablets from then however, we have seen a massive change in him he has done nothing but throw me off every time I ride him!
We had such a good season last year out show jumping and it's only when we noticed him having a little less energy than usual that we had him tested, his bloods shown he was only slightly over the normal blood count however the vet advised us to put him on 1 tablet a day
Is anyone else having this problem or has any advice for me ?
 
My horse was diagnosed with Cushings about 10 years ago and was put on one Pergolide 250 Microgram per day. She did not behave any differently. (Prescend is the same drug s Pergolide just the equine licensed version. What dosage of Prescend is your horse on?
 
cushings comes on gradually and one of the symptoms is lethargy. you may find that last year he had started the disiease and wasnt feeling full of life. you may find that this is his normal behaviour when he is feeling really well. also winter affects horses differently and some get very lively but are easy to ride in the summer. mine gradually calmed down in winter as well as summer and i was really pleased that she had got more manageable both to handle and ride. however after her coat not shedding properly i got her tested and she had a level of 172 which is quite high. she is now back to her sparky self and is quite challenging to ride and handle so in my case the cushings masked her usual behaviour
 
Oh right he's on 1mg prescend a day
How high was your horses blood test count?
I cannot now get on him as he just turns crazy and throws me off whereas before I could go any where and do anything with him!
 
mine is on 3 1/2 tablets a day and her levels are now 48, still too high .....perhaps your horse should have been on a lower dose.....sounds like he is back to normal now so maybe he could come off the tablet or maybe only have 1/2 or 1/4 tablet, might be worth talking to your vet as it seems he has gone a bit over the top...
 
I'd say the dosage may be a bit high. Mine was diagnosed in Oct with levels of 150 when they should have been under 47. More recently she was restested and is now 40 when she should be 29 so still slightly high however as her lethargy has all but gone which was the main symptom that caused me to get her tested I am not increasing her dose from 1 tablet as I don't think she needs it. Especially as she is harder to stop when out cantering on hacks and she is the quietest ride ever normally. There have been a few odd occasions when she just gets a bit mad and weird and I've thought I'm coming off but managed to hang on and put it down to the meds so yours could be a step worse again!
 
Oh wow ok it definitely sounds like he is on to much at the minute !
The vets actually advised me to up his dose originally as they wanted his bloods lower than 20!! I refused to give him more as I think it would of tipped him over the edge!
 
I have two ponies, mares, both with Cushings and both been on one Prascend tablet a day each for over a year now. They both changed after going on Prascend. One of them is now our dream pony, so much happier and chirpier, and now forward going but still kind and steady. The other has turned into a grumpy mare, more forward going, but a lot more opinionated and mareish!

I can only conclude, from my limited experience, that it affects them all differently, and that probably they have become their "true" personalities, if you like, whereas before they were both feeling ill. I would really quite like the grumpy mareish pony to go back to how she was before the Prascend, but I would feel terrible letting her be "ill" again just to make life more convenient for me!

IIRC, the vet was looking for the ACTH levels to be below 28??

No advice really, but perhaps you need to adjust feeding and exercise routine in conjunction with the Prascend to try to make him a bit less exuberant?
 
It would probably be worth speaking to your vet again. Did they say they would retest after 3 months?
My mare was depressed and lethargic with Cushings. Her count was 342,she was started off with and is still on 1mg. As with some of the above posts the medication resulted in her coming back to 'normal' slightly nutty that is! It could be horse is just feeling really well after a period of being quite down and flat.
 
It sounds like my boy is on far to high medication!!

Yes the vets advised me to up his dose I've recently moved vets as they have been messing me around for a long while with trying to get more money out of me all the time!

He's due for another blood test next week but I think I may need to speak to them and see about changing his dosage or medication all together as he's gone from one extreme to the other and now I cannot ride him as my falls are getting more dangerous each time !!
 
Chaste Berry extract found in liquid form is suppposed to be very good. I was recommended it by a friend when we had an eldery pony diagnosed with cushings last year. It comes from Agnus Castus so anything with this in may help.

Poppy's level was 678! My vet said that levels of 29 and under weren't sufferers and slightly raised levels sometimes do not require treatment. I guess sometimes it's just a question of finding the correct treatment/level for individual cases.

I got Poppy Hormonise from Viovet for about £30. Of course she wouldn't touch it. :(

Good luck with your chap
 
as far as i am aware there is nothing else that works for cushings.....chaste berry was tested and did not show that it worked.....there is a very good presentation online about laminitis, cushings and equine metabolic syndrome.www.talkaboutlaminitis.co.uk is the site to check it is in 2 parts, im sure they say something about chaste berry , well worth a look...
 
I have two with cushings, my shettie gelding suffered terrible depression with the tablets at first and they have made him extremely fussy with his feeds the depression settled after around 3 weeks of him being on the meds. My mare however suffered no side effects at all, and is her usually jolly self.
 
Cut the dose down to half a tablet for a while and then gradually increase the dose again as the horse gets used to it. As cushings becomes more recognized, the more progressive vets are looking for a good happy horse rather than getting too hung up on perfect blood test results! The two are not perfectly correlated.

From what I understand the active ingredient is dopamine, which does affect the brain ...... There is a genuine reason that it is banned from competitions and the reason is that it can be used as a performance drug!

Lots of good info on the Phoenix horse forum.
 
my horse after slight laminitis episode was tested and found to have cushings she had never had lami before she is 25 her readings came back at 750 vet put her on 1 prescend a day has been on that for two month has been tested again has come down a bit but still high vet said rather than up the dose yet to do her again in January wjich is another two month said should get a more acurate reading then however i was looking up on line someones horse had had a reading of 560 and her vet told her he would need 5 a day is I've heard it can take at least 3 month to der an improvement is this correct she is fine in herself vet said i can ride as much as i like deems fine in every way but i am concerned if it has been picked up too late with reading being so high i do the best i can for my horse but do not want her on mega dose of prescend anyone had this issue with such a high reading
 
my horse was on what my vet and i thought was a high reading and it was 172.....mine started on 1 prascend daily and i got her tested twice a year and her prascend was gradually put up over the next 5 years and for the last year she was on 4 a day. during that time she was kept as a normal horse, out 24/7 in summer and out all day in winter, she was ridden on average 5 times a week for about and hours hack. she never suffered with laminitis and she had a good quality of life right to the end. i dont understand your vet not putting the dose up as i feel your horse will be more likely to have another bout of laminitis... for my horse .to get to 4 a day it took 5 years as the dose is only upped by a half each time. better to up the dose than have laminitis IMO.....there is a good site called www.thelaminitissite.org which would be worth a read...
 
if you are on 1 tablet a day I would not cut it down, I doubt it will make much difference anyway. Mine was exactly like that. He didn't chuck me off as I didn't get on him, it would have been too dangerous. He was crazy, trashed the yard, the field, no way would I have got on. After about 4 months or so it stopped and he calmed down and came back to what he should have been, his normal self without the lethargy and stayed that way. I just gave mine time off and let him get on with it and I think that is all that you can do at the moment until he is stabilised. Bear in mind that numbers are not everything. My very severe cushings horse had a test result of 11. My laminitic horse had a reading of 39. Symptoms are just as important.
I think it is the case with some of these cushings horses that they have got so calm and lethargic over time that people don't recognise this. They think they have finally learnt to ride the horse well or the horse is settling down nicely as it gets older. Suddenly they get their 4 yo horse back and it is a shock.
 
paddy555, that was exactly what happened with my mare, i changed her to a yard with 24/7 turnout and thought that was the reason she got slower and slower, i then felt that she was depressed and didnt have any joy in anything and that was what prompted me to ask my vet to test her. the vet didnt think she had cushings as she looked so well. once her levels had lowered i was, once again, riding a loony even though she was out 24/7 so i got my old horse back and must admit that sometimes in the winter i would have liked the slow steady version!!!
 
He's probably been feeling bad for ages and now he's not depressed and lethargic any more he's making the most of feeling better. CAn you give him more chance to get rid of his energy without you on him.
 
my 12 year old was diagnosed with Cushings and ended up on 4 prascend a day... unfortunately he was one of the ones that the drug didn't work for.... he never had laminitis but we stopped the prascend as it wasnt working at all. he developed narcolepsy and was very depressed so was pts just after his 13 birthday. broke my heart that he couldn't have a long and happy retirement.
 
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