Cushings - medicate or not?

I have 2 on prascend. It takes a while to get a horse onto prascend. It is far easier to introduce it when the horse is healthy and before problems ie laminitis occur.
Vets who quote huge amounts for prascend are simply making a huge mark up. Mine charges £176 for 160 tablets. Slightly more that getting it online plus a prescription but it works well for us. Most will be on 1 a day so that is approx 30 quid a month.
 
My mare originally tested at 84, and after a very bad experience with prascend I went down the chaste berry route and she was good for four years then started to show very obvious signs that things were not well. Retested and she came up at 176 so had to try again with prascend, I started at a quarter of a tablet and have built up gradually to one a day. There have been none of the problems of last time and she looks hugely better, she's a big horse and an attack of lammi would probably be the end of her. I think now I would probably advise to medicate if the horse has a high test result.
 
I would medicate. Mine was diagnosed a few years ago. She has still had problems even medicated and I would have regretted it hugely if I hadn't done it. I dissolve her tablets in warm water and have not had any problems with her taking them in feed (manufacturers website says this is ok) and buy tablets online with a prescription from my vet. Vets do get that it is expensive and don't pressure owners into medicating but that is the only scientifically proven means of managing the condition at all.

It is a very nasty illness and if yours is only 15 I would be medicating. If you do medicate you also want to regularly test and look out for changing symptoms. My experience was that she would be level for a long period then get a worse then level again and then get worse. A vet once said don't need to test for another year after getting consistent test results every 6 months for a few years. Then just a couple of months later she got an abcess was retested and the score was high. I hadn't noticed her further weight loss and should have got her tested again.
 
I have just started medicating my boy who showed no signs but had levels of 385. He is to get a full tablet but I've been building it up slowly so we started at half three weeks ago for two weeks and we are halfway through our second week of 3/4. He is to be retested in December.

My boy was given chasteberry for his stallion like tendencies, it helped these.
 
Slightlyconfused said:
I didn't medicate my retired Welsh mare.
She was arthritic and coliced on box rest so either way if she got laminitis she would have been pts.

A year after her cushings positive that's what happened, laminitis in all four feet, vet came out and she was pts straight away. She would have been a nightmare to medicate as she was a fussy eater and coliced on apples so I couldn't even use them.
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I have three elderly ponies with cushings. Two are on prascend but the third is an ex-feral, difficult to handle and impossible to medicate. She wont eat anything other than grass or hay and so we made the decision not to keep stressing her by trying to get her to take the medication. She is around 30 and if she comes down with laminitis or any other nasty then we have made the decision that we will pts. If I could get her to take the medication or even a herbal remedy then I wouldn't hesitate to use it.
 
CazD said:
I have three elderly ponies with cushings. Two are on prascend but the third is an ex-feral, difficult to handle and impossible to medicate. She wont eat anything other than grass or hay and so we made the decision not to keep stressing her by trying to get her to take the medication. She is around 30 and if she comes down with laminitis or any other nasty then we have made the decision that we will pts. If I could get her to take the medication or even a herbal remedy then I wouldn't hesitate to use it.
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my ex feral (28) is most likely cushings. I was unable to test as she would be too difficult to blood test so we put her on half a tablet. I dissolve the prascend and syringe it down. It is a very, very small amount, very quick to syringe and she accepts this. Just a case of catch hold of her and it is done before she thinks about it. Now it has become a daily habit she gives in. I couldn't be sure of getting it down with food, apples, carrots etc are not in her vocabulary. One of her symptoms was laminitis and the prascend seems to have control of it.
 
I have just lost my 31 year old mare who I treated for cushings for 3 years! I questioned daily whether I was doing the right thing.

She never had lami, her only symptom for many years was a thick coat!

When I discovered she had cushings, her levels were 250 and she had developed some sort of allergic reaction and was sooo itchy, from having a low immune system.

Quite quickly she was on 4 tablets a day and she remained on that many for 3 years. First winter, after being on the meds for about 5 months she got really depressed and refused to eat any hard feed! I read that often this can happen if their dose is too high, so i reduce her down to 3 a day and she started eating hard feed again! but she came out of that winter look horrible, the worse she'd ever looked.

the next winter I automatically reduced it before she stopped eating and she did much better!

last winter she did okay, again on a lower dose but come april, when it was warm out, but wet she seemed to lose her ability to regulate her temp, she got mites, a number of fungal infections! I spent all summer worried about her when it was raining! the vet suggested upping her meds! 5 a day, there was no way I wanted to keep pumping her full of meds! plus I know what happens when the dose is too high! so thats when I made the decision to not put her through another winter! if she couldn't cope with rain in the summer!

I'm still not convinced that treating her was the right thing! it improved her immune system at the beginning but after 2ish years it didn't really help like it had at the beginning!
 
Definately medicate . NOW. I know a fit dressage horse 18hands plus just getting to grips with lateral work and starting to sit back on his hocks and really find power. Thought that he had fractured his pedal bone, taken into vets and dreadful laminitis diagnosed. Diagnosed cushings at 44 were 37 is acceptable thought to be borderline tried Prascend down to 25.7 so active cushionoid horse. He is alive because he has fought to live and an amazing farrier. Don't use laminitis as your measure that is harsh. I know all his details because he is mine and the last twelve weeks have nearly broken me.Edited to say he is 9 years old.x
 
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Luci07 said:
Your pricing is still dramatically different from what I was quoted... its a moot point as mare turned out not to have cushings but I still can't understand the huge price difference!
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I can only think that either your vet charges a significant mark-up on the tablets OR your vet thought you would need to feed 3-4 tablets per day to control your horse's level, which seems unlikely for a starter dose. The standard price when buying online is somewhere between 95p and £1 per tablet and has been for as long as I've been purchasing it (4 years). However, were I to buy from my vet it would be significantly more expensive. I think I save about £60 by buying online, and that includes the £20 my vet charges me for a prescription.
For a horse who requires 1/2 a tablet per day, medicating really isn't that expensive. As someone else mentioned, it works out at roughly £3.50 per week, which really isn't much at all!
 
HashRouge said:
I can only think that either your vet charges a significant mark-up on the tablets OR your vet thought you would need to feed 3-4 tablets per day to control your horse's level, which seems unlikely for a starter dose. The standard price when buying online is somewhere between 95p and £1 per tablet and has been for as long as I've been purchasing it (4 years). However, were I to buy from my vet it would be significantly more expensive. I think I save about £60 by buying online, and that includes the £20 my vet charges me for a prescription.
For a horse who requires 1/2 a tablet per day, medicating really isn't that expensive. As someone else mentioned, it works out at roughly £3.50 per week, which really isn't much at all!
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When my horse was first diagnosed I bought a box from the vets and they charged £1.35 a tablet, that was 3 years ago. I then found it on ani-med for 94p a tablet. so I started buying it online. in 3 years ani-med's price went up by 5p per tablet! so I'm guessing vets will have passed on their increase too, I reckon they might be charging at least £1.50 now!?
 
diddy said:
Hi there,

One of my ponies has just tested positive for Cushings. She has a score of 85 (she was 82 this time last year).

When I had her tested last time, the vet’s advice was to keep an eye on her but not to put her on Prascend unless she started showing more signs of the disease. However, this time the advice is that I should put her on half a tablet a day (different vet).

My question is – should I put her on the medication or not?

She is 15 y.o. & is very fluffy (which is what alerted me in the first place). However, she has not (yet) had laminitis, is fine in herself & is not drinking excessively.

Obviously, if she could be in any kind of discomfort or danger I will put her on the Prascend. However, with any luck she'll be with us for many years to come so I wanted to make sure if it’s really necessary before I go ahead - especially since the last vet said until they go significantly higher there’s no need to medicate. She’s largely a field ornament if that makes any difference!

What do others think?

Thank you!

D. x
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Mine was tested positive 2 months ago. Nothing much to go on at all other than, I had a hunch. Her level was 90.

She went on 1/2 tab a day. In about week 3, she started getting a bit disorientated. Nothing major but still, I wasn't happy.

I had her bloods redone. She came back 38. The vet recommended reducing her meds to a 1/4 tab a day.

She's now back to her normal self.

The vets are due back to get bloods. It depends on the results from that as to my next course of action. If her levels haven't changed then, with such a low dose, I'd be considering either alternatives or cutting out. However, I would prefer to discuss all the alternatives with my vet first because, just because we can't see any outwardly signs, it doesn't mean it is not causing damage inside.

I really do get the jitters about Prascend - it's a very potent drug and can be harmful to the handler when handled without care.

If you are on Face Book - here is a group that is great for discussing all things Cushings :) https://www.facebook.com/groups/12994389809/
 
My elderly retired mare was diagnosed with Cushings a couple of months ago. I tried medicating with Prascend but it made her lose her appetite and seemed to make her depressed. It was becoming extremely hard to get her to have it as she was refusing everything - even polos which used to be her favourite! Also, she was becoming increasingly distrusting and hard to catch because of it so after a few weeks of trying I have decided to stop giving it to her after a discussion with my Vet. She hasn't had any Laminitis type symptoms and the only main symptom is she has a slightly thicker coat, so I am going to see how she hoes and if her condition gets worse or she was to get Laminitis then I would have her PTS. I think it's important she enjoys the rest of her life without having to worry about whatever I am trying to feed her. She has definitely had some rough treatment somewhere in her past so as long as she can live the rest of her life stress free then that's fine by me.
 
My 15yr old 16.3hh mare was diagnosed cushings and EMS about 4 weeks ago now. EMS very much expected but cushings a surprise as no symptoms as such. Her level was 100. I started her on 1 prascend a day and she has had no side effects whatsoever. Retest in 2-3 weeks.
 
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