Depressed and not eating on prascend

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Magicmadge

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My 20 year old ID mare was diagnosed with cushings in November last year after testing with levels of 85. She has not had any lammi symptoms or coat problems but was depressed and not eating up well. After a month on 1 prascend a day in feed she improved and tested at 27, although still did not clear up all hard feed but did eat her hay and haylage ok. In this last week her appetite has fallen off and since thursday she has not eaten any hard feed at all. Over this weekend she is only picking at her hay in the stable but does seem to eat slightly better outside. She is very depressed and i am very worried. I have managed to get her to have the prascend in a piece of apple but this morning i had to stuff it in her mouth as she just turned away. I'm ringing vet in the morning for advice and to book another blood test for tuesday (free visit day) Could the dosage be too high/low but the restest was only just before xmas and was 27. I'm starting to think i wish i had never started on this drug i hate seeing her like this, i'm so worried. Anyone else had similar problems with the drug?
 
Magicmadge said:
My 20 year old ID mare was diagnosed with cushings in November last year after testing with levels of 85. She has not had any lammi symptoms or coat problems but was depressed and not eating up well. After a month on 1 prascend a day in feed she improved and tested at 27, although still did not clear up all hard feed but did eat her hay and haylage ok. In this last week her appetite has fallen off and since thursday she has not eaten any hard feed at all. Over this weekend she is only picking at her hay in the stable but does seem to eat slightly better outside. She is very depressed and i am very worried. I have managed to get her to have the prascend in a piece of apple but this morning i had to stuff it in her mouth as she just turned away. I'm ringing vet in the morning for advice and to book another blood test for tuesday (free visit day) Could the dosage be too high/low but the restest was only just before xmas and was 27. I'm starting to think i wish i had never started on this drug i hate seeing her like this, i'm so worried. Anyone else had similar problems with the drug?
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I suspect she may be suffering from a virus or something as the lack of appetite and depression on prascend usually occurs in the first week or two rather than after the horse has been on it for over a month. If it is the drug then I would cut the dose.
 
It can be a side effect of prascend that they become depressed, did you increase the dose gradually, it may help to give it in two goes rather than one. My 33year old pony, like yours is not laminitic but was diagnosed 18 months ago when he showed other health problems, he started on 1/2 a day went up to one then after being stabilised dropped to 1/2 again, during last summer, his first since starting, he had 1/2 on alternate days and did really well.
He is now on 1/2 a day, winter is a more challenging time, he was always a picky eater and feeding him to keep weight on has been difficult.
He is at last eating well, he gets Baileys Topline cubes, not really suitable but I need him to eat and he loves them.
So talk to your vet about cutting back the dose as he is not laminitic it should be safe if monitored, dont worry too much as the days get longer they tend to brighten up and the grass is better.
 
Horses on pergolide/prascend ideally need twice yearly ACTH tests because the changing daylight length as spring approaches means they need a higher dose than autumn/winter as the daylight length shortens. If you haven't already done so, you can log onto talkaboutcushings.com and download a voucher to hand to your vet to give you £15 off the cost of the ACTH lab test. My veteran tested at 200 (eep) - was started on 1mg pergolide per day but upped to 2mg after only a few days as it was obvious (+ gut feeling) that he was continuing to deteriorate. 2mg per day has put him back to the high end of normal but he'll need to be tested again March time and will almost certainly need tabs upped again to 3mg. I dropped one of his tabs yesterday and spent half an hour searching the bloody bedding to find it. At £1 each, every flipping one counts lol!
 
I spoke to vet today , he seemed a bit baffled really but coming tomorrow to check her over and for bloods so they will hopefully show if there is something other going on. She wouldn't even have the tablet in her apple today so vet said to leave her off them for now to see if appetite returns. I am really worried and have this gut feeling i am going to have to have her pts she seems to have just lost the will to live.
 
try it stuffed in a carrot, in a bread sandwch, loose in a tiny bit of mix. you have to box clever to get the drugs in and frequent change! before they get wise!! a few oats often help! sorry but have you checked her teeth? 85 is not a very high acth (when one of my liveryies was tested the mare was 1035!!) your pony is relatively young, and your acth is not major.. you can/will find a way. i have 2 on prascend on is 32 and retired, one is 33 and still hacking 3x a week, both on 1.5 prascend a day. best of luck
 
Thanks for your advice, once i get the blood results tomorrow i will know a bit more, the acth will take a bit longer from liphook but she was only testing 27 in december . I have tried everthing to disguise the tablet, bread carrot, apple i've bought all different kinds of mix cubes and beets even syringe she won't take anything now. I mucked out this morning and there were two tiny poos and a small wee. she is a big horse and there are normally 8 big poos. Part of me hopes it is the prescend that is causing all this so it's something we can adjust, but now after speaking to the vet i'm not so sure it may be something more serious.
 
When my old boy, who is on Pergolide and has been for over 6 years, stopped eating and was so very very depressed this time last year, he had blood tests carried out and they showed that he had the lowest white blood count my Vet had ever seen and he told me that I had a very sick horse.

He was given an external and internal scan, that found he had Peritonitis, I think his droppings had slimey bits in (well the odd one he was doing!). After 2 lots of different AntiB's he gradually got back to normal.

Not saying that you Mare has this, however it may be worth asking for other blood tests to be carried out, to rule out other issues.

I hope all goes well and I hope your Vet is as good as mine.

ETS .... the AntiB's he was on actually made him eat less (it that was possible), but my little fighter pulled through .... funnily enough the turning point was me offering him a full sugar Polo Mint, which he loved, and I thought it couldn't harm him any more .............. he then gradually came back to me ........
 
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Box_Of_Frogs said:
Horses on pergolide/prascend ideally need twice yearly ACTH tests because the changing daylight length as spring approaches means they need a higher dose than autumn/winter as the daylight length shortens. /QUOTE]

I beg to differ BoF, the ACTH begins to rise end of summer up to end of December and then begins to decrease, so the danger is decreasing going into spring. This is why Liphook or other testing labs seasonally adjust the readings to account for the rise in normal horses in autumn.
http://www.ecirhorse.com/
Thought I'd better mention as you don't want to be increasing the dose when you can reduce and save some costs, and definitely will be dangerous to decrease the dose in autumn:eek:

OP try and stick with it as there are some teething problems at first. It's quite normal for them to go off feeds but eat hay. Are you certain that she is eating the dose every day? If she manages to sometimes spit it out without you knowing, her daily dose will be see-sawing up and down, prolonging the "pergolide veil" depression problems. Check out the website above, lots of info and help on there.
My boy confounded all the tricks to get him to eat the tablets so now I have to crush them and syringe every morning, not nice but I know for certain he has had his full dose.
TIP; hold a bucket under their mouth so you catch anything they manage to spit out;) my boy was adept at popping the pill out the corner of his mouth whilst happily eating the carrot or apple it had been hidden in:p
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My Shetland has his tablet shoved as he point blank refuses to take anything from my hand now.... He also dissects anything he remotely thinks has his tablet in. For 8 months he was fine taking it if we changed methods.
I would suggest getting your horses liver checked, if there is a problem with function, Prascend can make it worse. But as another poster has said, may just be a virus, Cushings horses have a reduced immune system. Good luck and hope she's back to normal soon
 
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