EMS and metformin

[EMSPony]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. My 20 year old cob mare has been diagnosed with EMS - she is a typical candidate, being a very good doer and unfortunately exercising her is difficult due to her back problems (stemming from when she had an accident as a youngster) and my chronic ill health/advancing age! She has had an attack of laminitis, and is now on a diet, but my vet wants to put her on metformin. However, The Laminitis Site doesn't seem to favour Metformin and feels that keeping the horse comfortable and following correct diet/management to lose/keep off weight is the way to go. She is comfortable on a soft bed at the moment, and our farrier is going to put imprint shoes on next week. I don't want to give her meds for the sake of it, especially as the effectiveness is in question, so I'd love to hear some of your experiences with Metformin with your horses, did you think it was useful, how did you manage to get it down the horse (40 tablets a day!) and did you see any adverse reactions/side effects? Thanks in advance.

 

[Pinkvboots]

You totally have my sympathy have had to deal with laminitis and its really not nice, I think if your vet is recommended metformin give it a try I have known it has really worked with some horses, some vets rate it and use it and some don't but I think if my horse was in a critical laminitis state I would try what I could.

I've never had to administer the drug but maybe grind it to a powder? Some drugs can be some can't so I would check with that, I have always used the Dr oatker peppermint essence from the supermarket to syringe anything for my my horses, they now love a syringe of anything bless them.

 

[EMSPony]

Thank you - and the peppermint essence idea is fab. According to my vet they can be ground down so that may well be the way forward.

 

[teddypops]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. My 20 year old cob mare has been diagnosed with EMS - she is a typical candidate, being a very good doer and unfortunately exercising her is difficult due to her back problems (stemming from when she had an accident as a youngster) and my chronic ill health/advancing age! She has had an attack of laminitis, and is now on a diet, but my vet wants to put her on metformin. However, The Laminitis Site doesn't seem to favour Metformin and feels that keeping the horse comfortable and following correct diet/management to lose/keep off weight is the way to go. She is comfortable on a soft bed at the moment, and our farrier is going to put imprint shoes on next week. I don't want to give her meds for the sake of it, especially as the effectiveness is in question, so I'd love to hear some of your experiences with Metformin with your horses, did you think it was useful, how did you manage to get it down the horse (40 tablets a day!) and did you see any adverse reactions/side effects? Thanks in advance.

You can get metformin in an apple flavoured powder. My pony hated it at first and I had to syringe it down her, but after a while, she just ate it in her feed.

 

[scats]

I’ve tried metformin with two horses. One who had active lami and one who had EMS but couldn’t exercise properly due to a breathing problem.
Vets weren’t particularly confident in the use of metformin but said we could give it a go. Didn’t find it helped at all and it was a nightmare to get it in them.

 

[southerncomfort]

My 20 year old went on it recently and her insulin levels dropped so quickly even the vet was impressed!

I give her apple scented powder version and she eats it fine in a soaked feed (I just soak some lo cal).

We're just bringing her back in to work and I expect once she's fit she'll be able to come off the Metformin, but I'm quite happy for her to have it for as long as she needs it.

 

[GinaGeo]

It was a gamechanger for me. Pony was off work with a ligament injury so couldn’t be worked and I couldn't feed him any less. He was on the verge of low grade laminitis constantly.

We used the apple flavoured powder. He was a different pony almost overnight. As he came back into proper work I lowered the dose and now he's in full work I can manage him on just exercise again.

His Insulin levels are back in the normal zone now - But I'd use it again if I needed to.

 

[ITPersonnage]

Worked very well for my laminitis/EMS horse, had to grind tablets down but I would go with the apple powder if I had to treat now. Definitely helped her lose weight, must be worth a try.

 

[EMSPony]

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. I will ask about the apple flavoured powder, I think she's just put the normal tablets out for us to collect.

 

[outdoor girl]

Really helped for my EMS cob, but she wouldn't go near the apple flavoured metformin. I ended up crushing the tablets into a powder to get them down her.

 

[dreamcometrue]

Mine was prescribed Metformin when she was fat and diagnosed with EMS. It was to speed up her weight loss but I don’t know if it had much effect as she would have lost the weight anyway with the diet and exercise regime I had for her. It was a chore getting that many tablets down her every day and I was relieved when she finished the course!

I used to put the tablets in her bucket feed and she would eat about half of them that way as she was sooo hungry! The ones she left I sandwiched into carrots split down the middle, sometimes crushed them.

 

[EMSPony]

Thanks everyone for your replies - fortunately she seems to be coming sound very quickly without needing to go down the metformin route, but if we have any wobbles will definitely give it a try. I'm really hoping that diet and careful management will get her through this. Luckily she's taken well to the nibbleze net, the hay lasts for ages now but she doesn't seem to get frustrated with it, which I'm very relieved about as it's definitely going to be part of her on-going management programme.

 

[Lady Jane]

My friends horse was borderline EMS and our vet said that in some horses metaform has a great result and does no good for other horses